6 ms·

I think more broadly, a problem that needs to be solved for journalists is archival rights or something for their work. In the past, you could just buy newspape

by Shank 2y ago

I think more broadly, a problem that needs to be solved for journalists is archival rights or something for their work. In the past, you could just buy newspapers or keep copies of your works after they were published. You can still do that now, but it's not as important until it goes down. It would be better to negotiate into contracts something like archival rights to writing, or at least a permanent credit/record. Journalism is unique in that it's almost always public in some form. It should be a reasonable expectation that it stays in its original medium, or is accessible in archives if that medium vanishes. Major newspapers often offer reprints or back issues. NYT offers the "Times Machine" [0] with basically everything they've ever run digitally. This should be the standard, not the exception. [0]: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser

Dalewyn 2y ago
If you're your own rightsholder, obviously you can do whatever you want. The NYT archive is one such example. In the more common case where you are not, though, the law already provides exceptions to copyright for archiving and redistributing materials that are no longer available. This generally only applies to content that isn't audio/video/graphical, but a wider exception is provided specifically for "news" (journalism). If you want to negotiate a contract making such archival exceptions explicit within the contract itself, that's probably not a bad idea. Even if not though, the law provides for archival protections already. Further reading: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108
basch 2y ago
there is perma.cc which gets around the archive.today and waybackmachine gray area by only allowing link archival through affiliate libraries. It's as close as you get to the government archiving journalism/culture, besides the loc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perma.cc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perma.cc https://perma.cc/ https://perma.cc/
- sambazi 2y ago
  interesting. the sing-up friction and overall restrictiveness clearly demonstrate why the grey area is necessary
portaouflop 2y ago
> You can still do that now, but it's not as important I think you hit the nail here. Most contemporary journalism is just not worth archiving. There is a small percentage that definitely is worth archiving, but the bulk of it is produced for the moment.
- fellerts 2y ago
  Who are we to decide? Many television tapes were wiped or lost last century because people didn't think them important, including a big chunk of early Doctor Who and a lot of the Apollo moon landing coverage.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    > a lot of the Apollo moon landing coverage. Even NASA (accidentally?) recycled the master tapes containing the moon landing AFAIK, and some of them are ultimately recovered. Shortsightedness, I may say.
    - largelady97 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - lores 2y ago
        What are you doing posting this on Hacker News? Don't you know it's majority-owned by Jon Danilovsky, the son of the moon landing movie producer? Oh god they have your IP now, you only have hours.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  > Most contemporary journalism is just not worth archiving. I don't agree. There are many interesting tidbits which go unnoticed as bog-standard / disposable news until the dots connect in the future, and one wants to construct the history backwards from that tipping point. When these "contemporary articles" go missing, many important details of the history is lost.
ajb 2y ago
The UK has something like this: it's called "legal deposit". Publishers of books and periodicals are required to send copies to the enumerated deposit libraries (one of which is in Ireland despite no longer being part of the UK). Laws were passed to update this to the digital age, allowing the deposit libraries to archive UK websites. Unfortunately they don't right now archive video. It's also a bit limited given that web publishing is not national, so much UK content is published on US run websites. See https://www.bl.uk/legal-deposit-web-archiving https://www.bl.uk/legal-deposit-web-archiving
- jjkaczor 2y ago
  Canada does something similar - you can register to become a publisher, which then allows you to issue ISBN numbers for your works (eBooks count), with one stipulation - you have to send a copy of anything published to Archives Canada: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/Pages/create-account-isbn-canada.aspx https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/Pages/cre...
soco 2y ago
Also MTV News was archived, until today that is. How long until the new CEO of NYT will decide the costs of archiving are not bringing enough shareholder value? From that moment on there won't be a source for reprints either. Am I too negative?
- eclecticfrank 2y ago
  I was under the impression that (public or state) libraries keep their own archives of many publications to prepare for this case.
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    If the NYT archives only exist at the whim of the CEO, library archives only exist at the whim of local governments.
    - codewench 2y ago
      The logical decision then is to entrust the preservation to once of the few organizations capable of surviving thousands of years, and forming a religion based on the preservation of works.
      - mindcrime 2y ago
        OK Leibowitz...
    - piva00 2y ago
      By that logic the only archive you can trust is the one you build yourself. Not really feasible.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  It's hard to claim to be a "paper of record" if you don't have those records.
dredmorbius 2y ago
Gawker and numerous shuttered local newspapers (the former Santa Barbara News Press comes to mind: <https://doc.searls.com/2024/04/21/archives-as-commons/ https://doc.searls.com/2024/04/21/archives-as-commons/>) have also seen this occur. The challenge for former reporters and staffers who lose any ready access to their portfolio is profound.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
"Major newspaper often offer reprints or back issues." Perhaps younger readers have never experienced looking at microfiche of old newspapers in a library. Analog machines, not computers, but, if memory serves me correctly, the archives were far more complete than the so-called "tech" company-mediated, advertising-based nonsense what we have today on the www. And the analog fidelity was great. Google ultimately failed to "organise the world's information" to the extent that it previously was organised by public libraries. Instead they turned finding public information into a game designed to support a massive programmatic advertising racket. The www has more volume perhaps than pre-internet libraries but 1. an enormous amount of it is garbage and 2. it is not organised for systematic browsing (leading to discovery) nor serious, methodical research. It is optimised for "clicks" and "views", selling ad services, not learning. There is no way to "browse the stacks" to see how this information is organised. It's all "secret". Imagine a public library that had to hide its operations as a "trade secret". Imagine that it tried to intermedite which stacks a patron will browse, for commercial purposes. The point is that public libraries had extensive collections of newpapers and periodicals. The public could do serious research. But the www is dominated by advertisers and most of the information published is influenced by commercial motives. And it's all intermediated by a gatekeeper that sells ad services: Google. If I want to use the internet (cf. www) for library research I still somtimes search library catalogs via z39.50 if the library's website is cludgy.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  Volume of data published historically is pretty small compared to today, especially with the web.
  - tetris11 2y ago
    they mentioned that in their comment
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      Looks like it has expanded significantly from what I recall replying to
ghaff 2y ago
>You can still do that now, but it's not as important until it goes down. Yes. It's very easy to get into the mode of "I can always download it"--until you can't. Or at least it's very hard to find. I've been pretty good over time. I probably have copies of 75%+ (probably more for stuff I actually care about). But I've definitely written for sites that don't exist any longer, at least a couple of which were behind paywalls.
reaperducer 2y ago
NYT offers the "Times Machine" [0] with basically everything they've ever run digitally. Not just digitally. Times Machine has everything going all the way back to the first issue of the New York Times on September 18, 1851: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1851/09/18/issue.html https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1851/09/18/iss... That's like reading this HN thread in the year 2197.

