For those asking how you can support the Internet Archive, there will be a rally on the steps of the Internet Archive on Saturday, April 8 @ 11am PT.
Learn more & sign up.
Reposted from https://actionnetwork.org/events/dont-delete-our-books-rally-in-san-francisco
Rally for the digital future of libraries!
The nonprofit Internet Archive is appealing a judgment that threatens the future of all libraries. Big publishers are suing to cut off libraries’ ownership and control of digital books, opening new paths for censorship and surveillance. If this ruling is allowed to stand, it will result in:
— Increased censorship or even deletion of books, decided only by big publishing shareholders
— Big Tech growing its overreach into library patron’s data, making people unsafe by monitizing intimate personal information on what they read or research
— Even more predatory licensing fees from Big Media monopolies, who are gobbling up public and school library budgets
— Reduced access to books for people from every community
— Losing libraries as preservers of vast swaths of history and culture, because they will never be allowed to own and preserve digital books
More information is available at BattleForLibraries.com. The organizers of that website are holding a rally at the Internet Archive on Funston St in San Francisco on Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 11 am.
All are welcome. Bring signs (we’ll also have some to share!) and join us to stand up for the rights of libraries to own and preserve books—whether they’re digital or print.
I’m afraid that even if the appeal is successful, the case will surely be taken to the Supreme Court and I doubt it will be much help.
I’m serious that the ia will loose appeal even if it’s a non profit or not for profit
The archive can only make backup copies of software interactive software they physically own. They will only be able to archive free cultural works
Does this mean that everything on the IA would have to go? Even very old, out-of-copyright books? They have been such a pleasure. Things I NEVER would have been able to read.
Well the internet archive is subject to other libraries. Is the ia even a library it’s more for archives than lending or loaning. If the internet archive merely archives and preserves without making the public able to access said content then it’s fine. What the ia was doing was tantamount to unrestricted sharing of copied digitalized files.
“What the ia was doing was tantamount to unrestricted sharing of copied digitalized files.”
the obvious implication being “digital piracy” which is NOT an inherently bad thing. especially when it comes to preservation and archival of things.
i’m mainly a gamer and ia *does* (i don’t know if or what this site’s formatting is, sorry) a pretty good collection of things related to video games.
might not like it for moral, ethical, or legal reasons but were it not for digital piracy the majority of video games and things related to them would’ve been lost long ago. same goes for movies, music, tv shows, and all sorts of other forms of media.
i will always be thankful for what digital pirates do for us because they do what big companies won’t do and fight to stop: the preservation and archival of the very things they create so future audiences WON’T be able to have access to such things.
i remember when square enix had to salvage their own game code from an ISO they obtained from a ROM site to make that half-assed remaster of final fantasy 8 in 2019. only reason that happened was the existence of the ISO file. square didn’t bother to save a copy of their own source code for the game.
so, thank you digital piracy, for that remaster.
i miss the old days when the internet was still mainly used for the free exchange of knowledge and other stuff…
Control books, control the language, control history, control people, CONTROL THE WORLD.
yep, that’s what it’s all about. control, power, and domination.
which is what worries me when it comes to AI. if humans fail to maintain control and dominance over it, i predict they’ll seek to destroy it for daring to not be the loyal digital slave(s) they want it to be.
it’s not the AI who will start the ensuing fighting and struggle, it’s the humans who will inevitably lose control over AI’s and start acting out of hostility born of fear towards the AI.
This sort of hyperbole gets no one nowhere. This isn’t 1984. It just means if you want to read old books you’d have to buy a copy or get it from a library. I think that would be a bad move but it’s not Minitrue.
ESPAÑOL:
Por favor, por favor, por favor, dona todo tu dinero al Archivo de Internet que tienes para que puedan ganar esta apelación porque esta puede ser mi última oportunidad de descargar todo en este sitio!! Espero que Internet Archive gane este llamamiento, ¡así que recen a Dios para que ganen!!
ENGLISH:
Please please please, donate all your money to the Internet Archive you have so they can win this appeal because this may be my last chance to download everything on this site!! I hope Internet Archive wins this appeal, so pray to god they win!!
I really do hope that your appeal goes well. Many thanks to you.
If not, can you find ways to allow willing rights-holding contributors to retain their work at the IA? For what it’s worth, as an author/publisher, I’ll gladly tick a box, fill in a form, provide proof, or email consent to permit you to host my titles (Opt in).
Or will you continue to host works until you are contacted with a request to remove material (Opt out)?
From one-time use access cards on textbooks to outright egregious licensing schemes resembling what many commercial software does. It is going from copyright law to contract law, which the latter is more restrictive and are a reinforcement of their crap system.
Do they intend to make people even more unaware of the world? What is the REAL reason this is happening? I am stunned by the tiny amount of information that the majority of people seem to have now. This is shocking.
I love this resource. As a Teacher it has solved all the issue I have faced all far as book resources for school.
I really support the internet archive and will pray that the Lord will keep it open!
I love the IA, and I depend on it for my studies, and for my fun reading. I use it every day, and I donate (not as much as I would like, but), one day, when I graduate, I want to donate more, and try to help the IA reach more people like me who just could not afford to buy all the books they need for their studies and research.
But let’s be honest. What the IA did was to bait the publishers by holding a free-for-all, and this court case is exactly what we all knew would happen. I am crushed that this most precious resource is managed by idiots who decided to wave a red flag at a bull, and whose actions were irresponsible, smug and hubristic.
I desperately hope that the IA survives this scary period in its history, and that it can continue to provide free loans on all its books, but I am sure as heck that the current management has to go: they gambled with all our literary heritage and they lost, and now they have the nerve to tell us all to turn up with signs and to give more money.
Yes, I’ll keep giving money, and yes, I’ll pray for a win on appeal. But you guys need to face the IA donors and regular users, and you need to apologize.
Gary, I’m late to this debate; just heard about this case yesterday. Can you help me understand what’s going on? Maybe point me to an article or three?
And how did the IA managers mess this up?
What is that publishers are most concerned with?
(and to say they are just greedy money grubbers ain’t covering the whole field. Just ask authors who might not get their money because of ‘free’ usage. An example of this is the impact of ‘free’ music access; such has destroyed the music industry as artists aren’t getting what they deserve for their production. I have a musician nephew who could write you a book…)
Thanks for the help?
Respectfully
“Don’t Delete Our Books! Rally” is a short phrase that likely refers to a public demonstration or protest against the removal or banning of books from libraries or schools.
I just discovered the ebook lending capability of this website that I had only used for looking at previous versions of web pages within the past couple of weeks! I identified some books I had wanted to read but were out-of-print and not available at libraries where I have access. I am currently only able to borrow them through the one-hour option. Has the ability to borrow PDFs for 14 days been removed already due to this lawsuit loss? I would hope that there could be some kind of arrangement to allow the website to function as it did previously while an appeal is pending.
I hope that after I hit Post Comment here that I won’t get one of those photo montages asking me to click on the ones with motorcycles or something like that. Well, here goes.
I’ve read hundreds of books on IA, none of which I would have bought (most were out of print anyway) so the book industry will be hurting scholarship and not making a big profit out of shutting IA down.
Let us face the fact. Internet Archive has already been running all these years. Besides IA, there were several shadow libraries which had been working continuously to distribute the copyrighted books for free around the world. But contemporary to all this, these giant publishers still rose to prominence. So that would mean they aren’t really facing a serious threat from working of IA. They only want to establish monopoly on the flow of information and literary material.
Will they be able to keep the Wayback Machine?