If you want to establish a legal precedent, you can't just go to a court and ask them to. Courts only hear "cases and controversies" -- to establish what the law is, you have to get somebody to sue you.

The reason this could bankrupt them is mostly because they don't have a lot of money. Their net assets are only a couple million dollars. They have to raise more than that every year just to keep operating.

But it's also because the plaintiffs are vindictive. They know this is about setting a precedent. They don't like the precedent, so they're out for blood. They could have been civilized and only asked for an injunction.

That’s not a very believable scenario. First, the precedent is not worth much as all it would say is when all libraries in the whole country are closed, they can give away books for free - how often do you see that happening? Second, that’s not how precedent is established: typically a single case is hand-picked to serve as the exception to the rule taking great care to make it as palatable, appealing, and free of recriminations as possible and you take that to the courts. You don’t make available millions of books to billions of people, you make available a book or a hundred books or whatever number that it takes to prove your point without making matters worse for you and opening you up to such a massive liability. Third, you are making my point for me: again, some other website or organization should gamble their entire existence that isn’t worth as much as the Archive to get this precedent: whatever the reason, it’s a massive and hugely irresponsible gamble.

It’s not like the Archive doesn’t know what kind of people they are dealing with. They know publishers are out to stop second hand sales, ebook lending, right of resellers to set prices, and a million other things. It’s like expecting the RIAA or the MPAA to settle for an injunction when they have the chance to kill Napster/TPB/IsoTorrent/whatever. If it’s really in order to set a precedent then that’s damn short-sighted.

> First, the precedent is not worth much as all it would say is when all libraries in the whole country are closed, they can give away books for free - how often do you see that happening?

You're assuming the country being closed is especially relevant. The point is rather that they had physical books and weren't physically lending them out, in which case they should be able to digitally lend them out. If you're not lending more copies than you have, how is that not a reasonable argument?

> typically a single case is hand-picked to serve as the exception to the rule taking great care to make it as palatable, appealing, and free of recriminations as possible and you take that to the courts.

It's a well-loved actual library that only wants to lend out its books, what more do you want?

And if they'd only lent out a single book, would that have gotten them into court? It had to be enough for the plaintiffs to care.

> some other website or organization should gamble their entire existence that isn’t worth as much as the Archive to get this precedent

Why? It has to be a real library. You would rather some other library take the risk, or that nobody ever do it?

> It’s not like the Archive doesn’t know what kind of people they are dealing with.

And that's the point. The people they're dealing with are the bullies and the Archive is supposed to back down? Somebody has to fight the fight.

> If you're not lending more copies than you have, how is that not a reasonable argument?

That's the crux of the problem, though. The Internet Archive originally followed that model making that very argument; that argument hasn't actually been tested in court and the legality of it isn't settled, but publishers were generally looking the other way. But in March, the IA lifted the limit, allowing an unlimited number of people to read the same book on the grounds that closing physical libraries created a national emergency.

I somehow doubt that they actually lent books to an unlimited number of people, since an unlimited number of people don't exist. So then you get into questions like, did they actually lend out more copies than exist in all the libraries that are physically closed? Probably not, right? Probably not even close to that. So that's an interesting question on something like digital inter-library loans.

And we still haven't heard their response, only what the plaintiffs are claiming.

> If you want to establish a legal precedent, you can't just go to a court and ask them to. Courts only hear "cases and controversies" -- to establish what the law is, you have to get somebody to sue you.

> The reason this could bankrupt them is mostly because they don't have a lot of money. Their net assets are only a couple million dollars. They have to raise more than that every year just to keep operating.

Are you trying to claim that Internet Archive purposely tried to set a precedent, knowing they don't have enough money to actually do it? That sounds like a pretty damning accusation of gross incompetence.

I would rather support organizations that make strategic blunders than organizations which compromise their principles.

You can't when organizations make blunders that destroy themselves.

I can, do, and will. There has to be room in the charity ecosystem for organizations that take risks.

It remains to be seen whether this blunder will actually destroy the Internet Archive.

In general, I think the idea that good things have to last forever is overrated. Organizations willing to compromise their values eventually drift away from those values completely, which is worse than simply ceasing to exist--such organizations can linger on and do more harm than good.

How is staying out of this altogether “compromising their principles?”

"Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge."[1]

That is pretty unambiguous.

[1] https://archive.org/about/

EDIT: The previous version of this post was unnecessarily combative, in response to what may have been a good faith question. Sorry.

>Are you trying to claim that Internet Archive purposely tried to set a precedent, knowing they don't have enough money to actually do it?

Well, at least there's an implicit admission justice is bought by the highest bidder.

They can count on support from many. Maybe they have a plan.

> They can count on support from many. Maybe they have a plan.

