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by aziaziazi 455 days ago
I understand what you describe is prohibited in many jurisdictions, however I’m curious about the technical aspect : in my experience they host the html but often not the assets, especially big pictures and I guess most movies files are bigger that pictures. Do you use a special trick to host/find them?
1 comments
badlibrarian 455 days ago
No. And every video game every made is available for download as well. If you even have to download it: they pride in making many of them playable in browser with just a click.

Copyright issues aside (let's avoid that mess) I was referring to basic technical issues with the site. Design is atrocious, search doesn't work, you can click 50 captures of a site before you find one that actually loads, obvious data corruption, invented their own schema instead of using a standard one and don't enforce it, API is insane and usually broken, uploader doesn't work reliably, don't honor DMCA requests, ask for photo id and passports then leak them ...

It's the worst possible implementation of the best possible idea.

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yuvalr1 454 days ago
And yet, it's the best we currently have. I donate to them. We can come with demands of how it should be managed, but it should not prevent us from helping them.
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badlibrarian 454 days ago
If you poke around at what US government agencies are doing, and what European countries and non-profits are doing, or even do a deep dive into what your local library offers, you may find they no longer lead the pack.

They didn't even ask for donations until they accidentally set fire to their building annex. People offered to help (SF was apparently booming that year) and of course they promptly cranked out the necessary PHP to accept donations.

Now it's become part of the mythology. But throwing petty cash at a plane in a death spiral doesn't change gravity. They need to rehabilitate their reputation and partner with organizations who can help them achieve their mission over the long term. I personally think they need to focus on archival, legal long-term preservation and archival, before sticking their neck out any further. If this means no more Frogger in the browser, so be it.

I certainly don't begrudge anyone who donates, but asking for $17 on the same page as copyrighted game ROMs and glitchy scans of comic books isn't a long-term strategy.

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