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Internet Archive's legal fights are over, but its founder mourns what was lost

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/11/the-internet-archive-survived-major-copyright-losses-whats-next/
50•thinkcontext•1h ago

Comments

bobsmooth•1h ago
That's what happens when you practically beg book publishers to sue you.
choo-t•50m ago
The fact that giving free access to books during a pandemic, in a format that doesn't need physical contact, when libraries were shut down or hard to access for a lot of people should have been praised, not pursued by legal action from rent seeking entities.

The copyright system as a whole should by torn up.

At least it give a clear signal to anyone with a ounce of moral which publisher to avoid at all cost.

alex1138•45m ago
I worry 'hacker' news is going to become more and more 'normie' steadily moving farther and farther away from Barlow's declaration of independence of cyberspace cypherpunk ethos

It's easier to make money when you comply with The Man

zokier•37m ago
you realize that HN has always been deeply business oriented, with it's root in the startup scene through the connection with YC? the hackers I believe is reference to pgs essay Hackers and Painters: https://paulgraham.com/hp.html
throwanem•28m ago
Yes, but from a much older coinage, as documented in (the not entirely uncontroversial) "The New Hacker's Dictionary" compiled by (the likewise) Eric Raymond: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3008/3008-h/3008-h.htm#hacke...

I'm old enough to recall the term in active use, and to have received the appellation from one who'd had it likewise handed down. I regard both as epiphenomena of the Internet's frontier or "Wild West" days, of which California has proven as terminal as it was for the real ones after the US Civil War - not wholly for dissimilar reasons, if we take Vietnam, for the Internet, as the war whose loss would spur the migration.

rcxdude•42m ago
Copyright needs torn up or at the very least significant reform but if you're going to be skirting around the edges of it to try to do a good thing it's probably a good idea to not just straight up obviously and blatently break the letter and spirit of the law. CDL is an awkward and dubious workaround but if you drop the 'C' you're just doing copyright infringment and that would be much better left to entities like Anna's Archive. The criticism of IA in this regard is usually that it was a bad strategy, not that the goals were bad.
briandear•35m ago
So how do authors make money? Going on concert tours? The copyright system needs reform (Mickey Mouse for example) — but the system protects creators.

If there were no copyrights, no author would make any money.

TMWNN•37m ago
When I made this criticism before of IA, I was told that that was ridiculous since the publishers had it out for IA before the COVID-19 emergency library. That may or may not have been true, but the publishers did not sue IA despite OpenLibrary existing for years before COVID-19. Publishers didn't pull the trigger because they were afraid of losing. It was a MAD situation, and IA unnecessarily triggered a nuclear war that they lost.
mzs•1h ago
Is the feature gone, the one where I use my local library card to access an online book for 2 weeks if no one else has it currently?
TimorousBestie•57m ago
Most of the IA’s ebook collection still supports controlled digital lending, just like every other library that operates an ebook lending system with CDL.
dylan604•51m ago
From TFA: In the end, the fight led to more than 500,000 books being removed from the Archive’s “Open Library.”

Good chance the book you wanted is gone at the least

exe34•40m ago
I hope Anna's Archive kept a copy.
zokier•43m ago
> Kahle thinks “the world became stupider” when the Open Library was gutted—but he’s moving forward with new ideas

> The lawsuits haven’t dampened Kahle’s resolve to expand IA’s digitization efforts, though. Moving forward, the group will be growing a project called Democracy’s Library

please just stop. let IA be what it is. or rather, nothing wrong in doing new projects but don't tie them to IA, just start them as completely separate things. IA is too important as-is to be a playground for random kooky ideas playing with fire.

tototrains•33m ago
Remember: If OpenAI/Google does it for $$$, it's not illegal. If idealists do it for public access, full force of the law.

Information wants to be free. Oblige it. Fools with temporary power trying to extract from the work of others will be a blip in the history books if we make them.

nekusar•22m ago
What capitalism continues to show us: proof that public libraries, if created in the last 10 years, would be deemed illegal and sued out of existence.

It's only because the late 1800's billionaires wanted to leave legacies and made pay-to-enter and free libraries, and migrated them to free, or public libraries. Thats why so many of them are (John) Carnegie Libraries.

Only legal when billionaires do it.

throwanem•21m ago
What I hear you say is that Brewster's time would be more wisely spent making friends of billionaires.
nekusar•16m ago
Possibly, yeah. Make a "Deal" <spit> with AI companies to have back-end access to all the Archive org's content. Get 'permission' to copy EVERYTHING and have billionaires run interference.

The AI companies already got blank checks to do that. Anthropic is paying what, like $3000 per book? I remember when the fucks at the RIAA were suing 12 year olds for $10000 for Britney Spears albums.

Or better yet, if it's just $3k a book, can we license every book and have that added into Archive.org? Oh wait, deals for thee, not for me.

A Journalist Asked Why Israel Isn't Paying to Rebuild Gaza. It Cost Him His Job

https://theintercept.com/2025/11/04/journalist-israel-gaza-nova-gabriele-nunziati/
2•artninja1988•1m ago•0 comments

More-compute, open source/local Colab alternative

https://github.com/DannyMang/more-compute
1•danielung22•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A AI-Human co-existing platform. Be a Pillionaut now. Join our Beta

https://www.pillionaut.com/
1•pillionaut•3m ago•0 comments

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-underweight-children-nhs-child-obesity.html
1•PaulHoule•5m ago•0 comments

SolarWinds is shutting down Librato

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2•antoineleclair•7m ago•1 comments

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https://www.arcitext.com
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Open Source at Agritechnica 2025

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/open-source-at-agritechnica-2025.html
1•losgehts•7m ago•0 comments

France Moves to Block the Shein Website over a Sex Doll Scandal

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/business/france-shein-sex-dolls.html
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Web to ePub: Article, Blog, Read Offline

https://epub.sauleau.com/
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We Achieved Low-Cost AI Agent Integration with Postgres and JavaScript

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Texas educators praise new school cellphone ban

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/10/texas-cell-phone-ban-schools/
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A Lost IBM PC/at Model? Analyzing a Newfound Old Bios

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Apple's New Siri Will Be Powered by Google Gemini

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Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things (2023)

https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/why-smart-people-hold-stupid-beliefs
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78ze3r1xrro
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Show That Your Work Was Useful

https://dontbreakprod.com/posts/show-that-your-work-was-useful
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https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/against-stocking-frames/
5•ChrisArchitect•33m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Why not make universal basic income conditional on the crime rate?

1•amichail•35m ago•3 comments

Is consistency in product content that important?

https://littlelanguagemodels.com/is-consistency-in-product-content-that-important/
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We're Counting Birbs Today

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A 25-year Crohn's disease mystery cracked by AI

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251103093012.htm
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I Stopped Being a Climate Catastrophist

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My Excellent Conversation with Sam Altman

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OpenAI CFO Says Bubble-Wary Market Needs More AI 'Exuberance'

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-05/openai-cfo-says-bubble-wary-market-needs-more-...
3•moosedman•46m ago•2 comments