3 ms·
I agree that the Internet Archive needs help, but I don't agree that it should get absorbed into the Library of Congress. Let's say it happens and now the LoC i
by bityard 3y ago
I agree that the Internet Archive needs help, but I don't agree that it should get absorbed into the Library of Congress. Let's say it happens and now the LoC is running the IA. Others have already made the point that lobbyists and politicians can more easily erode its functionality much more easily and silently, and that's a good point. But what I fear the most is that it would mean the actual existence of the IA would be at the whim of congressional budget planning (which is frankly a shitshow) rather than being funded by those who actually CARE about it.
If you really want to help the Internet Archive survive, the very best thing any of us can do is donate directly to the IA so that they can afford good legal council to fight back against the music and book publishers who want to shut them down: https://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton https://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton
- sangnoir 3y ago> If you really want to help the Internet Archive survive, the very best thing any of us can do is donate directly to the IA so that they can afford good legal council to fight back against the music and book publishers who want to shut them down I thought you were going in a different direction until your last sentence. The IA needs donations to afford good counsel to advise them on the law before they make boneheaded decisions that put their mission in legal jeopardy. Preserving online content is one thing, "lending" in-print books is rather far from the core mission IMO. Even authors who are anti-DRM were outraged by the ill-advised lending scheme on book copies the IA didn't even pay for. Paraphrasing Desmond Tutu: at some point, we have to stop continually rescuing people out of the river and go upstream to find out who keeps throwing them in there.