Good morning friends! I’ve only got a super short teeny tiny update for you today regarding the current state of the Internet Archive debacle. I’m not going to pretend that I know the ins and outs of this beyond the things that I’ve been exposed to by the sheer grace of being unable to log off even as the internet destroys my mind but I will try my best.
So, my smooth-brained understanding of the situation is that the IA believes that copyright laws should not apply to them because they are an archive or possibly even a library even though copyright does in fact apply to libraries and archives. They also seem to believe that applying said laws to IA is the equivalent of censorship. And it’s a shame, honestly, that they are so desperately trying to dig their own grave because they were so useful and the service they provided was in many ways unmatched but if you want to protect art, you have to protect creators and one really easy way of doing that is not stealing their shit and distributing it for free. Anyway, IA’s arguments as to why they should be allowed to distribute copyrighted works has once again failed to hold up in court and as such their book scanning program continues to be ruled as copyright infringement, which, let’s face it, it is.
Anyway, That’s all for now – I did tell you it was short – but lucky for you I’ll be back next week with hopefully something more substantial. Until then, support creators and maybe if you’re able, check out your local library.
