Maybe its just me but every single time I really needed a past snapshot of a webpage, they never ever have it. Or they do and its a loading GIF because all the content is loaded from JS.
I think the fact a lot of sites are SPA or similar, and have bot blockers like Cloudflare is slowly killing their usefulness.
I guess we are looking for different sites but I don’t recall an archive every being broken. I’m always amazed that I can fix old links just by traveling back in time.
> The only one putting The Internet Archive in danger... is The Internet Archive.
Um ... no. The ones putting The Internet Archive in danger are the copyright cartels and the laws that enable them. If you "love the internet archive", you should oppose the current copyright regime.
If you think that the Internet Archive is their own worst enemy and anyone who thinks differently is wrong, then you don't actually support the work of The Internet Archive. Sure, you may like parts of it. But you oppose its core mission.
I support changing the law to allow the The Internet Archive to operate. I am sad that the current laws (apparently) may not allow it to operate. I am not dunking on everyone who thought they have a reasonable legal case. Why? Because I "love the internet archive".
> you may like parts of it. But you oppose its core mission
Sure. I guess I do. I stopped giving after this fiasco, so my money is where my mouth is.
I still think the Wayback Machine and several of their projects are worthwhile. Perhaps the best outcome is this organisation fails and new one, with a new core mission, takes over. Because risking the entire organisation on an ideological boobdoggle and then doubling down practically ensures failure.
> If you think that the Internet Archive is their own worst enemy and anyone who thinks differently is wrong, then you don't actually support the work of The Internet Archive. Sure, you may like parts of it. But you oppose its core mission.
This is where I stand.
One can support the mission of the Internet Archive (in archiving the public internet) and still express concern over more legally questionable ventures that may threaten their existence (e.g digitising and redistributing owned copies of books) and may be more of a challenge being justified under the first-sale doctrine.
> If you "love the internet archive", you should oppose the current copyright regime
Trying to "change the law" by not actually changing the law and instead convincing the courts to ignore the law is delusional. And entirely within "own worst enemy" territory.
> then you don't actually support the work of The Internet Archive
> But you oppose its core mission.
"You're either with us or against us" is also solidly within "own worst enemy" territory.
Currently doing research. I've also done software development and some of our household's income comes from literature copyright royalties, though it's largely a pittance.
We're supposed to discuss better than that here -- to discuss the actual disagreement in good faith.
People who create stuff should have an exclusive right to publish their work-- for awhile. But not forever; our culture should not end up locked behind a paywall. And even in the shorter term, we shouldn't have a reigning oligopoly involved in distribution of cultural artifacts.
> People who create stuff should have an exclusive right to publish their work-- for awhile.
Or there should be some other ways of providing livelihood for people who create stuff. Preferably something that doesn't artificially limit the availability of their work. E.g. in Finland authors can get more income from library loans (paid from public funds) than what pittance the publishers allow for them from sales. Such system could be quite easily extended.
But in any case, very few authors really make a living from book proceedings. "Think of the authors" is mostly a narrative pushed by the industry that does their best to exploit the authors and minimize their share of the income.
> very few authors really make a living from book proceedings.
Sure, but there's very few notable authors, too.
> industry that does their best to exploit the authors
Granted.
There's a lot of creative works that are very, very expensive to make (feature films, AAA video games, etc). Paying for them from proceeds makes sense-- hence the Constitution didn't really get it wrong with "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Likewise, writing a book takes a great degree of personal time and effort at risk.
> some other ways of providing livelihood for people who create stuff.
I do think that, even if we don't go all the way to a full basic income, it would still be good to have policy that somewhat lowers personal risk in creative, entrepreneurial, and inventive pursuits, as well as career changes. But still, that's not going to get the job done on its own.
If the discussion leads with the idea that we're entitled to question whether authors and editors deserve to make a living for their work, why should anyone else be immune?
The discussion here is leading with the idea that there is collusion and monopolization of publishing marketplaces that, in practice, screw consumers and most authors.
I do not see anything that "question[s] whether authors and editors deserve to make a living for their work."
I am unsure whether you misread the thread we're in or are deliberately mischaracterizing what was said.
You might think that following policies they advocate will put authors in an even worse position. That would be a worthy point of discussion-- in good faith, instead of deliberately misreading and trolling.
Let's say that I want to back up interesting or important webpages, without the Internet Archive. What option do I have, given a URL, to archive it?
Given:
1. It may require a login, for which I already have a cookie in my everyday browser.
2. It may require complex Javascript, e.g. React applications.
3. It may require dismissing popups for: cookie consent, newsletters, optional logins or signup, etc.
4. It may require solving a captcha. I have no problem letting the script run in the background and grabbing my attention when a captcha is required.