by Shank 2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

If you're your own rightsholder, obviously you can do whatever you want. The NYT archive is one such example. In the more common case where you are not, though, the law already provides exceptions to copyright for archiving and redistributing materials that are no longer available. This generally only applies to content that isn't audio/video/graphical, but a wider exception is provided specifically for "news" (journalism). If you want to negotiate a contract making such archival exceptions explicit within the contract itself, that's probably not a bad idea. Even if not though, the law provides for archival protections already. Further reading: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/108

basch 2y ago

there is perma.cc which gets around the archive.today and waybackmachine gray area by only allowing link archival through affiliate libraries. It's as close as you get to the government archiving journalism/culture, besides the loc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perma.cc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perma.cc https://perma.cc/ https://perma.cc/

sambazi 2y ago
interesting. the sing-up friction and overall restrictiveness clearly demonstrate why the grey area is necessary

portaouflop 2y ago

> You can still do that now, but it's not as important I think you hit the nail here. Most contemporary journalism is just not worth archiving. There is a small percentage that definitely is worth archiving, but the bulk of it is produced for the moment.

fellerts 2y ago
Who are we to decide? Many television tapes were wiped or lost last century because people didn't think them important, including a big chunk of early Doctor Who and a lot of the Apollo moon landing coverage.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  > a lot of the Apollo moon landing coverage. Even NASA (accidentally?) recycled the master tapes containing the moon landing AFAIK, and some of them are ultimately recovered. Shortsightedness, I may say.
  - largelady97 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - lores 2y ago
      What are you doing posting this on Hacker News? Don't you know it's majority-owned by Jon Danilovsky, the son of the moon landing movie producer? Oh god they have your IP now, you only have hours.
bayindirh 2y ago
> Most contemporary journalism is just not worth archiving. I don't agree. There are many interesting tidbits which go unnoticed as bog-standard / disposable news until the dots connect in the future, and one wants to construct the history backwards from that tipping point. When these "contemporary articles" go missing, many important details of the history is lost.

