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Yes, exactly. The Internet Archive was founded in direct response to closed archives-being open is the entire point. Their goal is not preservation if it's lock

Yes, exactly. The Internet Archive was founded in direct response to closed archives-being open is the entire point. Their goal is not preservation if it's locked in a vault- their mission statement is "to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge." Universal access to knowledge is illegal under the American copyright regime, and it seems the people who run it have decided to fight to the end rather than give up their mission. It'll probably lead to the destruction of the whole project, but I do find it admirable in a quixotic way. Do you have a link to them losing an exemption because of paperwork? My understanding was that the Copyright Office makes the sole determination on exemptions during triennial reviews, and they blocked it last year due to the usual regulatory capture and industry lobbying.

badlibrarian 2y ago
If you review the history of the archive you will see that their mission changed over time. They didn't even ask for donations until they set the building on fire. You can still find old help articles on the site where qualified researchers are instructed to ask permission to log into their Unix servers directly. Complete with privacy rationalizations like "being able to see what people are doing on the same computer is no different than peeking over a shoulder in a reading room." Early form 990s tell a very different mission. They pivoted for a number of reasons, and I generally support the mission. But you have to obey the law to protect the assets. And if you want to press the law, you have to be very smart about it. Like, oh, testing 10 records instead of 400,000. And doing it under a different LLC so you don't lose the Wayback Machine to some dumbass AI company because you can't be bothered to keep track of how many books you're lending out. > Do you have a link to them losing an exemption because of paperwork? https://www.arl.org/news/librarian-of-congress-expands-dmca-exemption-for-text-and-data-mining/ https://www.arl.org/news/librarian-of-congress-expands-dmca-... "The librarian renewed all existing exemptions except for the exemption for accessible access to video games, for which there was no petition for renewal."
- Miraste 2y ago
  Ah, 90s network security. Happier times. I went and checked myself, and they have evolved a lot more than I remembered. For the better, I think, but you're certainly right that they could be going about this in a more legally adept way. The exemption mentioned in that article isn't about hosting video games online- you may have confused two exemptions. That one was for accessibility in the sense of access for people with disabilities (alternate input devices, etc). It was only added in the 2021 review, and the Internet Archive wasn't one of its backers. The exemption for remote access to video games was a separate and new proposal, and the Copyright Office blocked it after pressure from industry lobbyists. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyright-office-presses-pause-on-dmca-exemption-for-video-games/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyrig...

badlibrarian 2y ago

If you review the history of the archive you will see that their mission changed over time. They didn't even ask for donations until they set the building on fire. You can still find old help articles on the site where qualified researchers are instructed to ask permission to log into their Unix servers directly. Complete with privacy rationalizations like "being able to see what people are doing on the same computer is no different than peeking over a shoulder in a reading room." Early form 990s tell a very different mission. They pivoted for a number of reasons, and I generally support the mission. But you have to obey the law to protect the assets. And if you want to press the law, you have to be very smart about it. Like, oh, testing 10 records instead of 400,000. And doing it under a different LLC so you don't lose the Wayback Machine to some dumbass AI company because you can't be bothered to keep track of how many books you're lending out. > Do you have a link to them losing an exemption because of paperwork? https://www.arl.org/news/librarian-of-congress-expands-dmca-exemption-for-text-and-data-mining/ https://www.arl.org/news/librarian-of-congress-expands-dmca-... "The librarian renewed all existing exemptions except for the exemption for accessible access to video games, for which there was no petition for renewal."

Miraste 2y ago
Ah, 90s network security. Happier times. I went and checked myself, and they have evolved a lot more than I remembered. For the better, I think, but you're certainly right that they could be going about this in a more legally adept way. The exemption mentioned in that article isn't about hosting video games online- you may have confused two exemptions. That one was for accessibility in the sense of access for people with disabilities (alternate input devices, etc). It was only added in the 2021 review, and the Internet Archive wasn't one of its backers. The exemption for remote access to video games was a separate and new proposal, and the Copyright Office blocked it after pressure from industry lobbyists. https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyright-office-presses-pause-on-dmca-exemption-for-video-games/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/legally-weird/u-s-copyrig...