
A Love Letter to the People Who Build the Internet Archive - jmsflknr
https://blog.archive.org/2019/02/14/a-love-letter-to-the-people-who-build-the-internet-archive/
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jamiethompson
I once rebuilt an entire content site from the internet archive after a
catastrophic data loss.

~~~
FlorianRappl
For me Google Cache was helping out under similar circumstances (also tried
the Archive first, but apparently Google Cache was [at least back then] more
up-to-date).

~~~
jamiethompson
Now you mention it, I think we used a combination of the two. Google's cache
filled in some of the blanks.

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hak8or
I wish they had a list of torrents they need seeders for the most. Right now
I'd I want to seed their stuff (say 100x items) then I gave to go through
their site and one by one select files, give it to a torrent client, see how
healthy the swarm is, rinse and repeat.

~~~
y4mi
even better:

a binary you can execute. on first launch you allocate space and bandwidth.
Thereafter, it stays within configured paramethers and just seeds whatever the
archive wants you to seed.

~~~
myself248
You might find people in the Archive Team interested in working on this. Their
actual mission is slightly different but I'm sure there's overlap of interests
somewhere.

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listprocess
It's not just fair use. 17 U.S.C. sec. 107.

Although the United States Court of Appeals have determined that HathiTrust
and Google's massive deriviative works are fair use--

Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust, No. 12-4547-cv [755 F.3d 87] (USCA-02 2014)
([I]n providing this service, the HDL does not add into circulation any new,
human‐readable copies of any books. Instead, the HDL simply permits users to
“word search”—that is, to locate where specific words or phrases appear in the
digitized books. Applying the relevant factors, we conclude that this use is a
fair use.)

Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., No. 13-4829-cv (USCA-02 2015) ([W]e conclude
that Google’s making of a complete digital copy of Plaintiffs’ works for the
purpose of providing the public with its search and snippet view functions (at
least as snippet view is presently designed) is a fair use and does not
infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights in their books.)

For libraries and archives, they also have 17 U.S.C. sec. 108. Limitations on
exclusive rights: Reproduction by libraries and archives. A broad exemption
that the Internet Archive would likely assert [and likely satisfy]

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8bitsrule
A year ago, I got very interested in a science-history topic that spans much
of the 19th-century. Within a couple of days, I managed to find dozens of
rare, original, on-topic, illustrated, computer-searchable source volumes on
IA.

If there's another single library in the world that has all of those (PD)
works, it's probably far away from the chair I never had to leave.

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ilamont
The publication of the Internet Archive's self-congratulatory love letter this
morning is no coincidence. Note the following paragraph:

 _Libraries are built by people, for people. Thank you so much to all of the
people who have contributed to building the Internet Archive, whether they
were employees or our huge group friends and family. We would not be here
without you, and we hope you will continue to help bring universal access to
all knowledge in the future._

Why did the Internet Archive publish this today?

Yesterday, the Author's Guild, the National Writers Union, the National
Association of Science Writers, the Association of American Publishers, the
Federation of European Publishers, and many more international writing and
publishing organizations published an open appeal to readers and librarians
concerning "Controlled Digital Lending" (CDL). A link to the appeal and
accompanying FAQ can be found here ([https://nwu.org/nwu-denounces-
cdl/](https://nwu.org/nwu-denounces-cdl/)). Here's the text of the appeal:

 _As working writers, translators, photographers, and graphic artists; as
unions, organizations, and federations representing the creators of works
included in published books; as book publishers; and as reproduction rights
and public lending rights organizations; we oppose so-called “Controlled
Digital Lending” (CDL) as a flagrant violation of copyright and authors’
rights.

The copyright infringement inherent in CDL is not a victimless crime. As the
victims of CDL, we want librarians, archivists, and readers to understand how
they are harming the authors of the books they love by participating in CDL
projects, even if they have the best of intentions.

The attached FAQ was written to explain to authors, publishers, readers,
librarians, and archivists what CDL is, how it differs from traditional and
legitimate new forms of library lending, how it violates the economic and
moral rights of authors, and how it makes it even harder for authors to try to
make a living from writing or to afford to devote time to writing.

