Internet Archive is not Library Genesis, the two organizations have very different functions and should be structured very differently.
Internet Archive is for preserving data, not necessarily distributing it as widely as possible. If distributing the data puts the preservation of that data at risk then don't distribute it, keep it stashed safely away. Maybe a decade or two from now things will change and they'll have the only copies, and keeping them snugly away out of sight will have been vital to preserving them after that point. Internet Archive has a public corporate presence that makes it easy to donate to and easy to run their servers, but also makes them easy to sue. So avoid doing anything that gets you sued.
Library Genesis, on the other hand, is piracy central. Their mandate is distributing this stuff and sticking their thumbs in the eyes of the publishers. So they're structured entirely differently. They run on the shady side of the internet, making them hard to donate to but also hard to sue. They should be the ones "fighting the fight" right now. It would be sad if they got taken down but not an irrecoverable tragedy, a new Library Genesis can rise again.
Internet Archive are being idiots by poking the bear like they have been lately, it's like they're carrying a precious irreplaceable baby and they've decided to take a run through a minefield. I hope they learn from this debacle.
If they have the only copy and their datacenter goes belly up, lot of good it did to have the only remaining copy because now it’s lost to existence. Offsite backups and ideally by many different organizations is the only sure-fire way to preserve this stuff. I donate to archive.org because I believe on what they’re trying to do and I hope they can continue on as long as needed.
Yes, that would be preservation. I don't think they'd have ever got in trouble for doing that, even if it was technically a copyright violation. Probably not even if they had some sort of limited "lending" system so that rare texts could be read by the few who were interested in them. The problem came when Internet Archive flung their gates wide and let everyone download freely, at that point they became a piracy site and got hammered like a piracy site. That's counter to their goal of simple preservation.
I feel so hopeless, so pissed, all these news and how these corporations are destroying open web. I really had hope with new generations being more tech savvy and more online would push for openness of web, instead I’ve come to realize that new generations are really into apps and not going beyond that, not interested in deeper look into software and tech - as long as the gadget works and no matter any subscription cost or microtransactions or surveillance.
I try to be hopeful, but damn it is hard to stay optimistic. I’ve been trying little by little to push friends and family in a nice way into using Firefox, alternatives to big corporate software and so on, but I understand it takes too much effort for someone who is not really interested in these things. But I will be advocate of open web forever myself.
Edit: okay unfair to expect anything from new generations, and of course there are more tech savvy people than there probably use to be, but had hoped for a huge change in that demographic.
Unlike typical ballistic warheads, which fly on predictable trajectories as they fall from space to their targets, hypersonic projectiles can change course, making them more difficult to target.
The author doesn't understand what they are writing about. Hypersonic has nothing to do with manuevering, it's a speed definition. Anything traveling at Mach 5+ is considered hypersonic. Western countries already have access to systems that defend against hypersonic missiles. The ability to change direction has nothing to do with being hypersonic.
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Click here to see the summaryMOSCOW, Aug 13 (Reuters) - A Russian warship on Sunday fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the southwestern Black Sea as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month. “After the inspection group completed its work on board, the Sukru Okan continued on its way to the port of Izmail,” the defence ministry said. A Turkish defence ministry official said he had heard an incident had taken place involving a ship heading for Romania, and that Ankara was looking into it. Firing on a merchant vessel will ratchet up already acute concerns among shipowners, insurers and commodity traders about the potential dangers of getting ensnared in the Black Sea - the main route that both Ukraine and Russia use to get their agricultural produce to market. Since Russia left the Black Sea grain deal, both Moscow and Kyiv have issued warnings and carried out attacks that have sent jitters through global commodity, oil and shipping markets. Russia dismisses that interpretation and says the West failed to implement a parallel agreement easing rules for its own food and fertiliser exports.
Aug 11 (Reuters) - The Internet Archive and a group of leading book publishers told a Manhattan federal court on Friday that they have resolved aspects of their legal battle over the Archive’s digital lending of their scanned books.
If accepted, the consent judgment would settle questions over potential money damages in the case and the scope of a ban on the Archive’s lending and would clear the way for the Archive to appeal U.S. District Judge John Koeltl’s decision that it infringed the publishers’ copyrights.
The proposed order would require the Archive to pay Lagardere SCA’s (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group, News Corp’s (NWSA.O) HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons (WLY.N) and Bertelsmann SE & Co’s (BTGGg.F) Penguin Random House an undisclosed amount of money if it loses its appeal.
The order would also permanently block the Archive from lending out copies of the publishers’ books without permission, pending the result of the appeal.
The Internet Archive said in a blog post that the fight was “far from over,” and founder Brewster Kahle said in a statement that “we must have strong libraries, which is why we are appealing this decision.”
The publishers sued in 2020 over the Archive’s free lending of scanned copies of their print books, which began after libraries closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With Irans ability to cut off the Persian Gulf I wonder when people would recognize what a national security nightmare our oil dependency is and start pushing for home grown energy. We should have started 30 years ago but nooo lets ship our wealth overseas
I thought it was individual authors suing and I could see why they wouldn’t want their works being on Internet Archive. Seeing how it’s actually the most popular book publishers…
A real library is expensive to maintain and adding new additions means even more money with fees and buying more copies if a title is very popular. The public libraries I’ve been to have been empty even right before COVID. I can’t see physical libraries lasting much longer, especially with book bans and defunding.
Most libraries are now hooked up to Libby and rely on ebook licenses for their own library. Ebook licenses are the worst because most popular books are leased on a time limit or cycles (amount of people that read the copy). So if they have something really popular like Harry Potter, that could add up really quick depending.
It’s just like how music streaming services are paying musicians and singers peanuts for their streamed songs while the companies get everything else. Authors already don’t make enough money on royalties as it is, so this is all to line the publisher’s pockets more than anything.
Hope that somebody else will preserve what the Internet Archive can’t in spite of these greedy companies. This along with old recorded music is getting ridiculous.
I hope to God they get sent to the very fucking front. Every last one of them. It made me sick watching videos of these cowards kidnapping men on the streets, beating the shit out of them, then forcing them into the army while taking bribes from rich people to leave them alone. Then to watch videos of those brand new recruits getting obliterated in bradleys and MRAPS by artillery.
I seriously hope each of these fucking murderers steps on a land mine or gets their air and life ripped out of their lungs by a thermobaric rocket.
Yeah, you know, that [checks notes] one copy of a book that the lending library was able to lend* was really eating into their profit margin. Honest to God, they probably spent more money on lawyers over this shit than they’ll ever recoup, and it just makes them look stupid, greedy, and stupidly greedy.
*I think it’s one copy per actually book that’s owned. Just like you can’t lend you friends more copies of a given book than you own.
The publishers have called the Archive’s program a front for mass copyright infringement.
Digital libraries are a front for mass copyright infringement, according to the publishers :)
But for real, what’s the difference between a digital library that artificially limits the amount of books they lend out to the amount of books they scan and a traditional library? I can go to my local library right now, take a book home, photocopy the book at home, and return the book to the library. Not as high quality as a digital copy, but still.
reuters.com
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