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They have a number of initiatives. The Open Library initiative resulted in a lawsuit from four publishers that they lost on Summary Judgment -- in other words,

They have a number of initiatives. The Open Library initiative resulted in a lawsuit from four publishers that they lost on Summary Judgment -- in other words, their behavior was so clearly illegal that hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and EFF briefs were unable to raise a single issue that the judge thought deserved a trial. Internet Archive Federal Credit Union was shut down by the feds for "Unwillingness to open accounts within the field of membership, make loans, and establish operations in the low-income community where the credit union was chartered to serve; Violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and USA PATRIOT Act; and Weakening financial conditions and mounting losses." The Great 78 project resulted in a pending $621 million lawsuit and their defense is that pops and crackles allows them to publish 400,000 records because it's Fair Use. I think we both know how that one turns out. In the Hachette lawsuit, where IA decided Covid gave them the right to let people download unlimited copies of modern copyrighted books, it came out in discovery that they weren't keeping accurate records of the books they were loaning out before the panic. The judge ruled that even the previous effort where they only loaned out one copy at a time was improper. So other libraries had to do work and make things inaccessible, too. There's more, but it's ongoing stupid behavior. In any other organization, a pattern of decisions like this would result in leadership change. To preserve the archived materials that do not exist anywhere, I'm going to speak up about it. They have a mission (you didn't quote it correctly) and none of this helps that mission. And as a 501c3 they deserve more scrutiny from the public, not less.

mmooss 2y ago
> They have a mission (you didn't quote it correctly) Perhaps you can show us where it was wrong? lol All leadership has failures; it would be a failure of management otherwise; a fundamental misunderstanding of risk. It's also irrational to look at only failures and not successes - like talking only about the player's 3 missed penalty kicks without ever mentioning their 101 successful ones. It's like describing Steve Jobs to someone who doesn't know them as the failure who founded Next, without mentioning the rest. Look at the endless failures in the FAANG companies, and all the VC investments, etc. Have you visited Meta's VR world recently? How is your Apple Car driving? Your self-driving Tesla? Those people must not know what they're doing. Attacking the failures in hindsight is just serving another agenda, and of course when something goes wrong, there's blood in the water for a toxic response. The question is, do you want to sacrifice all the great good of IA? And who will take on leadership next or start another project, knowing you and your angry mob will do the same when there are inevitably setbacks? Look at the response to IA, Mozilla, etc. (I copied and pasted the mission statement.)
- badlibrarian 2y ago
  From their Form 990: "Internet Archive was founded in 1996 to build an Internet library with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format including texts, audio, movies, images, software and web pages." https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943242767/201803199349317945/IRS990 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943... https://www.loc.gov/item/2003541624/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2003541624/ Note that it does not talk about making things publicly downloadable and available to the general public. Archives work this way for a reason. They've increased their scope and changed a bunch of pages as they position toward fundraising and facing lawsuits. From the page you (misquoted): "Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge." The first step in doing this is to collect and organize the knowledge. You then provide access gradually and within the law so as not to get sued out of existence. If the law is unclear, you lobby to change it (thus the original post) and/or work with others to expand the law. If you want to bait a hook and risk a lawsuit in hopes of setting case law, you manage the risk. Maybe make 4 albums downloadable instead of 400,000. And if you're arguing for extensions to Controlled Digital Lending, well you better make sure you have your record keeping straight before you make your entire library openly downloadable without restriction. If you insist on responding, please provide a list of these "wins" you're so certain of. I see a tiny staff that does amazing things, assets in the single digit millions, and nearly a billion dollars in liabilities across multiple lawsuits.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    You have expertise and I think you have a lot to contribute. But when someone speaks to me with contempt, dismissal, condescenion, I pretty much ignore the content of what they say, and I think that's true of anyone listening. The tone overwhelms the message. I don't find that I'm curious or try to understand, I just see you as, in a sense, an attacker.

mmooss 2y ago

> They have a mission (you didn't quote it correctly) Perhaps you can show us where it was wrong? lol All leadership has failures; it would be a failure of management otherwise; a fundamental misunderstanding of risk. It's also irrational to look at only failures and not successes - like talking only about the player's 3 missed penalty kicks without ever mentioning their 101 successful ones. It's like describing Steve Jobs to someone who doesn't know them as the failure who founded Next, without mentioning the rest. Look at the endless failures in the FAANG companies, and all the VC investments, etc. Have you visited Meta's VR world recently? How is your Apple Car driving? Your self-driving Tesla? Those people must not know what they're doing. Attacking the failures in hindsight is just serving another agenda, and of course when something goes wrong, there's blood in the water for a toxic response. The question is, do you want to sacrifice all the great good of IA? And who will take on leadership next or start another project, knowing you and your angry mob will do the same when there are inevitably setbacks? Look at the response to IA, Mozilla, etc. (I copied and pasted the mission statement.)

badlibrarian 2y ago
From their Form 990: "Internet Archive was founded in 1996 to build an Internet library with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format including texts, audio, movies, images, software and web pages." https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943242767/201803199349317945/IRS990 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943... https://www.loc.gov/item/2003541624/ https://www.loc.gov/item/2003541624/ Note that it does not talk about making things publicly downloadable and available to the general public. Archives work this way for a reason. They've increased their scope and changed a bunch of pages as they position toward fundraising and facing lawsuits. From the page you (misquoted): "Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge." The first step in doing this is to collect and organize the knowledge. You then provide access gradually and within the law so as not to get sued out of existence. If the law is unclear, you lobby to change it (thus the original post) and/or work with others to expand the law. If you want to bait a hook and risk a lawsuit in hopes of setting case law, you manage the risk. Maybe make 4 albums downloadable instead of 400,000. And if you're arguing for extensions to Controlled Digital Lending, well you better make sure you have your record keeping straight before you make your entire library openly downloadable without restriction. If you insist on responding, please provide a list of these "wins" you're so certain of. I see a tiny staff that does amazing things, assets in the single digit millions, and nearly a billion dollars in liabilities across multiple lawsuits.
- mmooss 2y ago
  You have expertise and I think you have a lot to contribute. But when someone speaks to me with contempt, dismissal, condescenion, I pretty much ignore the content of what they say, and I think that's true of anyone listening. The tone overwhelms the message. I don't find that I'm curious or try to understand, I just see you as, in a sense, an attacker.