Feels like comments are focusing strongly on IA, but, the legal system really made a fool of itself in this one. It's not even trying to look respectable when it acts like this. It wasn't a takedown of digital libraries at all; it was a blanket insult against all libraries.
The 2nd Court wasn't quite this bad, but if we want to write headlines, how about: "With more trash rulings, how long before the copyright system collapses?"
We all knew that the IA was bound to be litigated out of existence at some point. But I don’t understand the authors point that it’s the IA’s fault - is there actually any way they could avoid or win an IP case ever?
Probably not, but until they did unlimited digital lending no one sued. Controlled digital lending wa probably ways a non starter but the publishers seemed to make the choice not to risk the legal decision and public ill will to sue over it until the archive dropped the conteolled part.
If the centrepiece of your legal defence is "we're just like a library" it would probably help to behave like a library: for example, if you purchase five books or CDs then lend five copies at a time.
The IA doesn't appear to buy many books or CDs or DVDs (it has donation drives for second-hand copies). It doesn't do any controls over the number of copies "out". It resembles MegaUpload or other piracy sites more than a library.
> It doesn't do any controls over the number of copies "out".
This is untrue; under normal circumstances it had matching numbers "out" in the commercial book collection. It was madness in early 2020 when they temporarily abandoned this control in response to COVID.
Yeah, the wayback machine is clearly the most valuable service they provide by far and it would be a huge loss if liability from the other stuff forced it to close. Could it be spun off somehow?
I say this as a user of the other stuff. I just built a site that relies on them to serve classic game assets (legally, because it's just the free demo)[1]. But I'd definitely prefer that they shut that down if it could keep the wayback machine on.
Good question. When they decided to get into digital book lending, they should have created a separate legal entity to do it under. Archive was the wrong entity to challenge book copyright and ebook lending purely from the perspective of the immense amount that they have to lose with the potential loss of the wayback machine, which is now legally connected to the unrelated ebook lending issues. The leadership of Archive should have created an independent llc purely for the library, so that legal issues could be contained.
The library of Alexandria will always be illegal because it represents a threat to power. Whoever it is, they won't be legitimate in the eyes of the institutions.
> library of Alexandria will always be illegal because it represents a threat to power
What? The IA’s book lending represented a threat to no power. The Wayback Machine does, in that it holds people accountable, but nobody is dinging them for that.
Folks are trying to pitch this as a David v Goliath situation. That’s emotionally satisfying. But it isn’t true.
Nothing short of a generational movement or a revolution could make significant changes to IP law. It's incredibly entrenched. Many huge industries are built on it.
There is the pirate party movement in Europe at least, although it seems to be dwindling and one-cause parties aren't usually very sustainable. They've had quite a few elected national and EU representatives but the copyright situation has gone (a lot) worse with e.g. the "Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market".
Especially at EU level it doesn't matter much who sits in the parliament when it comes to business interests. Such matters are dictated by the lobbyists.
My assesment is that the system is quite corrupt, or at least undemocratic, whether people agree with me on the issues or not. Business interests don't spend their lobbying billions for nothing.
> Corporations are the only ones who lobbying is effective for. We'd need a revolution to bring about real change
How many times have you called your elected?
I’ve literally added language into state and federal law because I was the only one in my district who called on a niche issue. It was a battleground bill somewhere else. But not where I was.
I mean im a trustee on my neighborhood council and regularly talk to my reps in person. That said I am under no illusion of being able to get them to alter anything of material importance because of my, or any number of citizens', input.
They are careerists politicians because thats what this system optimizes for, literally no successful politician gives a shit about constituent input beyond when it helps them.
> I am under no illusion of being able to get them to alter anything of material importance
Define material. If it’s contentious, of course not—no one party can nor should be able to dictate on something like that. But lobbyists don’t make headway on headline issues. They do so in the shadows. That’s also where private interest can have a material impact. Again, I’ve helped redraft legislation because my Congresswoman literally hadn’t read the bill, nobody—lobbyist or voter—had contacted her on it, it was a nothingburger in New York but a big deal to me.
Lobbyists are mostly paid persistence. They don’t have superpowers, and the myth of campaign donations swinging electeds’ positions on major issues (versus new entrants) is mostly untrue.
> no successful politician gives a shit about constituent input beyond when it helps them
Of course. It would be naïve to expect otherwise. If you’re saying “I want x,” that’s N=1. Useless. If you make the case, however, that there is unseen donor or voter or turnout potential in an issue they’d ignored, you can generate a win win.
As a graybeard fan of IA, I find their hubris damning. If they had one thing going for themselves it was some level of grandfathered goodwill - all of which they stupidly used up for this "COVID made me do it" nonsense.
