In June of 2020, facing a range of challenges, we posted a host of information about how you could help the Internet Archive through difficult and pressing times.
Pretty much all of the suggestions and links in that essay still hold up and are relevant this month as well, and we are the Historical Web people, so here is a full link to that post again:
http://blog.archive.org/2020/06/14/how-can-you-help-the-internet-archive/
Your words of support and letting us know what we mean to you are appreciated, and read with great happiness. Thanks.
I support. internet Archive . U people Made me read books during COVID days wherein I was in depression and stayed disturbed . But Archive helped me to overcome with books old enough published during 1950 and 1960 Litrature and Novels regarding Buddhism and Taoism . I am with u Internet Archive . Go Ahead . Stay Ahead .
Same!
Apoyo Archivo de Internet. El curso de Francés sin esfuerzo me parece muy bueno. Lo estoy haciendo con la traducción al castellano. Realmente en la primera lección he aprendido mucho más que de cualquier otro curso de Francés.
Gracias.
Dear Internet Archive:
This litigation you face is simply a planned step in the destruction of Western Civilization by the Satanic cults behind the New World Order. Simply, it is a coordinated effort by enemy-owned Marxist unions and foreign governments that own the United States.
Look at the groups that are attacking Internet libraries and burning down physical libraries and churches, and you will see this in its correct context. Your destruction is simply one step in their war against all mankind. It has been planned for a long time, and independent research by an individual who pays attention will show that this Satanic cult is not shy about broadcasting their plans for us all, including “YOU WILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY”. Internet Archive, your work must be destroyed in the modern war against Western Civilization. But the enemy plans for their failure to do so; they want “isolated communities” with the censored Internet as an “echo chamber”. Make no mistake: this is a literal war that we face, and the invading troops will be coming once the stage is set.
These are the evil adversaries who have publicly exposed their hand in this legal attack you face; with a wartime discipline that JFK called on the public to have (https://archive.org/details/jfk_secret_societies), EVERYONE absolutely MUST boycott these groups and never again support them in any way, shape, or form; note that “international” is code for “globalist” and “New World Order”, and they have LITERALLY INFINITE MONEY AND INFINITE POLITICAL INFLUENCE criminally backing them while they take down America piece by piece; these groups are TREASONOUS and GUILTY OF INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIME in their active measures against freedom of thought on earth:
HACHETTE BOOK GROUP, INC.,
HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS LLC,
JOHN WILEY & SONS, INC.,
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE LLC,
THE AUTHORS GUILD, INC.,
WESTERN WRITERS OF AMERICA,
CANADIAN AUTHORS ASSOCIATION,
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTISTS,
THE WRITERS’ UNION OF CANADA,
INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS FORUM,
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MEDIA PHOTOGRAPHERS,
ROMANCE WRITERS OF AMERICA,
SOCIETY OF CHILDREN’S BOOK WRITERS AND ILLUSTRATORS,
EUROPEAN WRITERS COUNCIL,
NATIONAL WRITERS UNION,
GRAPHIC ARTISTS GUILD,
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR COLLECTIVE RIGHTS LICENSING,
SOCIETY OF AUTHORS,
SISTERS IN CRIME,
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF JOURNALISTS,
DRAMATISTS GUILD OF AMERICA,
NATIONAL PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION,
NOVELISTS INC.,
ASSOCIATION OF AUTHORS AGENTS,
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS AND AUTHORS,
THE UNION DES ÉCRIVAINES ET DES ÉCRIVAINS QUÉBÉCOIS,
EUROPEAN VISUAL ARTISTS,
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION,
FEDERATION OF EUROPEAN PUBLISHERS,
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL AND MEDICAL PUBLISHERS,
INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF SOCIETIES OF AUTHORS AND COMPOSERS,
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF FILM PRODUCERS ASSOCIATIONS,
INTERNATIONAL VIDEO FEDERATION,
INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PHONOGRAPHIC INDUSTRY,
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP: Elizabeth A. McNamara, Linda J. Steinman, John M. Browning, Jesse Feitel, Carl Mazurek, 1251 Avenue of the Americas, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10020, (212) 489-8230,
Attorney Oppenheim + Zebrak, LLP: Scott A. Zebrak (pro hac vice), Matthew J. Oppenheim, Danae Tinelli (pro hac vice), 4530 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20016, (202) 480-2999,
COWAN, DeBAETS, ABRAHAMS & SHEPPARD LLP: Nancy E. Wolff, Alexander Gigante, Elizabeth Safran, 41 Madison Avenue, 38th Floor, New York, New York 10010, (212) 974-7474
And a special thanks to MICHELLE M. WU, LIBRARY FUTURES INSTITUTE, EVERYLIBRARY INSTITUTE, READERSFIRST, KENNETH D. CREWS, KEVIN L. SMITH, AUTHORS ALLIANCE, INC., ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION, DURIE TANGRI LLP, and anonymous scholars and law professors for intelligently advocating freedom as AMICUS CURIAE and legal representatives for the Internet Archive. https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-amicus-brief-michelle-wu
https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-amicus-brief-library-futures-institute-everylibrary-institute
https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-amicus-brief-kenneth-crews-and-kevin-smith
https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-amicus-brief-intellectual-law-professors
https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-amicus-brief-authors-alliance
https://www.eff.org/document/achette-v-internet-amicus-brief-13-copyright-scholars
https://www.eff.org/document/hachette-v-internet-archive-internet-archives-opposition-motion-summary-judgment
America is under attack. The entire world of men who desire to live is under attack. Good luck, Internet Archive. We will be watching.
