The Southern District of New York court issued its final order in Hachette v. Internet Archive on March 24, 2023. It found that Internet Archive was liable for copyright infringement. The consent judgement of August 11 has banned the Open Library from scanning or distributing commercially available books in digital formats.

The premise of the Internet Archive is perfectly legal, but we have dimwits who think anything and everything can be uploaded for "archival purposes". This won't be the last time we see this because people are actively abusing the site.

Don't believe me? Go to the archive and search "anime". Are the first results you see forgotten 1960s shows whose only source materials are moldy VHS tapes because the studio went under and the copyright is in limbo? No. The entirety of fucking Naruto, iconic movies like Ghost in the Shell, the whole remastered Dragon Ball Blu-ray set, and who knows how much more.

No, just because it's not available where you are does not justify uploading. If geo-blocking doesn't work for a monolith like YouTube it certainly won't work for the Archive. One visit from copyright owners lawyers in their territory and it's another black eye for the Archive.

The archive is in the right for works that are out of print AND, AND, I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, have no commercial equivalent or rightful copyright owner. Those old cookbooks by authors and publishers long gone, great! Vintage DOS games, do some reseach, make sure it's not commercially available on sites like GOG before uploading. A fan subbed show, upload the subtitles only. Your favorite show that is streamable but you won't pay for, put it on a tracker and seed it elsewhere.

[–] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

This is a good point. I didnt realize people were using Internet Archive for what is basically piracy for commercially available content.

[–] couragethebravedog@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I agree with you. This is the issue at hand.

[–] stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which is who’s responsibility to moderate for though.

This is the fault of Internet Archive for not moderating better. Is it is a tough problem? Yes, but everyone else faces it too.

Storage owners are responsible for the contents of their units, website owners are responsible for what’s stored on their DBs

[–] peanutdust@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

People are abusing attack methods by uploading illegal content themselves in order to shut a competitor.

[–] alypet@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

The case wasn't about the whole Archive though, as the part you quoted says. It's specifically about the defunct Library section, because the plaintiffs argued, and the court agreed, that the library offered by IA violated copyright. The rest of what IA hosts is, at this stage, irrelevant to the legal proceedings.