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The Internet Archive should receive significant government funding. It's insane we let cultural treasures disappear into the wind when we can preserve them for

The Internet Archive should receive significant government funding. It's insane we let cultural treasures disappear into the wind when we can preserve them for negligible costs.

Dalewyn 2y ago
[flagged]
- maxbond 2y ago
  Not sure what they did to upset you, but they are absolutely archivists. Off the top of my head, they've preserved flash games and animations and written an interpreter to get them working in modern browsers; they've scanned books and made them borrowable from the browser, which I've personally used for archival research. I'm guessing what you're referring to is their lawsuit with the publishing industry, where they attempted to lend digital copies of books without backing them with hard copies on a shelf. That was probably ill advised, and I suppose you could view it as political activism, but it's pretty obviously in furtherance of their mission as archivists - preserving content means little if it can't be accessed. (This was also in the context of the early pandemic, where access to physical libraries was extremely limited.)
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - maxbond 2y ago
      I'm far less interested in how they measure up to some legal definition of an archive than I am in all the good work they do to archive things. If you think the former is more important, I would suggest the confusion is on your part.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        An archive very clearly means something very specific, and it's certainly not the "We want free-as-in-beer content!" thing a lot of people here and elsewhere scream about. If you cannot or will not consider what an archive is legally defined as, you cannot discuss in good faith about archives, archivists, or the act of archiving.
        maxbond 2y ago
        I'm not going to quote a definition to you, the only winning move in that game is not to play, but there are certainly more interpretations of "archive" than just the one. I certainly didn't assume you meant the narrow legal meaning in your original comment, and if you were only willing to entertain a single definition it would have been nice to know that upfront.
        seventyone 2y ago
        Words have meanings other than what the government says they are
        22c 2y ago
        Even by OPs own link, they are wrong. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 > it is *not an infringement of copyright* for a library or archives Emphasis is mine here. The OPs link does not define what an archive is or isn't, it defines constraints on an archive or library such that it doesn't infringe on copyright according to US law. To conclude that the IA is not operating an archive because they might be infringing on some copyrights according to US law is fallacious thinking.
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        You have it backwards. It is not an infringement of copyright if an archive or library reproduces and redistributes according to the exceptions set forth. The Internet Archive quite clearly does not abide by those exceptions, and as such they are infringing copyright and not an archive protected by these laws. If the Internet Archive (or anyone and anything for that matter) wants to spend my tax dollars, they can start by first abiding by the laws and regulations of the legal jurisdiction they reside in, in this case the USA's.
    - lightedman 2y ago
      "An archive may not be available directly to the public" Well, then, most files that call themselves archives can't be legal under that definition. Wipe your computer of every archive you've downloaded, that would also include Linux ISO files.
      - mcmcmc 2y ago
        Deliberate stupidity is not helpful. You know very well this discussion is regarding archival institutions, not a file format.
        lightedman 2y ago
        Many of those formats are made by archival institutions, and also follow rules like ISO certifications. Even librarians (my husband being head librarian for a city library) shake their head at this, and they're trained in databases and archives and related materials as a matter of profession, some to a higher degree than some CS students.
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        Are you (or your husband) really trying to tell me something like this[1] is an archive or a library? That is one of the more, if not most, flagrant demonstrations of the Internet Archive not understanding what an archive is. There's more where that came from, including stuff like their one:many digital book lending program. The law stipulates what an archive/library is and how they are protected from certain copyright prosecutions. The Internet Archive does not abide them, and thus I would absolutely not want my tax dollars sent their way. If they want to engage in flagrant piracy and political activism, they can do so on their own dime. [1]: https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware
        lightedman 2y ago
        I see a lot of legal things there and I see a lot of illegal things there. Good archives grab everything, period. What's that adage? If you don't want it on the internet, don't put it there? The internet is basically one giant interconnected archive.
    - hipadev23 2y ago
      Citing a law on what copyright permissions are granted to libraries and archives does not define what an archive is nor what archiving entails.
t_mann 2y ago
I actually disagree. Archiving is a complex issue that touches on the interests not only of the general public but also those who produced or are covered in the materials to be archived, and the ways in which it might affect their interests might not even have been clear at the time of publication (think about LLM training as just one example), or their interests might not have been heard at the time. I think a public institution would be better placed than a private organization to deal with weighing the - evolving - legitimate interests of all parties concerned by the decisions of whether and how to archive something.
- wizardforhire 2y ago
  Came to initially disagree but realized I was making the same point. Archiving is in the matter of public interest which defaults to government. Resolving the conflict, the internet archive should be absorbed into the library congress. It would be a win-win, the internet archive would have the backing it needs both financially and legally and the library of congress will be able to modernize and expand it’s already daunting mandate allowing them to gain further public awareness and legitimacy.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    The Internet Archive works with the federal government currently, and while they receive benefits and incentives as a bonafide library, it is better (imho) they are distinct from the government to remain segregated from potential political influence and interference. This doesn’t prevent a federal agency tasked with preservation from kicking off archiving operations and operating a replicated copy of the Internet Archive (or a subset of the corpus). In the current operating environment, it is important to optimize for optionality. (No affiliation with the Internet Archive, just a concerned citizen)
- nox101 2y ago
  In today's political climate I can imagine one side or the other demanding that all material that espouses position X must be expunged from the archive as "wrong think"
al_borland 2y ago
It seems like the Library of Congress should be making an effort to archive, in the same way archive.org is. People are constantly worried about archive.org shutting down. Having another source would be a good thing. The LoC seems to have some web archiving going on, but it’s very selective. I don’t know how any good archivist can think they will know what will be important in the future. I did a search for MTV and only got 3 results, and only 1 is actually from MTV. For the cultural significance MTV had, I find this hard to believe. https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/?q=MTV https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/?q=MTV I can’t figure out how to actually view the archived page, which is also an issue. What good is an archive if it can’t be accessed. Either way, it seems like if the government was going to put more money behind internet archiving, they’d fund their own service to make it better.
animanoir 2y ago
I do believe Archive.org is, ironically, "too big to fail"... I would be INCREDIBLY surprised if it ever goes offline.
- ladidahh 2y ago
  they are under fire for their hourly lending policy for books, who knows, I don't think too big to fail applies here
- metadat 2y ago
  Far from it. Archive.org is a passion project funded and run by a moderately wealthy guy (Brewster Kahle). Or at least, he had a few millions when he started it, and I'm certain the org has been a money pit for him. Hopefully some kind of foundation exists to keep it going after he passes, but it's not a certainty. Don't take it for granted.
  - animanoir 2y ago
    whish I could help more... already donated some times.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- suzzer99 2y ago
  Or it gets bought and shut down by someone who doesn't like what's in it.
- rnd0 2y ago
  It's inevitable that they go dark. They piss off too many people regarding IP rights, and people hate to have proof out in the wild of what they said or did in the past. Plus a ton of other reasons; more people have an interest in it disappearing than have an interest in it surviving. I mean, when it dies it will be a greater tragedy than the burning of the library of Alexandria (at least many of the books there were copied elsewhere), it will be a tremendous blow to our collective knowlege and memory. But it's inevitable that it will go away.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
basch 2y ago
I mentioned above in the thread, perma.cc is a service, that collects government, institution, and library money and archives on their behalf. I think its a fair way to have some check and balance between a centralized library doing all the archiving, and a million libraries each with their own archival system.
Xeyz0r 2y ago
Preserve cultural heritage, promote access to knowledge
brisketbbq 2y ago
Or small groups of people interested in the community could archive it themselves and host it. I don't know if MTV news had a serious following or not, maybe that part of the reason the archive was taken down - nobody really cared to keep ~20 year old articles.

