The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself
The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself
The web’s collective memory is stored in the servers of the Internet Archive. Legal battles threaten to wipe it all away.
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[...] 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.
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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.
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.
With Google's new "don't be paying for anything someone else will do for free" MO I'm doubtful
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.
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
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
They poked the bear and now they are getting mauled. They should of just focused on the Way back machine
Boo to standing up for things!
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.
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.