Um, okay.
Our freedoms are being stripped based on profit and greedy control of mighty mega wall street corporates. How is internet archive different from other libraries? Isn’t the goal of a library to offer as much intellectual resources, helpful reference materials and entertainment books, movies, downloads, etc to the widest audience possible without paying for the use? What’s next in this country? Library use fees for all services.
Can you please be more clear on exactly which services are going to stop working??. Thank you.
Explain to me how this is remotely related to anything Marxist. This is literally LARGE CORPORATIONS who hold COPYRIGHTS not wanting people to have access to THEIR CONTENT FOR FREE. If you ask any leftist, they would be in support of the Internet Archive and libraries. “Western Civilization” is literally banning books currently and trying hard as Hell to paint anyone who doesn’t agree with an American exceptionalist, Christian mindset as a child groomer, worshipper of Satan, or agent of a foreign power. What alternate reality are you living in?
I think you mis-posted, the tinfoil hat enthusiast is a bit further up
I use the wayback machine a lot, and also the WBGS system to help with mass page-saving. Even though I don’t use the other features the IA use, I still care about the OL because it is not just links to another webpage Wikipedia cite its sources, it is also citing books. If a book goes out of print and is completely lost, is the equivalent to a linkrot when a webpage goes 404.
It’s egregious to see those 4 companies believed that the OL is a giant pirate site, when really this system mimics what libraries do centuries ago. Anyone and I mean anyone can buy a book from the bookstore and literally own it without any influence from the publisher, give it to the library and lend it out without any payment. There is no evidence of a lost sale if an average joe buys a book and donate it to the library, vs if the average joe instead ask the IA to buy a book and gave the IA the money to purchase the book vs the IA itself buys the book, all of which results in 1 sale. If any of these books the IA literally owns have a licensed version, it does not affect the rights of ownership the IA has on the said books. Licensing schemes don’t retroactively apply to older books before the license version exists. Such a restrictive scheme only applies when the IA signs a binding contract.
The national emergency library (NEL), when it close down, gives the effect as if the NEL didn’t exist at all because after that happens, the download/lending limit goes back on and on the next checkout will revert the downloaded books back to the default controlled-digital-lending mode. During the NEL, all other restrictions on the digitized books are retained (copy, distribute, and requires re-checking out when the timer expires), which further renders the books in question a temporary access (the IA basically yank them back, completely undoing the effect). Therefore, there is no long-term impact of the market. This temporary event shouldn’t require the IA to have review, commentary, or info about to be considered fair use about them because how on earth can borrowers obtain books from the library when they can’t? Also this isn’t the role of libraries to review, have commentary over, or info about. This system is a detour when the libraries across the US were closed down, to maintain access pre-purchased non-licensing-scheme books.
I really hate to see a future of the internet where you visit a Wikipedia article and all its citations are broken because the books it links to are no longer available and the WBM is also wiped. Not only that, but having missing sources can even be dangerous to wikipedia for being accused for defamation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litigation_involving_the_Wikimedia_Foundation :
“In January 2019, a court in Germany ruled against the Wikimedia Foundation, prompting it to remove part of the history and the allegedly defamatory content about a professor. The Wikipedia article’s content was ruled defamatory because the link supporting its claims was no longer active, a phenomenon known as “link rot.””
