in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

1. boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.
2. learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.
3. get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.
4. donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.

and finally…

ALT

ALT

See I agree with all of this except the piracy. As a legitimate published author it isn’t just the pub houses that suffer. The ones who will suffer the most are the authors, because mostly we don’t get paid until we sell x amount of copies. If you pirate that’s basically akin to going out to eat and stiffing the waitress on the tip because you don’t like the restaurant. The waitress ends up paying for your meal in a sense.

Mate, the restaurant isn't paying the waitress, and the publisher isn't paying you. This is such a uniquely American opinion. In the rest of civilized society, businesses pay their employees directly. The restaurant pays the waitress. And the publisher pays the author.

You're definitely having your money stolen, but it's not by pirates. It's by the company taking huge chunks out of your sales while giving you fuck all in return.

Readers don't steal from authors. LIBRARIES don't steal from authors.

Publishing houses that parasitically take the majority of sales money steal from authors. In the past, the "deal" was that authors would give up huge chunks of their income, and publishers would do everything from edits and proofs to printing and ditsro to marketting and travel.

Now, authors give up huge sums of money, and are told to do their own edits and proofs, told to handle their own marketting via social media, and generally speaking get fuckall from their publishers.

Meanwhile, libraries continue to be libraries. And don't let yourself be tricked: THE IA IS A CERTIFIED LIBRARY THAT WAS LENDING BOOKS DONATED TO THEM.

This entire lawsuit is a scam to cement publishers as the only option for reading, meaning they can CONTINUE to steal from their authors with impunity because there's nowhere else to go.

Late-stage Capitalism is not sustainable. Here we find more companies trying to remain profitable but not relevant. They will plow published content under rather than suffer an online library to lend the same content.

If they could they would claim copyright over Plato's Republic and bury it if no one paid for it.

Yay, Capitalism.

Pirate and archive the works of small independent artists too. Intellectual property is designed for large companies to profit, it will not help you.

Piracy is the best way to preserve media and ensure that everyone has access to it.