If We Lose the Internet Archive, We're Screwed

An anonymous reader shares a report: If you've ever researched anything online, you've probably used the Internet Archive (IA). The IA, founded in 1996 by librarian and engineer Brewster Kahle, describes itself as "a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more." Their annals include 37 million books, many of which are old tomes that aren't commercially available. It has classic films, plenty of podcasts and -- via its Wayback Machine -- just about every deleted webpage ever. Four corporate publishers have a big problem with this, so they've sued the Internet Archive. In Hachette v. Internet Archive, the Hachette Publishing Group, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Wiley have alleged that the IA is committing copyright infringement. Now a federal judge has ruled in the publishers' favor. The IA is appealing the decision. [...] Not only is this concern-trolling disingenuous, but the ruling itself, grounded in copyright, is a smack against fair use. It brings us one step closer to perpetual copyright -- the idea that individuals should own their work forever. The IA argued that their project was covered by fair use, as the Emergency Library provides texts for educational and scholarly purposes. Even writers objected to the court's ruling. More than 300 writers signed a petition against the lawsuit, including Neil Gaiman, Naomi Klein and -- get this -- Chuck Wendig. Writers lost nothing from the Emergency Library and gained everything from it. For my part, I've acquired research materials from the IA that I wouldn't have found anywhere else. The archive has scads of primary sources which otherwise might require researchers to fly across the country for access. The Internet Archive is good for literacy. It's good for the public. It's good for readers, writers and anyone who's invested in literary education. It does not harm authors, whose income is no more dented by it than any library programs. Even the Emergency Library's initial opponents have conceded this. The federal court's decision is a victory for corporations and a disaster for everyone else. If this decision isn't reversed, human beings will lose more knowledge than the Library of Alexandra ever contained. If IA's appeal fails, it will be a tragedy of historical proportions.

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