I've looked at the complaint, and I've lived through the Napster trial. It would be one thing if they had a good case and just needed funds to make it through the trial. That's not what's going on here.

When you mix statutory copyright violation with digital technology, you get infinite fines. Any money you donate is going to the book publishers at the end of the day.

We just pay the bill again and go - meh?

Small point: you don’t technically have to wait until someone sues you. It is possible to seek a declaratory judgment (where a court issues a legal finding) without waiting to be sued. You do have to show that there is an actual controversy before a court will hear you, as you note.

There's no controversy here though. What IA did was plainly on the "not legal" side of the line. (I mean, there are surely some people who believe otherwise, but you can find someone who believes almost anything.)

Last i checked rosa parks did something illegal too.

Not all laws need to be followed.

And just because some people will beleive anything doesnt make this belief any less relevant or important.

You may feel that the dismantling of copyright is an issue on par with civil rights. However, that sentiment is rare, and isn't supported by any plain reading of the constitution, unlike racial equality. IA's not going to be setting any precedents in the defense of the lawsuit. They are going to be handed a swift, expensive, and one-sided defeat.

The sentiment that blacks are equal was rare once too.

I find your understanding of this rather contrived given that your constitution has nothing to do with me.

Your ip laws on the other hand, well, they stretch far and wide around countries that would rather have nothing to do with you.

I would prefer, if youre going to refute my claims, you at least acknowledge them.

Like, the fact ip law had a net benefit to society when they were conceived. But have since been twisted and applied dishonestly.

Can anyone tell me what the real damage would be if we limited copyright terms to one year? And what would be the real benefit to society at large to freely access information?

What you're talking about isn't the same as what I'm talking about. I'm dealing with the idea that there's a precedent setting end to IA's decision. There isn't. They don't have a snowball's chance in a supernova of winning this case. It's was just dumb.

Your concerns about the effect of America's IP laws is a totally different issue. Your government presumably either believes that IP law is a net benefit today, or else wants something else that america had enough to hold their nose and make a deal. There are some political steps you can take to try to reverse that scenario but I'm afraid IA's actions here have no bearing on that. They can't possibly help you at all.

As to the rest of what you said, does it have merit? I don't know. What I do know is that IA will be worse off after this lawsuit is done.

Rosa Park took a personal risk. People at IA are risking the archive.

No, she didn't!

Rosa Parks launched a boycott to protest a bus system that was so racist that even the horrific Jim Crow laws weren't enough for bus drivers who kicked off black people (and police officers who arrested them) who had a legal right to their seats.

Other protests broke the law with sit-ins.

Rosa Parks was arrested and convicted for breaking a city law.

Dont bother, these people have no intention of coming back and changing their minds. They made them up long ago.

What would the precedent be anyway ? It's not a major victory to have some national emergency exception for DMCA.

You probably want to be sure you can win.

Actual Libraries buy materials and loan them. I don't think that is what archive.org was doing. I don't think the content owners are being bad guys here.

I found this initiative really irritating, as there are almost certainly better ways to accomplish the objective legally.

If you want to keep providing an important service, you don't try to establish precedents if you can avoid it.

Could you site your source for "their net assets are only a couple million dollars"? Knowing the scope of the organization, that number would surprise me.

Total revenue $20 Million.

Revenue is not assets.

Cloned from a Monty Python production: you're only making it worse...

For me, I can't help but place blame on the actual agents of its potential demise: the plaintiffs of this lawsuit

Yes, I think that perspective is actually more relevant, even if the IA might have made a mistake.

But I see only victims in this conflict. Most authors today don't really eat with golden spoons and to have an organisation that helps them get their fair share of the work they put into the books is certainly necessary in the internet age.

On the other hand the internet archive is an extremely valuable service. I hope some form of agreement can be reached that doesn't end in even more dysfunctional laws or judgments around copyright or the end of business for any participant.

Personally, I find it hard to be sympathetic to the publishers and authors when they are so over-the-top. Painting the Internet Archive as "vile" and claiming they don't provide any valuable service strikes me as so far from the truth as to be insulting. It feels like they are targeting people who don't really know much about what IA is or what they do... That makes me wonder if it's really about more than IA and their emergency lending program, but now I'm probably starting to sound paranoid.

I'm sure that some authors lost some dollars to this program, but is it really all that much? The coverage on the lawsuit doesn't mention how much injury the publishers (and, to a much lesser degree, their authors) have suffered.

I’m writing a novel. I’ve been at it since 2016, partly because project planning is just as hard outside of software and partly because I have a full-time job too. Based on what people like Charlie Stross blog about, and based on the few sales estimates I can find, even if I reach the heady highs of ranking 214th biggest SciFi writer by sales, I will make less than $40k in lifetime sales for four year’s work.

