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Some people here say they like the Internet Archive, and resent copyright maximalism, but wish IA would be more legally conservative around copyright law: "foll
by gojomo 4y ago
Some people here say they like the Internet Archive, and resent copyright maximalism, but wish IA would be more legally conservative around copyright law: "follow the law!" "ask permission!" "work through other libraries!"
They may not understand that none of what they like about the Internet Archive would've been possible without a bold willingness to probe the boundaries of copyright law.
If you'd asked any mainstream copyright law authority in the 1990s, they'd have likely said the entire Wayback Machine was illegal under the letter-of-the-law, and advised against even trying it. "Reckless!"
Only by IA actually doing it – & demonstrating the indispensibility of such a historical record to academics, policymakers, culture, & the courts – were people's mental models gradually upgraded. Now, even with little change to statutory law, most see that the best interpretation of the various traditional categories, exceptions, & affordances of copyright law is the one that finds legal space for a Wayback Machine.
Bulk-scanning books-still-in-copyright, even for private preservation/use? Was legally iffy when Google & IA started doing it; now better recognized as legitimate.
Accepting user/collector uploads of live concerts? Storing, serving, & providing emulated environments for old still-in-copyright retail PC/game/arcade software? Bulk-archiving & replaying TV news broadcasts? All iffy when IA started doing them, becoming accepted as reasonable over time by the demonstration-of-utility.
An Internet Archive that waited for legal clarity before starting such projects would still be waiting today – and we'd have neither the valuable projects, nor the accumulated experience/clarity, from the actual doing, about what is reasonable & beneficial.
- _ktx2 4y agoOne of the things I dislike the most about Internet Archive is their relatively open attitude of flaunting privacy on purpose: http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-search-engines-dont-work-well-for-web-archives/ http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sear... Do you know what system they replaced robots.txt with? Email, one that is filed as a DMCA request: https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-website-from-the-internet-archive-2020-c4d89c147546 https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-websi... https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-the-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-t... Sometimes, it's probably good to not push the envelope without trying to establish consensus in good faith first.
- rasz 4y agoIsnt that a response to companies buying old unused domains, slapping robots on it and thus killing whole archive of this domain going back 20 years?
- _ktx2 4y agoCould be! However, making a direct attack on individual privacy should never have been an option. To make matters worse, the logic of, "We did this to government and military websites, so now we're going to roll it out everywhere" was quite broken for the time and remains so. There's examples of how this works in a healthy way. Martin Manley is one scenario that comes to mind, where he overtly opted-in to having an archive stored about him upon his death: https://martin-manley.eprci.com/ https://martin-manley.eprci.com/
- daniel_reetz 4y agoWith respect, I fail to see how a public website is a privacy matter.
- stubish 4y agoInformation on a public website is public until it is taken down or the information changed. The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public. This is privacy. We might be caught naked, and we can't unsee what has been seen, but it is a basic human instinct to draw the curtains and contain further damage. Perfectly innocent individuals suffer because the IA rules are designed around edge cases where public figures try to hide misdeeds.
- bakugo 4y ago> The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public. And that's a good thing in the vast majority of cases. Unless we're talking about sensitive information that was published without the consent of the person in question, all public information should remain public forever.
- randomhodler84 4y agoUber and AirBnB didn’t get to where they are today without breaking a few laws and regulations. Archiving the digital legacy of our planet is far more important than imaginary property fantasies.