The Internet Archive should receive significant government funding. It's insane we let cultural treasures disappear into the wind when we can preserve them for negligible costs.

Dalewyn 2y ago

[flagged]

maxbond 2y ago
Not sure what they did to upset you, but they are absolutely archivists. Off the top of my head, they've preserved flash games and animations and written an interpreter to get them working in modern browsers; they've scanned books and made them borrowable from the browser, which I've personally used for archival research. I'm guessing what you're referring to is their lawsuit with the publishing industry, where they attempted to lend digital copies of books without backing them with hard copies on a shelf. That was probably ill advised, and I suppose you could view it as political activism, but it's pretty obviously in furtherance of their mission as archivists - preserving content means little if it can't be accessed. (This was also in the context of the early pandemic, where access to physical libraries was extremely limited.)
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - maxbond 2y ago
    I'm far less interested in how they measure up to some legal definition of an archive than I am in all the good work they do to archive things. If you think the former is more important, I would suggest the confusion is on your part.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      An archive very clearly means something very specific, and it's certainly not the "We want free-as-in-beer content!" thing a lot of people here and elsewhere scream about. If you cannot or will not consider what an archive is legally defined as, you cannot discuss in good faith about archives, archivists, or the act of archiving.
      - maxbond 2y ago
        I'm not going to quote a definition to you, the only winning move in that game is not to play, but there are certainly more interpretations of "archive" than just the one. I certainly didn't assume you meant the narrow legal meaning in your original comment, and if you were only willing to entertain a single definition it would have been nice to know that upfront.
      - seventyone 2y ago
        Words have meanings other than what the government says they are
        22c 2y ago
        Even by OPs own link, they are wrong. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 > it is *not an infringement of copyright* for a library or archives Emphasis is mine here. The OPs link does not define what an archive is or isn't, it defines constraints on an archive or library such that it doesn't infringe on copyright according to US law. To conclude that the IA is not operating an archive because they might be infringing on some copyrights according to US law is fallacious thinking.
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        You have it backwards. It is not an infringement of copyright if an archive or library reproduces and redistributes according to the exceptions set forth. The Internet Archive quite clearly does not abide by those exceptions, and as such they are infringing copyright and not an archive protected by these laws. If the Internet Archive (or anyone and anything for that matter) wants to spend my tax dollars, they can start by first abiding by the laws and regulations of the legal jurisdiction they reside in, in this case the USA's.
  - lightedman 2y ago
    "An archive may not be available directly to the public" Well, then, most files that call themselves archives can't be legal under that definition. Wipe your computer of every archive you've downloaded, that would also include Linux ISO files.
    - mcmcmc 2y ago
      Deliberate stupidity is not helpful. You know very well this discussion is regarding archival institutions, not a file format.
      - lightedman 2y ago
        Many of those formats are made by archival institutions, and also follow rules like ISO certifications. Even librarians (my husband being head librarian for a city library) shake their head at this, and they're trained in databases and archives and related materials as a matter of profession, some to a higher degree than some CS students.
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        Are you (or your husband) really trying to tell me something like this[1] is an archive or a library? That is one of the more, if not most, flagrant demonstrations of the Internet Archive not understanding what an archive is. There's more where that came from, including stuff like their one:many digital book lending program. The law stipulates what an archive/library is and how they are protected from certain copyright prosecutions. The Internet Archive does not abide them, and thus I would absolutely not want my tax dollars sent their way. If they want to engage in flagrant piracy and political activism, they can do so on their own dime. [1]: https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware
        lightedman 2y ago
        I see a lot of legal things there and I see a lot of illegal things there. Good archives grab everything, period. What's that adage? If you don't want it on the internet, don't put it there? The internet is basically one giant interconnected archive.
  - hipadev23 2y ago
    Citing a law on what copyright permissions are granted to libraries and archives does not define what an archive is nor what archiving entails.