As income goes, this is a lottery.

This has little or nothing to do with any supposed reduction in book sales the Internet Archive or any other library, dead-tree or bittorrent, has caused, and quite a lot to do with publishers screwing authors out of royalties for books they do sell. I have no sympathy any author too stupid to realize that publishers are to blame for their still needing a day job after (for example of Myke Cole) twelve books, two TV shows, and a comic series.

If piracy had zero or positive impact, a genuinely greedy publisher wouldn’t care or would actively encourage it.

When I do finally finish this thing and try to get it published, I will go though a normal publisher, because I like listening to the advice of people who’ve been though things before: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/03/why-i-d...

Also, no: most authors need day jobs because sales are a generally power-law distributions.

Whoa, you have very inflated view of how much an author makes. I follow Myke Cole on Twitter his tag line is:

9 fantasy novels, 1 sci-fi novel, 2 history books, 2 TV shows, 1 comic series, 1 day job, 0 sleep

The guy has published 12 books and STILL needs a day job.

I'm not familiar with Myke Cole or his books. I'm sure they are quite good. I think that quality is more important then quantity though.

Some people on here seem to make one app and kick back for years on the earnings while others churn out one after the other unprofitable software tool.

I myself have written 3 novella, 1 book of short stories, 1 movie, 2 native apps, and 4 web apps. I can't live on the royalties from any of them but I know there are people who do less and get more.

This is the fallacy of assuming that people would pay for content they can't pirate.

I haven't seen any evidence that the shrinking earnings of authors are related to piracy. From what I've read, publishers are simply retaining more of the profits for themselves and, often, theorizing that piracy is somehow raising their costs yet providing little by way of documentation.

https://www.statista.com/topics/3928/reading-habits-in-the-u...

That's what sukilot said: it is a fallacy to assume that people would pay for content that they can't pirate. In actuality, it's the other way around: people pirate content that they can't pay for (either because they have no money (at all or in a currency that the publisher accepts), or because the publish refuses to deliver the content (either at all or in a format they can actully use, ie not DRM-encumbered or otherwise defective)).

That would be great if I’ve misunderstood and the Internet Archive is really only lending our books that aren’t for sale. (And, as is probably universal on this site, I think DRM in books is both bad and dumb: bad for accessibility, dumb because of how easy it is to OCR text).

Likewise, unless I misunderstood, they already had a legit lending library system set up, but they broke the rules and made it infinite free copies for everyone.

I hope there is a happy ending to this story, because I like the internet archive, but at the moment it looks like they got their legal advice from the same minds who came up with Freeman Of The Land.

> That would be great if I've misunderstood and the Internet Archive is really only lending our books that aren't for sale.

I'm not sure if they are only lending books that aren't for sale, but my understanding is that the overwhelming majority of the books involved are in fact not available for purchase. A book that is only available in DRM-encumbered form is not available at all.

It seems unlikely to me that piracy is a major factor, as headline-grabbing as it often tends to be. It's hard for me to even hazard a guess how the IA's "emergency library" would really affect things; it's not piracy in any conventional understanding of the term, but maybe that makes it more likely to cost authors potential sales, because it's so easy to read the book for free. But I want to triple underline that maybe and surround it with question marks.

There is no fallacy in my statement, it's an anecdote supplied to show some fairly popular, published authors are not making enough money to quit their day job. For those authors, losing income would be painful. It's an example that proves the comment I'm replying to isn't correct.

I'm not even arguing that they would lose money.

That’s a reply to an argument for abolishing BitTorrent, and not on-topic. What the Archive did is obviate the need to even pirate: everyone could get content “for free” from a legal entity operating under US laws and subsuming all liabilities.

Suddenly you can get your book for free without even the legal or ethical hazards.

They are targeting their competitor.

The authors aren't involved in this, unfortunately.

The plaintiffs here are publishers—you know, the ones who take the vast majority of all profit from all book sales, despite massive increases in scalability over the past century.

If the plaintiffs win this, authors won't see a cent.

I am an author, I'm published by one of the publishers involved, and I'm very happy that they're doing it.

"...to have an organisation that helps them get their fair share of the work they put into the books is certainly necessary in the internet age..."

The publishers?

IA has ruffled a lot of feathers over the years with their copying of copyrighted content, putting all the eggs in a single basket was understandable given the resource constraints they are operating under, starting a war using that basket as a shield was not the best move they could have made, especially knowing who the opposition is.

The publishers have been out for their blood for a long time, this is essentially handing them a very easy victory. They'll be very lucky if they survive - and so will we.

Assuming it is possible to copy the data I would support an effort to make an off-line backup on the off chance that they get shut down completely and lose access to their assets.

