People have gotten so used to the existence of the Internet Archive’s web archive that they forget how revolutionary and subversive it is.
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@riley
"If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law."
-Henry David Thoreau, *Civil Disobedience and Other Essays*, 1866
@LovesTha @brooke @molly0xfff -
William O'Connellreplied to William O'Connell last edited by
@molly0xfff Like, if someone says "I'm archiving your blog post in this database to preserve it for future readers" I think that's probably ok. If they bought a copy of an app I was selling and then "archived it" by letting everyone else in the world download it from their site without paying me, obviously I would be unhappy. Of course some people think both should be legal or both should be illegal, but surely everyone can agree those are two different things?
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billy joe bowers - Harris2024replied to Molly White last edited by
I really don't get what the Internet Archive was trying to do, or why, or why they thought it was a good idea to endanger an extremely important public service with what seems like performative nonsense.
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Molly Whitereplied to billy joe bowers - Harris2024 last edited by
@billyjoebowers what specifically are you referring to when you say performative nonsense?
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Possibly archiving the Internet? (Unless your position is that the name has been deceptive from day one, in which case, please link me to the article or podcast episode that best supports that position…?)
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Molly Whitereplied to William O'Connell last edited by
@williamoconnell How do you feel about libraries?
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@Starfia you do realize most websites they archive are copyrighted, yes?
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Yes. And mine is.
So, don't copy those? Or ask the author first? Or campaign to promote some other well-known indicator that means the author is open to archiving as opposed to plagiarism?
They've been around since 1996 and have seemingly directed many times more than the requisite cost and effort into high-stakes legal battles instead, including for purposes other than archiving for the sake of archiving, as William O mentioned.
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@Starfia you can argue that the Internet Archive should shut down the vast majority of their web archiving, or you can argue that they should “stick to the web archiving” and acknowledge that that is testing the theory of copyright. But you can’t argue that what they’ve always done is safe ground.
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That seems like a restatement of your view rather than a reply to my reply.
Those options seem like a false dichotomy, and of course it's not necessarily safe if one of their guidelines is "there's a law that benefits many people and companies and we're ignoring it."
I'm appealing to a guideline which is hopefully closer to simple decency than any particular country's law, and pointing out they've had 28 years to seek the same.
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@Starfia i’m pointing out that “archiving the Internet” in the ways they have been IS “testing new theories of copyright”
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Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee:replied to Jetz Kiterr last edited by
@jetz_kiterr @LovesTha @molly0xfff @riley part of civil disobedience is having a plan for taking your licks when they enforce the bad law against you for it, and organizing around it. i sincerely hope this has been carefully planned and coordinated by our friends at i.a!
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@riley @LovesTha @brooke @molly0xfff If you want to tear down an empire of control, you need to do two things at once.
1) Fight it legally.
2) Make it really easy to defy for people who want to.Previous successes: Access to the phone system, music on demand, medical marijuana. In all cases they went the legal route and the "overgrow" route at the same time.
Wayback and Libgen need to be the good cop and the bad cop here.
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Kevin Rigglereplied to Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee: last edited by
@brooke @molly0xfff the Wayback Machine is pretty obviously a transformative use under fair use, and even the original controlled digital lending program should have been not transformative but still fair use. Removing the restrictions and going full pirate library was pretty obviously not transformative and not fair use and the courts rightly found against it
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@brooke @molly0xfff like this is a specialized but very well-trodden area of law
U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index
The goal of the Index is to make the principles and application of fair use more accessible and understandable to the public by presenting a searchable database of court opinions, including by category and type of use (e.g., music, internet/digitization, parody).
(www.copyright.gov)
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@kevinriggle @brooke and yet
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@molly0xfff @brooke I mean yeah, judges gonna judge. I disagree, but, play stupid games, win stupid prizes
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@kevinriggle @brooke That’s a pretty flippant response to a decision that has extremely concerning ramifications for libraries in general.
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Kelsonreplied to Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee: last edited by
@brooke @jetz_kiterr @LovesTha @molly0xfff @riley Quick, let's get Archive Team to start backing up the Internet Archive!