When writers can’t make a living, they can’t afford to keep writing, and
readers lose too.

Well-meaning librarians, archivists, and readers, who don’t intend to deprive
authors of their livelihoods, are being misled by false claims from proponents
of CDL. Under CDL, printed books are being scanned and distributed online to
readers worldwide by the Internet Archive and U.S. and Canadian libraries.

CDL is not comparable to lending of physical books by libraries. CDL is not
“fair use” as defined in U.S. copyright law, and an exception to or limitation
of copyright to allow CDL without permission or remuneration would not be
permitted by the Berne Convention on Copyright. CDL interferes with many of
the normal ways, including new ways largely unnoticed by librarians, that
authors are earning money from written and graphic works included in so-
called “out of print” books. There is no basis for a good-faith belief that
CDL is legal under either U.S. or international law.

We appeal for a dialogue among writers, authors, publishers, and librarians on
how to enable and create the digital libraries we all want, in ways that fully
respect authors’ rights._

As an author and a publisher, I would go one step further and demand that
scanning under CDL be immediately halted until issues related to copyright,
compensation, and takedown are worked out and implemented. (Disclosure: I also
serve on the board of the Independent Book Publishers Association which is a
cosigner of the appeal and issued a position statement that calls for scanning
and distribution of in-copyright works be stopped immediately, see
[https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/438161/IBPA-Position-
Statem...](https://www.ibpa-online.org/news/438161/IBPA-Position-Statement-on-
Controlled-Digital-Lending-CDL.htm))

Right now, you can go to the IA's website
[https://openlibrary.org/](https://openlibrary.org/) and see what's available
- many thousands of titles written by authors who are still alive and who
won't receive a cent in royalties or licensing fees when someone "borrows"
their books or embeds them on a website. According to the Open Library's
vision page
([https://openlibrary.org/about/vision](https://openlibrary.org/about/vision)),
"The ultimate goal of the Open Library is to make all the published works of
humankind available to everyone in the world."

Like many people on HN, I regularly use IA to track the history of websites or
download out-of-copyright and public domain works. Sharing this information is
important and should be continued. I also believe in the concept of "Fair Use"
for sharing and discussing excerpts of more current works. But when it comes
to outright republishing of in-copyright printed works, the rights of creators
and publishers need to be recognized. CDL, as currently implemented, fails to
do give such recognition, let alone compensate creators and publishers.

~~~
edraferi
1) you should really explain what CDL is earlier in the post. I’d never heard
of it before.

2) still don’t see the connection to the Internet Archive.

3) isn’t CDL covered by the Exhaustion Doctrine / First Sale Doctrine? [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_of_intellectual_pro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_of_intellectual_property_rights)

~~~
jfk13
According to [1], at least, "first sale doctrine does not apply to electronic
books".

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
sale_doctrine#Applicatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-
sale_doctrine#Application_to_digital_copies)

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drallison
The Internet Archive is a not-for-profit that deserves your support. Not only
do they archive the Internet, they are involved with several projects that
will help make it better and even more useful.

They have an informative blog about donations:
[http://blog.archive.org/donation-faqs](http://blog.archive.org/donation-
faqs). Or just go to [http://archive.org/donate](http://archive.org/donate)
and make a donation.

~~~
lunchables
One of the few places I donate to every year and will continue to do forever.
I use it constantly and I'm amazed every time I find some old site that I
thought was lost to time. These folks are doing truly important work.

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xabi
Aaron Swartz & Jason Scott More people like them is what we really need!

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amelius
Do they also archive youtube videos?

~~~
an_ko
Yes! Also, YouTube shows you the URIs of deleted videos on playlists, so it's
pretty trivial to copypaste them into IA and youtube-dl a copy.

I have snatched many things I loved from the jaws of YouTube's copyright
enforcement algorithm this way.

~~~
mxuribe
TIL!

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thisisweirdok
It's crazy to think of the internet without the Internet Archive. It's really
fundamental work.

