"last-ditch effort to save itself" is the title, "things aren't looking good for the Internet's archivist" the subtitle. But no mention of what losing the lawsuit actually means for IA: is it actually existential as the title and subtitle are alluding to? That's the only thing I care about if we assume (1) the IA is important and (2) they're gonna lose, both of which I think virtually everyone thinks are realistic statements. Bit disappointed by the article because it's rehashing what we know
Edit: found the answer
> per Wikipedia, as of eight months ago (August 2023), the lawsuit parties already reached & had the court approve a negotiated settlement that caps the potential costs to the IA at a survivable level
^from another comment, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40203627>, nearly at the very bottom of the thread (perhaps because it looks like a wall of text at first glance? But the most important info is first). Thanks, gojomo!
I just hope this appeal cannot make it worse than it is. Sounds like it will soon again be a good time to donate to the IA: they survive, plaintiffs see there is nothing more to take, then we fund their regular operations and hope for no more "emergency" ideas
The Internet Archive still thinks it has a legitimate fair-use, first-sale, & library rights basis for 1:1 controlled lending of ebooks for which physical copies are held.
With the advice of competent counsel, IA clearly estimates its chance of prevailing on that question as worth the continuing costs.
At worst, they lose on that question, and then comply with the August 2023 settlement & pay some undisclosed amount to publishers to cover publishers' legal fees.
At best, they set an important precedent that saves their (and many others libraries!) ability to lend in the digital era for the one-time cost of a physical book, instead of the new time-limited leasing models publishers are imposing for native ebook lending – which could massively increase library costs even though digital delivery could be far cheaper than physical lnding.
Note that even if the odds are long, setting that precedent would be very valuable! The calculation isn't, "are we more than 51% likely to win?", but "even if we've only got a 5% chance of winning, is the win valuable enough to spend for the chance?".
What if Sony had given up when the 'Betamax' case was going against it? It appealed to the Supreme Court, and won a unambiguous ruling that home recording of TV was legitimate fair use.
That's a result the rightsholders, and those who naively adopt rightsholder-like copyright-maximalist reasoning without acknowledging the counterbalancing factors in the law, had alleged was preposterous. "Clearly illegal!" they said. But despite that bluster, the actual highest court decided otherwise.
Without that ruling, VCRs and DVRs would have arrived far slower & on a short-leash fully controlled by incumbent big studios.
> I just hope this appeal cannot make it worse than it is.
Sadly, it will get worse. There will be more lawsuits like this opening up once this is over. They're already in a lawsuit from the music publishing industry which threatens to wipe out the Great 78 project and I'm sure the video game industry are prepping for one of their own as well:
[1] > They already have an unresolved pending lawsuit from the music publishing industry which threatens to wipe out the Great 78 project though this lawsuit, IMO, is much more dubious because so many of recordings digitized were originally published prior to 1928 and should in theory be public works. The publishers claim that because they still sell modern versions of those recordings, they are still actively covered under copyright but as long as the IA is sourcing from media pressed before 1928 I don't think that argument is valid but again this is a country ran by corporations, its entirely possible the IA gets shafted just to keep some corporate donors happy.
[2] > Now that the book publishers lawsuit is nearing finalization (I don't see this making it up to the Supreme Court, and even if it does the current supreme court is probably the most corporate friendly court in history) and there has been almost nothing in the way of meaningful public outcry (no, normal people do not care about random people/bots screaming on twitter from their moms basement) we are going to see more lawsuits from other industries which feel like they have been harmed in some way by the Internet Archive. One which I PROMISE is coming, and I am amazed it hasn't yet, is a lawsuit from the video game publishing industry. Archive.org has, over the last decade or so, become a hub for hosting ROMS for basically every video game platform ever made. The IA, at one time, was very good about quickly removing things like REDUMP romsets but has over the years seemingly embraced hosting them. I cannot fathom why they thought that was a good idea, or necessary. Retro gaming isn't a niche hobby anymore, its a billion dollar business they've put themselves firmly in the crosshairs of. Gaming corporations are some of the most litigious corporations on the face of the earth, and the kicker is these files are not in any danger at all. Literally any commercially released game for a commercially released video game platform has 10000 websites that are hosting those files, and those websites continue to exist because they get enough traffic to be profitable through ad revenue, and they are easy enough to quickly dismantle in the even of a cease and desist and then have spring back up 10 days later under a new name with a slightly different layout. The IA does not have that luxury.
Edit: found the answer
> per Wikipedia, as of eight months ago (August 2023), the lawsuit parties already reached & had the court approve a negotiated settlement that caps the potential costs to the IA at a survivable level
^from another comment, <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40203627>, nearly at the very bottom of the thread (perhaps because it looks like a wall of text at first glance? But the most important info is first). Thanks, gojomo!
I just hope this appeal cannot make it worse than it is. Sounds like it will soon again be a good time to donate to the IA: they survive, plaintiffs see there is nothing more to take, then we fund their regular operations and hope for no more "emergency" ideas