TorrentFreak: EFF & Heavyweight Legal Team Will Defend Internet Archive’s Digital Library Against Publishers . “The EFF has revealed it is teaming up with law firm Durie Tangri to defend the Internet Archive against a lawsuit targeting its Open Library. According to court filings, the impending storm is shaping up to be a battle of the giants, with opposing attorneys having previously defended Google in book scanning cases and won a $1bn verdict for the RIAA against ISP Cox.”
Internet Archive
Vox: A lawsuit is threatening the Internet Archive — but it’s not as dire as you may have heard
Vox: A lawsuit is threatening the Internet Archive — but it’s not as dire as you may have heard. “The Internet Archive (also known as IA or Archive.org), home to the giant vault of internet and public domain history known as the Wayback Machine, is currently facing a crisis — one largely defined by misinformation. A group of publishing companies filed a scathing copyright lawsuit earlier this month over the IA’s controversial attempt to open an ‘Emergency Library’ during the coronavirus pandemic. Ever since, confusion about the scope of the lawsuit and its potential impact on the IA as a whole has stoked fears of a crackdown on the IA’s many projects, including its gargantuan archive of the historical internet.”
BetaNews: Internet Archive to close its National Emergency Library two weeks early following legal action
BetaNews: Internet Archive to close its National Emergency Library two weeks early following legal action. “Today, the Internet Archive announces that it will close its National Emergency Library on June 16, two weeks earlier than planned, and return to traditional controlled digital lending.”
Motherboard: It’s Time to Archive the Internet Archive
Motherboard: It’s Time to Archive the Internet Archive. “Five of the world’s largest publishers sued the Internet Archive, claiming its open-access digital library is a mass infringement on their copyright. The move puts the internet’s most important archive in danger, and has at least got some data hoarders talking about archiving the Internet Archive, and what that would even look like.”
Association of American Publishers: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive for Systematic Mass Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works
Association of American Publishers: Publishers File Suit Against Internet Archive for Systematic Mass Scanning and Distribution of Literary Works . “Today, member companies of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Internet Archive (‘IA’) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit asks the Court to enjoin IA’s mass scanning, public display, and distribution of entire literary works, which it offers to the public at large through global-facing businesses coined ‘Open Library’ and ‘National Emergency Library,’ accessible at both openlibrary.org and archive.org.”
My Ballard: Bop Street Records collection bought by nonprofit digital library
My Ballard: Bop Street Records collection bought by nonprofit digital library. “As we reported last month, Voorhees announced his plan to close his store this summer after taking an enormous hit from the pandemic closures. If he hadn’t found a buyer, [Dave] Voorhees was considering giving away part of his collection. But now, a digital media library will be giving his collection a new home. Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, will be buying the entire collection.”
Vice: Viacom Forced Internet Archive to Remove Hundreds of Hours of MTV Broadcasts
Vice: Viacom Forced Internet Archive to Remove Hundreds of Hours of MTV Broadcasts. “Archivists have uploaded hundreds of hours of MTV VHS recordings from the 1980s and early 1990s to the Internet Archive. The videos have caught the attention of Viacom, which has attempted to have them taken offline.”
The Verge: The Internet Archive is warning users about debunked ‘zombie’ coronavirus misinformation
The Verge: The Internet Archive is warning users about debunked ‘zombie’ coronavirus misinformation. “The Internet Archive is alerting users when they’ve clicked on some stories that were debunked or taken down on the live web, following reports that people were spreading false coronavirus information through its Wayback Machine.”
Internet Archive: The National Emergency Library – Who Needs It? Who Reads It? Lessons from the First Two Weeks
Internet Archive: The National Emergency Library – Who Needs It? Who Reads It? Lessons from the First Two Weeks. “At a time when every day can feel like a month, it’s hard to believe that the National Emergency Library has only existed for two weeks. Recognizing the unique challenges of connecting students and readers with books now on shelves they cannot reach, the Internet Archive loosened the restrictions on our controlled digital lending library to allow increased lending of materials. Reactions have been passionate, to say the least—elation by teachers able to access our virtual stacks, concern by authors about the program’s impact, and fundamental questions about our role as a library in these dire times when one billion students worldwide are cut off from their classrooms and libraries.”
Business Insider: How to play the best educational game classics of all time, from ‘The Oregon Trail’ to ‘Number Munchers’
Business Insider: How to play the best educational game classics of all time, from ‘The Oregon Trail’ to ‘Number Munchers’. “Whether you grew up in the ’80s, the ’90s, or the ’00s, you’ve almost certainly got fond memories of the gaming classic ‘The Oregon Trail.’ It’s part of a group of early ‘edutainment’ games intended to educate, as well as delight, young players. Games like ‘The Oregon Trail,’ ‘Number Munchers,’ and ‘Lemonade Stand’ were all created by one group — MECC — that no longer exists. But the games have managed to live on, and they’re available these days entirely for free on the web.”
New York Times: ‘Emergency’ Online Library Draws Ire of Some Authors
New York Times: ‘Emergency’ Online Library Draws Ire of Some Authors. “After NPR and The New Yorker ran reports praising the National Emergency Library (the headline over the historian Jill Lepore’s essay in The New Yorker called it “a gift to readers everywhere”), several prominent writers, including Colson Whitehead, took to social media to condemn the project.” I just checked to see if any of my books are in the Emergency Library. Several of them are. If you want to read them you go right ahead. They’re old but I recommend WEB SEARCH GARAGE and INFORMATION TRAPPING as they’re more philosophical (how I search and more importantly how I think about search)
Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library (Internet Archive)
Internet Archive: Internet Archive responds: Why we released the National Emergency Library. “According to IMLS FY17 Public Libraries survey (the last fiscal year for which data is publicly available), in FY17 there were more than 716 million physical books in US public libraries. Using the same data, which shows a 2-3% decline in collection holdings per year, we can estimate that public libraries have approximately 650 million books on their shelves in 2020. Right now, today, there are 650 million books that tax-paying citizens have paid to access that are sitting on shelves in closed libraries, inaccessible to them. And that’s just in public libraries.”
Internet Archive Blog: Announcing a National Emergency Library to Provide Digitized Books to Students and the Public
Internet Archive Blog: Announcing a National Emergency Library to Provide Digitized Books to Students and the Public. “To address our unprecedented global and immediate need for access to reading and research materials, as of today, March 24, 2020, the Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners. This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later.”
World Intellectual Property Review: Wikimedia, Internet Archive want patent infringement claims kicked out
World Intellectual Property Review: Wikimedia, Internet Archive want patent infringement claims kicked out. “The Wikimedia Foundation and the global online library Internet Archive are seeking a declaration in a California court that their websites do not infringe several predictive text-related patents held by software developer WordLogic.”
Internet Archive Blog: School’s Out… Or Is It?
Internet Archive Blog: School’s Out… Or Is It?. “Alexis Rossi, Director of Collections here at the Internet Archive, has curated a list of resources that can help children continue their education outside of the classroom. If you’re facing a school closure, here’s a handy guide to help you find educational materials on a few popular subjects. And if you need resources for a topic that isn’t on this list, feel free to search the archive and spend the closure diving in to our collections!”