The plaintiffs are arguing that IA broke the law and that they as plaintiffs had their rights violated.

If IA shuts down it will technically be the courts fining them, but I have trouble pinning blame on the court or the injured party asking for relief. Nor can IA claim ignorance here.

That's a bit like blaming the iceberg for sinking the Titanic. I mean, what did you expect was going to happen?

Either way, whoever gets the blame doesn't matter to the outcome. Court rulings don't have to be popular.

"Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers, [Internet Archive] scans print books"

That's a lie, unless they are alleging that those print books were stolen, they were bought and paid for. That is how print books work, for the most part?

That is not how digital lending libraries work. You must only lend out the number of copies you own. Similarly, you can’t buy a movie and set up a free streaming site. IA has no legal leg to stand on

The entire sentence is not a lie, as you know. You extraction of the first part is misleading.

Isn't it better to have people learn from their mistakes (if this is a mistake) - at least, perhaps, learn to be more circumspect - rather than just getting rid of people who have experience of making mistakes?

I hate that whole thing about requiring people to resign because they made a mistake (if it's genuine); obviously a pattern of mistakes is different. An obvious blunder would also be different, where it was self-evidently wrong and lacked mitigation.

No. A board that collectively shirks its responsibilities to the stakeholders needs to be replaced. It’s not like no one could have predicted this was a possibility- and even their board did too, but they gambled that it was worth it.

What that tells you is that their board does not place the sustainability and long-term availability of the archive over all other metrics and I think that’s a fundamental issue that can’t be corrected. If growth, popularity, increasing in scope, etc are more important to the archive’s board than the guaranteed existence of the content they’ve curated ten, twenty, or a hundred years from now then they are not worthy protectors of it. The archive’s worth isn’t the data they have today, it’s the fact that they promised to safekeep it for the years to come. If they can’t be trusted to do that and place that over everything else, then they are failing what the whole world has been sharing data and making donations in the name of.

That doesn't seem like an honest mistake, everyone knew this was very risky move. In such a case, someone has to be accountable. There can't be only upsides and no downsides for taking risks.

The board are in that role because they’ve made the mistakes and are now experts who can avoid them and are truested to. If its an obvious mistake they shouldnt be board members.

Agreed. Or at least every board member that supported the action should be expected to step down.

I really want the service provided by IA to continue. Even though I have never used it, I recognize how valuable it is to humanity as a whole. But if the people running organization providing that service are going to jeopardize it like that, then they must take responsibility.

"I’m an executive board member for a much smaller IRL non-profit and could never imagine opening us up to such liabilities."

Most non-profits, like almost all organizations, have the primary goal of continuing to exist as an organization, not do whatever charitable ideals they purport to support.

And if you’re the only one offering said service?...

archive.org is a primary target for the book burners. As with any big thorn; they dont need coordination to attack it; it's practically a law of nature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20623177

Archive team: is there a 101 on getting pages? I struggle to archive the things I want because of the JS interface and the generated data. I just want the links to the original GET 's and source files.

Torrents for the lowest level data per domain would be excellent. I would donate (again) to get priority for the ones I am interested in.

https://archive.org/donate

"I struggle to archive the things I want because of the JS interface and the generated data. "

Similar experience here, the interface and, worse, the lack of built-in p2p redundancy, even on the gross level, is quite staggering considering that the Archive org has modelled itself around the protection and archival of brittle information.

Really hope the lawsuit swings in their favour but damn there's work to do for them. When they last held a fundraiser because their traffic overwhelmed their servers I had a look at their basic search front page - it came in at a staggering 7-8mb per pageload as compared to under 100kb for most regular search engines?! This frankly makes me unlikely to donate since it seems so mismanaged that one -cannot- throw enough money at that for it to work at scale.

Is there a different way than downloading the displayed page from the wayback machine again? It seems to support raw html download but I haven't found a way to get the accompanying JS/CSS easily.

I saw some API to manage ones' own collections but that seems to be only for owners...

I’d ask on email or IRC. Info is probably on their site but I couldn’t find it yet.

https://www.archiveteam.org/

>Assuming the organization continues to exist after this ordeal, their entire board should step down for putting at risk one of the most invaluable archives in existence.

Wouldn't that kill the organisation?

Putting aside the obvious “not if there is a clear and agreed upon plan for naming their replacements,” there is actually a very different last resort for organizations (typically non-profits) that are deemed to be in service of the community (even if just as a place of employment but especially when they are furthering a mission) where the courts are granted custody of the non-profit and appoint a respected member of the community to maintain core operations as they oversee the process of creating a new board of directors, possibly by setting up elections, creating a committee to establish new governing bylaws, etc so that the good a non-profit has been doing isn’t wholly undone by the dissolution of its governing body.