It may have always been inevitable that copyright laws would burn down our modern Library of Alexandria, but they didn't have to hand out torches like this.
Yeah, I am finding it very hard to forgive them for falling in with the "covid suspends the normal rules" hysteria. They still have a chance to salvage the situation if they start exfiltrating their hard drives to a country not on friendly terms with the western IP regime, but time is running out.
Covid suspended a lot of normal rules, but those that could affect massive accumulations of wealth are of course not to be touched under any circumstances.
It didn't suspend the rules, it only made a lot of people feel entitled to break the rules. Those with power will never be held accountable for the various rules they broke, but those without that kind of privilege will be paying for what they did. Archive.org falls into the latter.
Depressing that in this 'enlightened' age, this statement is the closest to closure we will ever have for all the in-plain-sight rule breaking by the powers that be.
Technology, the great equalizer, except when it's not. Mostly not.
Lockdowns and attire and medication mandates weren't suspending normal rules? Their necessity can be argued for, but they clearly and dramatically suspended very fundamental liberties and rights.
They were lending out digital copies long before covid. And like the author says, they house and freely distribute one of the largest collections of pirated software on the planet (my guess is Usenet is #1). What Lunduke didn't mention is that Jason Scott et al actively encourage users to "upload first and don't even ask questions later", so they are complicit in all of this.
To me that sounds like even more damning evidence of conspiracy to commit mass copyright infringement.
I qualified my statement with "that sounds like", because this is not a courtroom and I am not a lawyer or judge. My source is my own personal chat logs with him on Discord, but I have also seen him post basically the same thing in other places too.
Basically he says people ask him "why don't you ask before allowing copyrighted content to be made available" and his reply is something to the effect of "because it's too much work". Earlier in the same video he also clearly shows a huge disdain for copyright in general and laughs at people asking him to take things down.
That’s the joke. This never had a chance of changing anything. All it’s done is make publishers look reasonable, because most people don’t believe one person should be able to unilaterally override millions of authors’ preferences around their works. (To say nothing of their livelihoods.)
> I don’t think most people agree with the current copyright system
No. But most people don’t agree with the IA’s anything goes position either.
I hate our system of copyright. But I can’t think of a better defence for it than pointing to the IA and saying is that what you really want? That authors can’t demand payment for their work?
Piracy is very much anything goes. People post “commentary streams” where someone else’s YouTube video or even whole movies are shown in their entirety and there’s basically zero backlash from millions of fans. From what I can see the vast majority of Americans take no issue with what IA did.
Revealed preferences say otherwise. If the general public shoplifted as frequently as they pirated content convince stores wouldn’t exist. Most people respect private property on some level, but copyright just doesn’t get that same respect.
YouTube and many other options are free. I have trouble accepting the idea that someone would actually compromise on something they feel is important for a slightly wider number of options.
Personally I don’t pirate movies, games, shows, etc or pay for such content.
Somebody should, but it should be somebody else, with less to lose.
Whether IA is morally right or wrong here is completely irrelevant. They undertook an activity which had significant legal risks attached, and that might undermine their future web archiving efforts.
THe IA might believe that they are morally and legally in the right here, but they should have at least predicted that, with copyright law being what it is, the courts could be "wrong" and believe otherwise. It feels like they don't see the difference between believing that they are right and assuming that everybody else shares this belief.
If attempting systemic change had been their goal, they could have done plenty of other things:
decentralize their dataset, with some distributed hash table, and a minimalistic blockchain for it (yes, yawn)
provide randomized signatures by themselves AND gather them from provably randomly selected participants of each page served, in order to testify a page showed specific claims/content at a certain date / time.
and so on ...
If the internet archive comes crashing down, at least the user base that relied on such services (or whatever simulacra they appeared to manifest) can band together and make such things happen properly, whereas the network effect was all usurped by the IA we know (and love or hate).
i.e. those who secure the status quo may regret allowing some greedy "publishers" to deconstruct an excellent fata morgana, the problem with deception is that some parts of the system start believing the overt purpouse of the covert behavior of other parts of the same system.
just look at how the soviet union spontaneously imploded.
As a frequent user and sometimes donor, I would be a-okay if archive.org gave up on everything that isn't archiving the web. They should re-focus on delivering a better archiving solution (their current system still misses a LOT of page resources and dynamic content), and could use a revamped UX. And of course MUCH faster access to archived pages.
Basically, get better at what you're already best at. Don't be the next Mozilla.
Same. If anyone from their team reads this I hope they can reconsider their scope and goals. If normal webpages can be saved without legal issues then that's already a great achievement.
The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41447758 - Sept 2024 (783 comments)