[gojomo]

Some people here say they like the Internet Archive, and resent copyright maximalism, but wish IA would be more legally conservative around copyright law: "follow the law!" "ask permission!" "work through other libraries!"

They may not understand that none of what they like about the Internet Archive would've been possible without a bold willingness to probe the boundaries of copyright law.

If you'd asked any mainstream copyright law authority in the 1990s, they'd have likely said the entire Wayback Machine was illegal under the letter-of-the-law, and advised against even trying it. "Reckless!"

Only by IA actually doing it – & demonstrating the indispensibility of such a historical record to academics, policymakers, culture, & the courts – were people's mental models gradually upgraded. Now, even with little change to statutory law, most see that the best interpretation of the various traditional categories, exceptions, & affordances of copyright law is the one that finds legal space for a Wayback Machine.

Bulk-scanning books-still-in-copyright, even for private preservation/use? Was legally iffy when Google & IA started doing it; now better recognized as legitimate.

Accepting user/collector uploads of live concerts? Storing, serving, & providing emulated environments for old still-in-copyright retail PC/game/arcade software? Bulk-archiving & replaying TV news broadcasts? All iffy when IA started doing them, becoming accepted as reasonable over time by the demonstration-of-utility.

An Internet Archive that waited for legal clarity before starting such projects would still be waiting today – and we'd have neither the valuable projects, nor the accumulated experience/clarity, from the actual doing, about what is reasonable & beneficial.

[_ktx2]

One of the things I dislike the most about Internet Archive is their relatively open attitude of flaunting privacy on purpose: http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-sear...

Do you know what system they replaced robots.txt with? Email, one that is filed as a DMCA request: https://medium.com/wednesday-genius/how-to-remove-your-websi... https://jonathanwthomas.net/how-to-get-your-website-out-of-t...

Sometimes, it's probably good to not push the envelope without trying to establish consensus in good faith first.

[rasz]

Isnt that a response to companies buying old unused domains, slapping robots on it and thus killing whole archive of this domain going back 20 years?

[_ktx2]

Could be! However, making a direct attack on individual privacy should never have been an option. To make matters worse, the logic of, "We did this to government and military websites, so now we're going to roll it out everywhere" was quite broken for the time and remains so.

There's examples of how this works in a healthy way. Martin Manley is one scenario that comes to mind, where he overtly opted-in to having an archive stored about him upon his death: https://martin-manley.eprci.com/

[gojomo]

Neiher 'flaunting privacy' nor 'direct attack on individual privacy' are fair descriptions of any of the Archive's web collection policies.

People who freely publish information, to the worldwide public, on the 'World Wide Web' should reasonably expect all sorts of entities to collect, save, analyze, & repurpose that info, unless they take specific steps to discourage such access & use.

The Archive's crawlers identify themselves, and collect things that are publicly linked, or specifically nominated-for-collection by library patrons or partners. Except in some focused specialized collection projects, they don't "log in" as any user, only visiting & collecting what's published freely to any anonymous person/organization/process.

For material needing more privacy, websites always have the option to block any and all unwanted visitors/crawlers with a wide variety of standard techniques, like requiring logins or simple challenges that automated crawlers won't pass.

And, as your linked articles report, the process for a later exclusion by request is pretty quick and simple. (The 2nd post concludes: "So, hats off to the Internet Archive for making the process smooth and relatively painless.") And, such exclusion does not require any sort of "DMCA request".

[stubish]

This is victim blaming. In my jurisdiction, you retain copyright under any information you publish, even to the worldwide public. This means I can reasonably expect entities to collect, save, analyze and repurpose that info within reason, and without specific steps to discourage access & use. This is why there are laws such as 'fair use' and 'satire', because we wanted to extend what is considered reasonable use of public works. But redistributing copyrighted works without permission? Legally actionable, if you have the money and lawyers and access to the necessary courts. If this was software, such as free software license violations, people in this forum would be calling for the lawyers to nuke them from orbit.

