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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People have gotten so used to the existence of the Internet Archive’s web archive that they forget how revolutionary and subversive it is. The idea that that is somehow safe while the book lending was not is completely flawed. They were just up against a more powerful group.
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Seen a couple takes about the Hachette case along the lines of “the Internet Archive should’ve stuck to just archiving the Internet and not testing new theories of copyright” and uhhh... I’m not sure what it is you think the Internet Archive does, outside of testing new theories of copyright.
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Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee:replied to Molly White last edited by
@molly0xfff true, the wayback machine is pretty much already obviously illegal
but it's so nice
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William O'Connellreplied to Molly White last edited by
@molly0xfff I still think it's pretty reasonable to be annoyed that they jeopardized one service by making a really risky move with a different service. They probably could've predicted that "unlimited free access to books that are actively being sold" would've upset book publishers. Honestly I struggle to see a good legal or ethical argument for their actions unless you're opposed to copyright as a concept. There's a difference between bending the rules and ignoring them.
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LovesTha🥧replied to Brooke Vibber :blobcatcoffee: last edited by
@brooke @molly0xfff and it is one solution to a real, but marginal, problem. We need laws to catch up.
And we probably want to limit what they are doing while also protecting some of it.
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Molly Whitereplied to William O'Connell last edited by
@williamoconnell how do you support their mass archiving of (mostly copyrighted) websites, then?
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@LovesTha Or we'll need make it socially acceptable to ignore the tyrannical laws.
Case in point: everybody ignores the tyrannical copyright laws when it comes to Sci-Hub, and that's a good thing.
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William O'Connellreplied to Molly White last edited by
@molly0xfff I see a big ethical difference between archiving web content that the author has chosen to make available for free, and distributing digital copies of books that authors are actively trying to make a living from selling. I'm not a lawyer so I can't really comment on the legality of either, but it also seems obvious that the second one is more likely to attract lawsuits.
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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”