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I recall from the comments here and in Ars Technica that there was a significant debate whether IA could do that or whether this will be considered bankruptcy f
by yyyk 6y ago
I recall from the comments here and in Ars Technica that there was a significant debate whether IA could do that or whether this will be considered bankruptcy fraud or whether the publishers could still claw back the servers despite the separation.
There's another last ditch option though - IIRC, IA has copies in US, Canada, Netherlands and Egypt. Let's say that some government where an IA server is hosted is convinced to nationalize the server. They have legal authority - there's much legal latitude for acting in the name of national security, and there's an obvious case to be made here: if we consider disinformation to be a security threat than a server hosting reliable and trusted internal history is an obvious asset (e.g. [0]).
Such an act would easily override any legal attempts by the publishers, and can be pushed for even after a conviction and bankruptcy and without involving the IA foundation at all.
The danger is that post-nationalization the information would not be considered reliable - this can be ameliorated if the servers are immediately rerendered to a private party, but it's enough of a downside to make this a last option to push for. That said, I suggest keeping this option in mind.
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https://theconversation.com/dominic-cummings-how-the-internet-knows-when-youve-updated-your-blog-139517 https://theconversation.com/dominic-cummings-how-the-interne...
- mindslight 6y agoWell that's why I said "fair market value". It shouldn't be considered bankruptcy fraud if they were fairly compensated for the servers, as the monetary proceeds would still be in the estate. But perhaps that is the debate. Nationalization seems heavyweight and unlikely, but maybe it could happen. The integrity problem could be solved with hashes, but it would take some work to define them to be useful. BTW since they distributed copies of the Archive across jurisdictions, why the heck didn't they do the same with legal entities? Redundant copies aren't much of a protection if the organization can be coerced into modifying data, as western governments have been all too tempted to start doing.
- yyyk 6y agoWell, the IA servers won't be offered for sale because IA decided to buy new servers, and similarly the buyer is in all likelihood really interested in the data. Selling the data while claiming they 'merely' sell the servers is probably not fraud, but I don't think a judge is likely to look well on it. I can see the publishers arguing the data has monetary value and demanding restitution. Another thing is that IA relies on their designation as a library to avoid copyright legal issues, and the buyer will probably need the same designation (or at least to exist outside of EU/US). Still, with good will and good lawyers all this might be doable. Nationalization is heavyweight and unlikely. If needed, someone will have to push for this behind the scenes. This is a big mess though, we may need every option we can get. Why didn't IA think of separate legal entities in advance? Judging by the fact they got themselves into this, I suspect the foundation is not very well run...