Yet again the Internet Archiving is suffering big this time, a coalition of major record labels filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive demanding $700 million for the extensive catalog of 78 rpm records. 78s are sometimes more than a century old at this point and i bet a lot of them are out of copyright, but i suppose for the few that still are majors are hitting it big towards the IA

This lawsuit is pretty much another existential threat to the Internet Archive and everything it preserves, including the Wayback Machine, and we're fucked if we ever lose access to the Wayback Machine.

the original article asked to sign a petition, but i think a more logical way to support is to donate them directly so that they have more money to better defend themselves in court in this and other cases they'll undoubtedly face in the future

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] snroh@lemm.ee 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I mean, the american idiotic narrative of outraise, outspend, outcapitalist can get bent. when you're faced with such an immense force of vast resources, you don't raise a similar sized force and roll the dice on the outcome - you engage in asymetric warfare.

disperse all that shit in P2P networks with multiple redundancies with no single point of failure. who are they gonna sue, the i2p stack or whatever? fuck those fuckers.

I'd finance something like that with my meager resources, instead of filling some coffers to finance lawyers and whatnot.

[–] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 20 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

My Internet archive T-shirt just came in the mail.

[–] vivendi@programming.dev 47 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Guys PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, download it all. The only way to preserve information is to copy it until 1 survives

I am just a poor fucking Iranian with shitass internet and no money to buy a NAS but I'll try to hawk some part of it as much as I can

[–] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 16 hours ago

Is there a coordinated way to mirror it, like Anna's Archive is doing with their torrents? I'd be happy to pitch in a few terrabytes

[–] pedroapero@lemmy.ml 17 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

and they accept donations in crypto 👍

[–] SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com 215 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The Internet Archive should seriously consider moving outside US juristiction.

[–] MonkeyBrawler@lemm.ee 71 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

irc, it's already backed up to multiple other countries. I assume this isn't some crazy idea, and they've considered this themselves.

Donate to help their defense, or donate to help them move their infrastructure. I think they need money more than they need big brain ideas.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (4 children)

They need to operate out of a different country that respects human knowledge even at the expense of corporations' profits. What exactly that country is, I have no clue.

But yeah. In the short term, moving out of a fascist country to basically anywhere else is a good idea for them.

[–] Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 17 hours ago

None, lol. But there are some who don't give a shit about copyright because it benefits them

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] riverSpirit@thelemmy.club 84 points 1 day ago (1 children)

[–] nekothegamer@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

thank you so much, you're doing god's work

[–] murd0x@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

No No. It's man's work. Responsibility must not be shifted

[–] nekothegamer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

lol i know it was just a saying

[–] beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 68 points 1 day ago

Please move out of USA where trolls are more prevalent

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 1 day ago

willing to bet that the ia does a million more for artists than the record labels ever did

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There must be a lot of complicated aspects to this that I don't understand.

The right course of action seems obvious to me...

Firstly spin out a separate organisation to manage the wayback machine. It shouldn't be part of the pot defending against litigation like this.

Secondly, and I feel silly saying this but... don't institutionalise the perpetration of rights violations? In the age of distributed databases and the dark web and the block chain and federation surely we can figure out a way to archive media that doesn't put people or organisations at risk of litigation.

Finally, if the individuals involved with IA are not liable for the debts of IA then the organisation should fold because that's practically free compared to defending against these litigious assholes.

[–] splendoruranium@infosec.pub 12 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

In the age of distributed databases and the dark web and the block chain and federation surely we can figure out a way to archive media that doesn’t put people or organisations at risk of litigation

That limits and gatekeeps access to an enormous degree. The IA wants to be useful to everyone, not just the tiny fraction of the world population savvy enough to use the internet for more than opening a browser and a chat client.

don’t institutionalise the perpetration of rights violations?

Counterpoint: The perpetration of this kind of rights violation precisely needs to be normalized to the point of meaninglessness. Intellectual property can either go away top-down (which considering the way things went over the past century is never going to happen) or it can go away bottom up - it has to be flaunted and disregarded by everybody via continued large-scale disobedience.

Or, of course, it could just never go away.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

That limits and gatekeeps access

Not necessarily, I wasn't really proposing to just torrent everything. I was kinda dreaming of a more creative solution that trivialises access while abstracts the actual hosting away from individuals.

this kind of rights violation precisely needs to be normalized

Perhaps, but if so this just isn't the way to achieve that. IA doesn't seem sustainable.

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Sounds like a cool idea, why don't you set it up?

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Because I'm not facing a $700m legal claim with a change.org petition as my best defence.

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Archive.org has been operating for 30 years. You think your shitty little sarcasm is equivalent to an institution thats been around nearly as long as the internet, and yet has entirely resisted and avoided any of the enshittification thats infected literally everything else thats come after it? The internet archive is one of the last fundamentally good and public serving institutions and somehow you're licking the boots of record companies trying to capitalize on expired copyright claims. Reexamine your priorities and fuck off while youre at it, since your 'better idea' is clearly to just do nothing at all.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 9 hours ago

Lets back up the truck a little.

Sounds like a cool idea, why don't you set it up?

This sarcastic little witticism required a sarcastic and witty response, which I provided.

Obviously I'm not going to set it up because, as I said in my earlier comments it's a dreamy idea. I could go on to say, in the absence of such a technological solution, archive.org should still refrain from copyright infringement because they quite obviously aren't viable with their current stance.

you're licking the boots of record companies

You'll have to help me understand how this is so. In my comments I laid out a plan to maintain archive.org's data for no (or very little) cost or effort, while ensuring that those record company's receive nothing.

For users, the value of archive.org is the data. However, that data has no value to litigators nor anyone else. You can literally let the existing organisation collapse, and take the data to form a new organisation.

If you want to interpret this plan as doing "nothing at all" then you're free to do so.

However, and forgive me this final sarcasm, doing nothing at all would be more productive than a change.org petition.

[–] Azzu@lemm.ee 32 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The reason this is as public as it is is because an archive like this is more useful the more is archived. If you manage it in an entirely hidden way, you basically won't get it accessible from the clearnet and are relegated to keep it on Tor or similar. And once you do that, a lot less people will use it and thus it'll be a lot less useful.

Also, they are not only fighting for an archive to exist, they're fighting for it being a societally acceptable thing to exist.

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 8 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

I have a question. Would it be better for me to donate money to the Internet Archive, or would it be more beneficial long term to purchase a NAS and torrent as much stuff from TIA that I can?

[–] hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

why not both? small donations to the IA pile up. also the IA has several petabytes of data so it would be difficult to mirror that completely but sharing parts you're interested in (even on the small scale) can be immensely useful.

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 5 points 22 hours ago

I think that's a good idea. I'm planning on cancelling my $3/month discord subscription so money can go twords TIA instead
I have about a spare laptop I can setup to be a seeder in the closet or sthm

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] MonkeyBrawler@lemm.ee 2 points 15 hours ago

Do you use the archive? If not, it's likely you'll want that storage space for something else eventually. Have you priced out a NAS? $20 gives you a clean conscience, $1500 gives you a cool torch that you'll have to pass if called upon, would you take that action?

load more comments