Beyond that, you find that a crapload of links in general across the internet to especially old sites will cease to work. Pages or websites getting deleted or altered happens often especially on news and file hosting sites. Without preservation of the truth, the internet becomes unreliable, and the internet will be infested deeply with misinformation.
The judge has failed to understand what role the OL is trying to do and instead simply views it as a site that tries to do something else that is akin to a sharing site that should’ve review, do commentary, or info about to have fair use apply.
I see this a purposeful censorship. They don’t want anyone to know anything about the past, claim it’s “outdated” and be done with it.
Every act of censorship is a psychological warfare attack against humanity. This is a planned act of war in the destruction of Western Civilization.
Did you think that you were living in peace time?
The Satanic New World Order is working hard to destroy Christianity piece by piece. What, have you been living under a rock the past 60 years? Everyone should know this by now. What do you think COVID was for?
https://archive.org/details/jfk_secret_societies/
ok cut it out, it’s not that deep, this is just regular capitalist corporate greed.
I support Internet Archive!! What’s wring with having universal digitized Library!!? It serves people and it is one of the greatest gift for humanity. Erasing internet archive would be a catastrophe, since it serves many people who need to do important research! , like doing essay, getting ideas for gathering truths, facts, history, and any need for the use of important information. It helps writers too to gather information and research to create a book!
The March 28 email alert I got today– the first I had heard of this– was completely opaque about what the danger was. I had to read halfway through Brewster’s post to find this astonish news, which should have been the email alert to the general public:
“The publishers are now demanding that those millions of digitized books, not only be made inacces-
sible, but be destroyed.
This is horrendous. Let me say it again- the publishers are demanding that millions of digitized
books be destroyed.
And if they succeed in destroying our books or even making many of them inaccessible, there will be
a chilling effect on the hundreds of other libraries that lend digitized books as we do.
This could be the burning of the Library of Alexandria moment- millions of books from our community’s libraries– gone.”
You librarians have to get yourself a real PR team. You’re not up to this. I couldn’t even find a place to write you, except for this odd comment board.
I think we should all support the Internet archive.
There is nothing out there that can compare to IA.
It offers so much, I hope it will remain a continuos resource for all people.
Thank you for being there, IA.
Seichi.
Don’t let them win, Internet Archive! They will use every dirty tactic in the book to ensure the shutdown of this site! They will lie and manipulate to get what they want! Keep fighting! We stand with you! Keep fighting to preserve these archives so people can access them for generations to come! Don’t let them win!
I doubt anyone from the Internet Archive reads these but if someone does this is an important point worth considering moving forward.
Works created from 1923-1964 had an original term of 28 years and were REQUIRED to be renewed in order to have additional copyright protection. If these were not renewed in the 28th year, they are in the public domain. It’s been estimated that 90% of all content created prior to 1964 was not renewed and therefore never extended to the maximum 95 years of protection. There are millions of books on IA that were copyrighted before 1964 and a good chunk of them were likely never renewed.
Instead of assuming they were all renewed and therefore subject to 95 years of protection, you could start verifying the renewal and publish books not renewed in the 28th year as they are now in the public domain. I know a lot about Copyright Law but have not used the copyright search much but it shouldn’t be that difficult. You should hire people to check the copyright status of books and start publishing them.
I first stumbled into the IA over a decade ago searching on Google for old newspaper public domain images in black and white. I was first learning to colorize images in photoshop at that time. Internet Archive was clearly the stand out place, in terms of quality, to look for these types of images out of the several websites I checked out at that time, and I’ve been coming back over the years ever since. I sort of feel like you all were nice enough to include works from these publishers into something you had already pretty successfully established, helping them lots more than the other way around.
When I read through that ruling from March 24th 2023, it almost felt like IA was being mischaracterized as if it was not adding anything of value. They said the purpose of a Copyright was to further knowledge in Science and Art, and seemed to characterize IA as not following the rules of “fair use” in a way that negatively impacted these publishers, I guess implying systemic risk to a system in place for the purpose of allocating finance to Scientific and Artistic endeavors. If it weren’t for this one TED Talk I randomly saw, also over a decade ago, I would be completely unfamiliar with what is another major problem in higher levels of investing in anything protected by a copyright, that is apparently under-reported, and that sucks, because it seems pretty relevant to this situation.
