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Internet Archive's big battle with music publishers ends in settlement

(arstechnica.com)
335 points coloneltcb | 1 comments | 15 Sep 25 22:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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badlibrarian ◴[19 Sep 25 13:57 UTC] No.45301736[source]▶
A search for "Internet Archive rumors" returns a copy of Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" on my first page of results. Playable in browser and downloadable in high-quality lossless format.

The book lawsuit was over current titles (not really archival and preservation), and the record lawsuit wasn't really about the rare 78s, it was about the modern Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney records that somehow slipped in. And their refusal to follow the modern law that they themselves celebrated that made what they're trying to do (including downloads) explicitly legal. But that law prohibited fundraising, and they couldn't resist tweeting out links to Frank Sinatra records with a big banner on top asking for money.

In both lawsuits the discovery revealed tech debt and sloppy process at the Archive that made it impossible for them to argue on behalf of the future we all want.

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strangattractor ◴[19 Sep 25 19:34 UTC] No.45305520[source]▶
The Archive purchased 78s likely destined to be destroyed. These where digitized. [0]

"The focus of the lawsuit was the Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, which officially started in 2017 and aimed to digitize the shellac discs that were the dominant medium for recorded music from the 1890s until the 1940s and 1950s, when vinyl arrived. With the help of audio preservationist George Blood (who was also named as a defendant in the suit), the Archive said it has digitized more than 400,000 of these old recordings." [1]

Benn Jordan discussion of piracy in general. [2]

[0] https://great78.archive.org/

[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/internet-archi...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EHRpnJICQ&t=952s

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1. badlibrarian ◴[20 Sep 25 12:05 UTC] No.45312606[source]▶
> The Archive purchased 78s likely destined to be destroyed.

It's worse than that.

Many large collections were donated to the archive, under the agreement they would be made available to the public. Part of what influenced Brewster to double down on his original error.

> The Joe Terino Collection, a collection of 70,000 78 rpm singles stored in a warehouse for 40 years.

> The Barrie H. Thorpe Collection, which had been deposited at the Batavia Public Library in Batavia, Illinois, in 2007 by Barrie H. Thorpe (1925–2012). It contains 48,000 singles.

> The Daniel McNeil Collection, with 22,359 singles.

Many more listed at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_78_Project

At the same time Internet Archive also launched the "Unlocked Recordings" collection of modern "out of print" LPs, as if that somehow made them free to distribute. The inclusion of Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, and Nina Simone records is called out in the lawsuit.

This is how you ruin the reputation of an organization.