Leave the Internet Archive Alone
The Internet Archive, founded in 1996, preserves digital content but faces legal challenges and cyber-attacks, highlighting its vital role in maintaining access to historical information and knowledge.
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The Internet Archive, founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996, aims to provide universal access to knowledge by preserving digital content, including books, audio, video, and web pages. Despite its significant contributions to information accessibility, the Archive has faced legal challenges, particularly regarding its Controlled Digital Lending program, which was deemed a copyright infringement in a lawsuit by Hachette. Recently, the Archive has been targeted by multiple cyber-attacks, including a major incident in October that compromised user data and temporarily disabled its services. A pro-Palestinian group claimed responsibility for one of the attacks, misattributing the Archive's operations to U.S. government support for Israel. The Archive's ongoing struggles highlight its importance as a historical record keeper in an increasingly digital world, emphasizing the need for its preservation rather than vandalism. The article argues that attacks on the Archive are counterproductive and harmful, as it serves a vital role in maintaining access to historical web content.
- The Internet Archive is a crucial resource for preserving digital knowledge and history.
- Legal challenges have arisen due to its digital lending practices, leading to a significant lawsuit loss.
- The Archive has suffered multiple cyber-attacks, compromising user data and services.
- Attacks on the Archive are seen as misguided and detrimental to information accessibility.
- The preservation of the Internet Archive is essential for future historical research and access to past web content.
Related
With more legal action on the horizon, how long before Archive.org closes?
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the Internet Archive, stating its digital lending practices are not "fair use," raising concerns about its future amid ongoing legal challenges and potential damages.
Internet Archive Responds to Appellate Opinion in Hachette vs. Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is reviewing a court ruling that restricts its digital lending, resulting in the removal of 500,000 books, raising concerns about access to out-of-print works and copyright issues.
We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?
The Internet Archive has preserved 866 billion web pages, but faces financial instability and legal challenges. Its Wayback Machine is crucial for accessing historical content, despite ongoing risks to its operations.
We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?
The Internet Archive has preserved 866 billion web pages, but faces financial instability and legal challenges that threaten its operations, despite its vital role in digital history preservation through the Wayback Machine.
The Internet Archive's Fight to Save Itself
The Internet Archive faces legal challenges from publishers over copyright infringement, threatening its operations and financial stability. Its future depends on the outcomes of ongoing lawsuits regarding its digital lending practices.
7 comments> That’s a huge problem on its own. The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a gross revenue in its most recent 990 filing of only $30.5 million. For the size of the job it’s undertaken, it’s grossly underfinanced.
"The size of the job it's undertaken" is an interesting way to say "the size of the legal bills that it willfully racked up by intentionally violating copyright law in ways that everyone knew at the time had a snowball's chance in hell of surviving in court".
I believe that Intellectual Property is a terrible concept that shouldn't exist at all. I want copyright reform as badly as anyone. I want to want to support the Internet Archive. I want to want them to have enough resources to accomplish their mission. But man have I lost all faith in their leadership's judgement and ability to actually change anything—if they survive the judgement at all they'll be paying for it for years to come.
You don't win this kind of fight by sacrificing the ground you've won. When you've won as much ground as the Internet Archive did, you hold that ground and let someone else take the risk of winning new ground. If you absolutely can't sit still then you found a new organization to push further. But when you're the sole bastion holding the "we should be able to archive everything with no regard to copyright" space, it's irresponsible to try to move on to "we should be able to lend everything with no regard to copyright". They may very well lose both rights.
If the NSA doesn't want to take on this task, then they shouldn't be allowed to have an archive of all of our data, including surveilled data, and should hand it off exclusively to NARA. The NSA should then have to convince a court they need access every time they "need" it.
Furthermore, Copyright needs reform, and an explicit law protecting archives.
I strongly disagree with this statement and would argue book publishers have done more to damage their own reputations and finances than anyone else.
Fortunately the Internet Archive crawler has already continued (confirmed by Jason Scott), the new information is just not yet represented in the Wayback Machine.
Considering the importance of events currently happening around the world (wars, elections, ...), that's very good. (although I'm not sure how extensive its coverage is)
However, all the archiving efforts by individuals using Save Page Now or the API are still halted.
Which reminds me, I made a donation during their downtime but now that they're back up I can increase my monthly giving amount.
Related
With more legal action on the horizon, how long before Archive.org closes?
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the Internet Archive, stating its digital lending practices are not "fair use," raising concerns about its future amid ongoing legal challenges and potential damages.
Internet Archive Responds to Appellate Opinion in Hachette vs. Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is reviewing a court ruling that restricts its digital lending, resulting in the removal of 500,000 books, raising concerns about access to out-of-print works and copyright issues.
We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?
The Internet Archive has preserved 866 billion web pages, but faces financial instability and legal challenges. Its Wayback Machine is crucial for accessing historical content, despite ongoing risks to its operations.
We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?
The Internet Archive has preserved 866 billion web pages, but faces financial instability and legal challenges that threaten its operations, despite its vital role in digital history preservation through the Wayback Machine.
The Internet Archive's Fight to Save Itself
The Internet Archive faces legal challenges from publishers over copyright infringement, threatening its operations and financial stability. Its future depends on the outcomes of ongoing lawsuits regarding its digital lending practices.