this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024

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144

The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself (www.wired.com)

submitted 2 months ago by ElectroVagrant to c/[email protected]

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Note: article may be paywalled if you've read all your free articles from Wired for now. Archive link in that event.

[...] Against the back wall, where one might find confessionals in a different kind of church, there’s a tower of humming black servers. These servers hold around 10 percent of the Internet Archive’s vast digital holdings, which includes 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, and 15 million audio recordings, among other artifacts. Tiny lights on each server blink on and off each time someone opens an old webpage or checks out a book or otherwise uses the Archive’s services. The constant, arrhythmic flickers make for a hypnotic light show. Nobody looks more delighted about this display than Kahle.

It is no exaggeration to say that digital archiving as we know it would not exist without the Internet Archive—and that, as the world’s knowledge repositories increasingly go online, archiving as we know it would not be as functional. Its most famous project, the Wayback Machine, is a repository of web pages that functions as an unparalleled record of the internet. Zoomed out, the Internet Archive is one of the most important historical-preservation organizations in the world. The Wayback Machine has assumed a default position as a safety valve against digital oblivion. The rhapsodic regard the Internet Archive inspires is earned—without it, the world would lose its best public resource on internet history.

Note: article may be paywalled if you've read all your free articles from Wired for now. Archive link in that event.

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[–] seaQueue 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm surprised they're not pursuing govt grants and trust/foundation funding like a terrier. There has to be money out there for digital preservation work.

[–] reddig33 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Google just started pointing search results to the archive instead of their own cache. I would hope Google would be donating some supportive money to the archive as a goodwill gesture.

[–] seaQueue 10 points 2 months ago

With Google's new "don't be paying for anything someone else will do for free" MO I'm doubtful

[–] ElectroVagrant 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah...Honestly now that you mention it I never have looked into how they're structured and if that may play a part in them not doing so. What I do know is that I respect their mission and want to see them stick around and reshape things to allow for more organizations like them to exist rather than get snuffed out.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Honest question, can we, common folk, make a motion or something for the Internet Archive to become some sort of Cultural World Heritage, protected by the UN?

Actually, would that even be helpful in the first place? I have this naive notion that doing so would give it more protection and funding, so anyone that knows better please correct me

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 months ago

I wonder if they could get backing from AI companies. Think about it, they do similar things so maybe it would be worth Microsoft sending a few million to help

[+] [email protected] -12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They poked the bear and now they are getting mauled. They should of just focused on the Way back machine

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Boo to standing up for things!

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Did you real the summary of the lawsuit? They were giving away unlicensed books. That is what started this thing to begin with. If they would of just not started offering free downloads of copyrighted works this would probably not be happening.

They really should of just admitted to there mistake during covid and settled. For once the lawsuits by the publishers wasn't totally unjustified and extreme. Now I stead of that they are risking everything over there own views on copyright.

I can't help but feel they have brought this on themselves. They had the support of the US copyright office and everything but now that's in jeopardy

To be fair I'm sure the lawyers would looking for something they could strike at. The Internet Archive had good intentions but they gave the lawyers what they needed for a effective law suite. Honestly the fact that copyright can last 100 years is insane. It needs to a lot shorter as I don't think it is realistic to expect a work from the 70s to be restricted in 2024.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yes, I am aware of what they do. And I am of the opinion that spreading access to knowledge is vastly more important than copyright laws made decades before the internet was a thing. Especially when is comes to US copyright laws being forced upon the rest of the world.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

And I am of the opinion that spreading access to knowledge is vastly more important than copyright laws made decades before the internet was a thing. Especially when is comes to US copyright laws being forced upon the rest of the world.

Breaking the law is not how you change copyright laws. Ironically, AI is the best way to crack copyright laws like an egg, but everybody seems to be vehemently opposed to it.

[–] eskimofry 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Immoral and unjust laws are meant to be broken. When Exxon Mobil writes the law jailing activists for blocking traffic and airplanes and that is equivalent to 4-5 years.. same as for brutal violence, that should make your blood boil if you're someone who cares about our planet and our future.

When AI companies steal our data for their self enrichment and hide behind the "corporations sre not moral" phrase it should make your blood boil.

When scoundrels like Elon Musk pretend to be for free speech but bans people that get on his wrong side on twitter your blood should boil.

Scoundrels have taken over the world in the pretense of capitalism making everybody's lives better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's not about breaking the law, what I'm saying is that copyright laws (but actually, any law) just plain doesn't make sense when you try to apply it to the Internet, because the internet is not a national entity, and the nature of its interactions are fundamentally different from anything else that came before it. Because which country's laws should apply when interacting across continents? If I am in country A, and I'm interacting with you, a resident of country B, on a platform that is owned by a company registered in country C, hosting their servers in country D, who should have authority to regulate this interaction? Simply put, I don't give a fuck (pardon my french) about what the US Copyright Office has to say about anything, since I'm not a US citizen nor resident.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Copyright laws are agreed on at a international level

But every country then implements them in different ways, for example duration and what constitutes "fair use".

There even is a international copyright court

No there isn't. Source?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, no. The ICJ handles disputes between nations. It has literally nothing to do with copyright. Just take a look at the kind of cases they handle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_International_Court_of_Justice_cases

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then what court does international copyright? I know that lubuntu was trying to shutdown lubuntu[.]net because the official site is lubuntu.me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Welcome to my point: there's no such thing. You always have to go through national courts, and if you hold copyright in several countries, you can pretty much pick and choose the legislature that is most advantageous to your case. Take this recent one: an Icelandic company sued an Icelandic artist for slander... In UK court. The "legal" basis was that the website was hosted on a .co.uk domain, but I'm sure that the strict UK slander laws and astronomical costs of its courts had nothing to do with it. Not a copyright case, I know, but I think it's a good example of how laws and jurisdictions get fundamentally twisted when applied to the Internet. I think anyone can agree that it should've been settled in an Icelandic court.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not sure why this is getting downvoted. It's completely accurate.

They pushed this "digital library" idea to even beyond their own definition, got punished for it, and now they are at-risk of losing their core function. Corporations and alt-right shills would love to get rid of any trace of accountability, and this is one avenue that calls them out on the bad shit they post online.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Because they're getting punished for providing books to people, while OpenAI & friends have been infringing copyright on a much, much bigger scale, and getting away with it. As always, the point isn't author's rights, it's money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

while OpenAI & friends have been infringing copyright on a much, much bigger scale, and getting away with it.

Based on what? Distributing numbers in a big database doesn't infringe on copyright, and downloading a web page or image doesn't either.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

You're right, I apologize, my use of "infringing copyright" was too loose there. What I meant in that context is more like "stealing and then re-selling the identity and essence of every human creation to ever be made into ones and zeros"