Thankfully DMCA should make the removal process easier now, especially in situations where control over the domain has been lost or being hosted by a third party. Although last I saw there were still artificial barriers, such as needing to list every single individual page needing to be taken down. But this is after the fact, after you discovered your reasonable expectations and privacy have been violated. And then you have to track down the other copies that IA illegally distributed your now-private and copyrighted information to, such as a few libraries around the world with similar projects.

[gojomo]

I'm talking about the unfair allegation of privacy violations, here.

Note that when the Archive shares crawled content with other libraries, those other libraries often have their own legal right to collect, preserve, and make-available that data even stronger than the Archive's rights via fair use, implied-license, library privileges, and other grounds. For example, many of the Archive's partners in government libraries, archives, & educational institutions have a statutory right & mission to collect copies of everything 'published', including via the world-wide-web, in their sphere of national interest.

As to what some unstated jurisdiction might consider "within reason", I prefer to think they'll find what's reasonable what I find to be reasonable – the IA's crawling policies – unless & until some actual governing authority finds otherwise in a clearly applicable/legible decision.

See my root post (ggggggp): in a vital, evolutionary, true-law-made-on-the-ground civilization, what actually winds up as "within reason" depends on the real implementations & multi-decade demonstrations of how things can beneficially work, as much or more than any copyright loyalist's strict reading of older statutory laws.

[account42]

You are arguing about copyright in a thread discussing accusations of privacy violations.

[daniel_reetz]

With respect, I fail to see how a public website is a privacy matter.

[stubish]

Information on a public website is public until it is taken down or the information changed. The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public. This is privacy. We might be caught naked, and we can't unsee what has been seen, but it is a basic human instinct to draw the curtains and contain further damage. Perfectly innocent individuals suffer because the IA rules are designed around edge cases where public figures try to hide misdeeds.

[account42]

If you print a magazine you also don't get to recall all copies if you change your mind about something. Giving individuals this kind of control over other's ability to freely share information is dangerous because it is easily abused to hide information that is in the public's interest and that is not an edge case at all. Making a decision to publish something on the public web is hardly analogous to being caught naked even if you may come to regret either.

If anything, the IA should be more reluctant to remove information without a court decision.

[bakugo]

> The Internet Archive removes an individuals control over when the information remains public.

And that's a good thing in the vast majority of cases. Unless we're talking about sensitive information that was published without the consent of the person in question, all public information should remain public forever.

[Kye]

Some people discover much too late that there are some things they wish they could take back. Often before trying to get a better job or when trying to escape an abuser. Given the ramping up of attacks (legal and otherwise) on queer people, this is going to be a huge issue over the next decade or so.

[tornato7]

If you’re relying on an honor system .txt file to preserve your privacy I think that says enough already. It’s not like they’re infiltrating password-protected links or private iCloud accounts.

[_ktx2]

You are right, regulation is what solves this for good

[gojomo]

In truth, regulation can only reliably protect your privacy from well-behaved actors whose actions/violations are observable.

If you've taken no self-help measures to limit access, then bad actors, unobservable to you and regulators, will still be doing whatever they would like to do and can get away with.

But you may be lulled into a false sense of security by the false promise of a 'solution' via regulations.

[_ktx2]

As I've now learned, you used to work for the Internet Archive. You should probably start your statements with that.

> If you've taken no self-help measures to limit access...

robots.txt was a nice self-help measure.

> ... then bad actors, unobservable to you and regulators, will still be doing whatever they would like to do and can get away with.

Regulators still have to follow regulations. You are right that I can't stop someone from creating offline archives - but they're not really who I am worried about. Nor am I worried about the small servers that keep copies of documents during transmission, unless of course they're doing so for criminal reasons.

[gojomo]

Should you start all of your statements with a list of every project you've ever worked on? Show me an example of how it's done before you make such an exceptional request of me.

For any who are more curious about a commenters' background than their current words, my profile already links to copious resources on my work history, & writings, beyond what's typical of contributors here.

[randomhodler84]

Uber and AirBnB didn’t get to where they are today without breaking a few laws and regulations. Archiving the digital legacy of our planet is far more important than imaginary property fantasies.