MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The Internet Archive is saved from copyright law shutdown

Bob Russell · 12-02-2006, 11:05 AM

The Internet Archive is not all that famous with the general public, but it has gained a lot of respect and appreciation from those familiar with the Internet who have found it. The site is an amazing feat, with archives of texts, audio, moving images, and software. In fact, there is an area with preserved texts, and they encourage people to contribute their own texts.

There are over two petabytes of storage, which is an incredible two million gig. You can find all kinds of older movies. In addition they have old versions of web sites such as this archive of MobileRead with the Way Back Machine. It seems a sure bet to embarrass anyone that has ever published material on the web!

This historic record has been threatened by copyright law, due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Only now have the been given a reprieve with the six exemptions published recently by the Library of Congress. The Register points out that "The ruling grants exemption to 'computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive.'"

"Another exemption allows educational establishments to 'break' digital rights management (DRM) technology for audiovisual works to be used by media studies or film classes, while another exemption that allows users to bypass DRM on CDs in order to test and fix DRM technology which might damage the user's computer. 'Thanks to the hard work of two great law school students of Peter Jaszi of American University, Jieun Kim and Doug Agopsowicz, the Internet Archive and other libraries may continue to preserve software and video game titles without fear of going to jail," said a statement from the Internet Archive.'"

However, there's a long way to go before we find a good balance in copyright law. That statement also said that the exemption still "leaves the overall draconian nature of the DMCA in effect."

12-02-2006, 11:05 AM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	The Internet Archive is saved from copyright law shutdown The Internet Archive is not all that famous with the general public, but it has gained a lot of respect and appreciation from those familiar with the Internet who have found it. The site is an amazing feat, with archives of texts, audio, moving images, and software. In fact, there is an area with preserved texts, and they encourage people to contribute their own texts. There are over two petabytes of storage, which is an incredible two million gig. You can find all kinds of older movies. In addition they have old versions of web sites such as this archive of MobileRead with the Way Back Machine. It seems a sure bet to embarrass anyone that has ever published material on the web! This historic record has been threatened by copyright law, due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Only now have the been given a reprieve with the six exemptions published recently by the Library of Congress. The Register points out that "The ruling grants exemption to 'computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive.'" "Another exemption allows educational establishments to 'break' digital rights management (DRM) technology for audiovisual works to be used by media studies or film classes, while another exemption that allows users to bypass DRM on CDs in order to test and fix DRM technology which might damage the user's computer. 'Thanks to the hard work of two great law school students of Peter Jaszi of American University, Jieun Kim and Doug Agopsowicz, the Internet Archive and other libraries may continue to preserve software and video game titles without fear of going to jail," said a statement from the Internet Archive.'" However, there's a long way to go before we find a good balance in copyright law. That statement also said that the exemption still "leaves the overall draconian nature of the DMCA in effect."