The Internet Archive Situation Just Got Worse...

Losing Internet Archive would be the modern day equivalent of the burning of Alexandria

When the Internet Archive finally vanishes, a decade down the road it will be understood that we then lost the modern equivalent of the Library of Alexandria.

Upping my monthly donation. Not only will you own nothing, you'll also only be able to rent the things they've decided not to delete. As Louis Rossman says, "If paying isn't owning, then piracy isn't theft."

I used to be an academic, and at one point I was the person who liased with the uni library on reading lists etc. From that I learned of the racket that the publishing houses run, and they hold universities to ransom over licenses and subscriptons for publications. I have zero sympathy for the publishing houses. E-publications have profit margins from 40-90%. If you've been at uni and your library didn't have the publication you needed, or not enough copies, or you could only have the e-book for 24hrs...that's because publication houses charge a fortune for the license for a publication, and have loads of restrictions on those licenses. Each year the publishers push the prices up, and add loads of publications into "subscription bundles" that a uni doesn't want but will add 25% to the price. So, boo hoo to the poor publication houses. And I mean metaphorically poor because they are making serious money

ARCHIVE THE ARCHIVE

Fuck corporate greed and people who prioritize money over the preservation of history

We need to make a mirror of the Internet Archive on "international waters" ASAP.

Many don't realize that out of all copyright holders, Music, Movies, Games, Software, Books the oldest one has been the worst for preserving media. Book Publishers have always been like this and deserve the least respect out of all of them

if anything happens to internet archive we will legit lose like 50% of media on the internet 😟

Why can't we have something like this nationally? Why not allow people to access old data that can't be hidden by a paywall.

As a design student who actually needed to read certain books on say anthropometric data, I was surprised of how hard it is to find a physical or digital copy of some of the best books on the subject. It's so frustrating to know a book exists, but you're unable to access it or find it. My country's biggest library had no physical copy. The digital copy was inaccessible. I went onto world wide webs to find it and made a dozen registrations on sites that supposedly had it. Only to be given access to some "preview" of the book. I used my edu accounts, but was stopped with a message saying my institution doesn't own access. Can't even pirate this shit because nobody in their right mind would want to read it.

“Internet Archive is under attack and it’s bad” gives more information and examples about how more companies can go after them

There's a reason I Archive/hoard data, they keep deleting everything.

This is why copyright, patent and trademark laws need to be shorter to the point of putting pressure on corporations.

"Digital Lending" is nonsense artificial scarcity, particularly when the item in question is out of print.

the "banning" of the hunger games in the US is from some schools. Hardly a book ban when you can still get it from any book store.

i miss 1990's/2000 when the internet was the internet.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past" - George Orwell (1984)

That's actual so messed up, internet archive should have legal exemptions

Thank you for covering this. I take preservation VERY seriously. My brother doesn’t understand. I was trying to explain the Vimm’s Lair situation to him. He’s the type to think “it’s property of the company they can stop people from uploading it because it’s theirs” even though these companies literally haven’t done ANYTHING with some of these games in 50 years.