The practice of “Copyright Trolling” is another systemic problem. It’s when you get a copyright for something you don’t intend on realizing to the world, and sit back until somebody else does all of the leg-work, and just sue them and get a portion if not all of the profit. Apparently there is a pretty big problem with this, it very negatively impacts Science and Artistic endeavors, but the degree to which it is commonly perceived as a problem is way out of proportion with reality. While I remember the efforts of IA to maintain relevance of a “non-essential” part of historically traditional life during a time of extreme change, I don’t recall being aware of anything any of these publishers did. And I pretty regularly keep up with a variety of major news outlets.
I want to reiterate that all works created prior to 1964 that were not specifically renewed in the 28th year are now in the public domain. We need to find the most efficient way to determine if scanned books were renewed because right now there is an assumption that all books were renewed and therefor have 95+ years of protection which is false. Perhaps IA could team up with an AI/ML organization to train on the copyright office content and make it easy to determine the actual status of a particular work.
The next best way to fight this is to get congress to shorten the copyright term back to 30-50 years. In 1976, Congress reasoned that there was no benefit to works entering the public domains. This was largely true at the time because we didn’t have easy ways to acquire used books and publishers would stop publishing them making it difficult to acquire books in the public domain. Publishers served an important rule of keeping books in distribution. Today, with technology we no longer need traditional publishers and companies/organizations can keep public domain works in circulation to wider audiences digitally and they can fund it through donations and advertising dollars. Times have changed and we need to lobby congress to modify the copyright law. I don’t expect this to happen but it’s the ideal solution.
Further, there are many books that are technically copyrighted but it doesn’t matter. For example, some publishers simply went bankrupt or shutdown and their works are technically copyrighted but not owned by anyone. You also have creators that died and had copyrights but their heirs were unaware or don’t care and therefore those works could be used with very low risk of being sued.
There are several ways that you can help support the important work of the Internet Archive:
Donate: The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization that relies on donations from individuals and foundations to continue its work. You can make a one-time or recurring donation to support the organization’s efforts to preserve and provide access to digital content.
Volunteer: The Internet Archive has a team of volunteers who help with tasks such as digitization, cataloging, and metadata creation. You can apply to become a volunteer and contribute your skills to the organization’s mission.
Use the Archive: By using the Internet Archive to access digital content, you are helping to demonstrate the value and importance of preserving and providing access to this material. You can also contribute to the Archive by uploading content, such as out-of-print books or old home movies.
Advocate: You can help spread the word about the importance of the Internet Archive and its mission by talking to friends and family, sharing information on social media, and advocating for policies that support digital preservation and access.
By taking any or all of these actions, you can help support the Internet Archive’s efforts to preserve and provide access to digital content, and ensure that this information is available for future generations.
I am a writer and educator and former librarian who stands in support of this.
I’m also a community DJ at WDCV FM (Dickinson College, Carlisle PA), where I host a weekly one-hour radio show.
I created a BATTLE FOR LIBRARIES public service announcement which I uploaded to my Archive page. It’s about one minute long, available for download and use to anyone who wishes to use it on their station or podcast.
The link is here:
https://archive.org/details/battle-for-libraries-psa
What’s next? Would the four publishers take on the selling of used books from the online businesses like Amazon and eBay to local downtown ones? And garage sales, too?
What’s next? Used books sold anywhere from Amazon to local yard sales?
I saw an item in your Twitter account regarding the future of digital books in this lawsuit scenario. But nothing has been clearly explained there. Incase, the publishers win will the patrons like us be unable to access Internet Archive /Open Library in order to download, borrow or read ebooks online? Such a situation will be a big blow to the free access to knowledge & information of which Internet Archive is a major advocate & has been promoting tirelessly since its inception. Everyone is aware that knowledge is power. Intellectual empowerment complimented by technological advancement can ultimately lead to the real progress of mankind. In a free country like the USA, the judiciary must appreciate the role of Internet Archive in promoting the growth of knowledge & empowerment through its e-lending & other activities across the world. All my prayers & good wishes are with Internet Archive in this fight for justice. Your victory will pave the way for the free accessibility of knowledge & information, benefiting human society for generations to come. All the very best.
What’s next? Would the publishers go after used book stores, too? Or…
What’s next? Would the publishers go after used book stores, too? Or…