ajb 2y ago

The UK has something like this: it's called "legal deposit". Publishers of books and periodicals are required to send copies to the enumerated deposit libraries (one of which is in Ireland despite no longer being part of the UK). Laws were passed to update this to the digital age, allowing the deposit libraries to archive UK websites. Unfortunately they don't right now archive video. It's also a bit limited given that web publishing is not national, so much UK content is published on US run websites. See https://www.bl.uk/legal-deposit-web-archiving https://www.bl.uk/legal-deposit-web-archiving

jjkaczor 2y ago
Canada does something similar - you can register to become a publisher, which then allows you to issue ISBN numbers for your works (eBooks count), with one stipulation - you have to send a copy of anything published to Archives Canada: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/Pages/create-account-isbn-canada.aspx https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/isbn-canada/Pages/cre...

soco 2y ago

Also MTV News was archived, until today that is. How long until the new CEO of NYT will decide the costs of archiving are not bringing enough shareholder value? From that moment on there won't be a source for reprints either. Am I too negative?

eclecticfrank 2y ago
I was under the impression that (public or state) libraries keep their own archives of many publications to prepare for this case.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  If the NYT archives only exist at the whim of the CEO, library archives only exist at the whim of local governments.
  - codewench 2y ago
    The logical decision then is to entrust the preservation to once of the few organizations capable of surviving thousands of years, and forming a religion based on the preservation of works.
    - mindcrime 2y ago
      OK Leibowitz...
  - piva00 2y ago
    By that logic the only archive you can trust is the one you build yourself. Not really feasible.
dehrmann 2y ago
It's hard to claim to be a "paper of record" if you don't have those records.

dredmorbius 2y ago

Gawker and numerous shuttered local newspapers (the former Santa Barbara News Press comes to mind: <https://doc.searls.com/2024/04/21/archives-as-commons/ https://doc.searls.com/2024/04/21/archives-as-commons/>) have also seen this occur. The challenge for former reporters and staffers who lose any ready access to their portfolio is profound.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

"Major newspaper often offer reprints or back issues." Perhaps younger readers have never experienced looking at microfiche of old newspapers in a library. Analog machines, not computers, but, if memory serves me correctly, the archives were far more complete than the so-called "tech" company-mediated, advertising-based nonsense what we have today on the www. And the analog fidelity was great. Google ultimately failed to "organise the world's information" to the extent that it previously was organised by public libraries. Instead they turned finding public information into a game designed to support a massive programmatic advertising racket. The www has more volume perhaps than pre-internet libraries but 1. an enormous amount of it is garbage and 2. it is not organised for systematic browsing (leading to discovery) nor serious, methodical research. It is optimised for "clicks" and "views", selling ad services, not learning. There is no way to "browse the stacks" to see how this information is organised. It's all "secret". Imagine a public library that had to hide its operations as a "trade secret". Imagine that it tried to intermedite which stacks a patron will browse, for commercial purposes. The point is that public libraries had extensive collections of newpapers and periodicals. The public could do serious research. But the www is dominated by advertisers and most of the information published is influenced by commercial motives. And it's all intermediated by a gatekeeper that sells ad services: Google. If I want to use the internet (cf. www) for library research I still somtimes search library catalogs via z39.50 if the library's website is cludgy.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
Volume of data published historically is pretty small compared to today, especially with the web.
- tetris11 2y ago
  they mentioned that in their comment
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    Looks like it has expanded significantly from what I recall replying to

ghaff 2y ago

>You can still do that now, but it's not as important until it goes down. Yes. It's very easy to get into the mode of "I can always download it"--until you can't. Or at least it's very hard to find. I've been pretty good over time. I probably have copies of 75%+ (probably more for stuff I actually care about). But I've definitely written for sites that don't exist any longer, at least a couple of which were behind paywalls.

reaperducer 2y ago

NYT offers the "Times Machine" [0] with basically everything they've ever run digitally. Not just digitally. Times Machine has everything going all the way back to the first issue of the New York Times on September 18, 1851: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1851/09/18/issue.html https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1851/09/18/iss... That's like reading this HN thread in the year 2197.