t_mann 2y ago

I actually disagree. Archiving is a complex issue that touches on the interests not only of the general public but also those who produced or are covered in the materials to be archived, and the ways in which it might affect their interests might not even have been clear at the time of publication (think about LLM training as just one example), or their interests might not have been heard at the time. I think a public institution would be better placed than a private organization to deal with weighing the - evolving - legitimate interests of all parties concerned by the decisions of whether and how to archive something.

wizardforhire 2y ago
Came to initially disagree but realized I was making the same point. Archiving is in the matter of public interest which defaults to government. Resolving the conflict, the internet archive should be absorbed into the library congress. It would be a win-win, the internet archive would have the backing it needs both financially and legally and the library of congress will be able to modernize and expand it’s already daunting mandate allowing them to gain further public awareness and legitimacy.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  The Internet Archive works with the federal government currently, and while they receive benefits and incentives as a bonafide library, it is better (imho) they are distinct from the government to remain segregated from potential political influence and interference. This doesn’t prevent a federal agency tasked with preservation from kicking off archiving operations and operating a replicated copy of the Internet Archive (or a subset of the corpus). In the current operating environment, it is important to optimize for optionality. (No affiliation with the Internet Archive, just a concerned citizen)
nox101 2y ago
In today's political climate I can imagine one side or the other demanding that all material that espouses position X must be expunged from the archive as "wrong think"

al_borland 2y ago

It seems like the Library of Congress should be making an effort to archive, in the same way archive.org is. People are constantly worried about archive.org shutting down. Having another source would be a good thing. The LoC seems to have some web archiving going on, but it’s very selective. I don’t know how any good archivist can think they will know what will be important in the future. I did a search for MTV and only got 3 results, and only 1 is actually from MTV. For the cultural significance MTV had, I find this hard to believe. https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/?q=MTV https://www.loc.gov/web-archives/?q=MTV I can’t figure out how to actually view the archived page, which is also an issue. What good is an archive if it can’t be accessed. Either way, it seems like if the government was going to put more money behind internet archiving, they’d fund their own service to make it better.

animanoir 2y ago

I do believe Archive.org is, ironically, "too big to fail"... I would be INCREDIBLY surprised if it ever goes offline.

ladidahh 2y ago
they are under fire for their hourly lending policy for books, who knows, I don't think too big to fail applies here
metadat 2y ago
Far from it. Archive.org is a passion project funded and run by a moderately wealthy guy (Brewster Kahle). Or at least, he had a few millions when he started it, and I'm certain the org has been a money pit for him. Hopefully some kind of foundation exists to keep it going after he passes, but it's not a certainty. Don't take it for granted.
- animanoir 2y ago
  whish I could help more... already donated some times.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
suzzer99 2y ago
Or it gets bought and shut down by someone who doesn't like what's in it.
rnd0 2y ago
It's inevitable that they go dark. They piss off too many people regarding IP rights, and people hate to have proof out in the wild of what they said or did in the past. Plus a ton of other reasons; more people have an interest in it disappearing than have an interest in it surviving. I mean, when it dies it will be a greater tragedy than the burning of the library of Alexandria (at least many of the books there were copied elsewhere), it will be a tremendous blow to our collective knowlege and memory. But it's inevitable that it will go away.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

basch 2y ago

I mentioned above in the thread, perma.cc is a service, that collects government, institution, and library money and archives on their behalf. I think its a fair way to have some check and balance between a centralized library doing all the archiving, and a million libraries each with their own archival system.

Xeyz0r 2y ago

Preserve cultural heritage, promote access to knowledge

brisketbbq 2y ago

Or small groups of people interested in the community could archive it themselves and host it. I don't know if MTV news had a serious following or not, maybe that part of the reason the archive was taken down - nobody really cared to keep ~20 year old articles.