Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Battle for Libraries

     Hello, everybody. How is 2024 going? How was 2023?

    There was a lot of news that happened in 2023, especially in the book and library world. One of the big news is the Internet Archive currently facing a lawsuit from the different big book publishers. While this is old news, it is important to keep this issue in the spotlight because the lawsuit can negatively affect libraries and you, the reader of this blog. 

    As a random observer watching this unfold, it is difficult to summarize what is going on in the lawsuit, as I have no involvement. An important disclaimer: I'm not a legal expert. I'm not a copyright lawyer. I'm not a volunteer of the Internet Archive, and I don't have any personal connections with anybody who is a part of the Internet Archive. I'm not an employee who works for any of the book publishers involved with the lawsuit. 

    I would rather not mess up by accidentally using the incorrect terminology, so I will provide links below that summarize the situation better. 

 https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/93985-internet-archive-seeks-reversal-in-book-scanning-suit.html

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/publishers-internet-archive-agree-streamline-digital-book-lending-case-2023-08-11/

https://publicknowledge.org/some-unexpected-sanity-in-the-hachette-v-internet-archive-lawsuit/

https://blog.archive.org/2023/12/15/internet-archive-defends-digital-rights-for-libraries/

    In the last link, Internet Archive posted on their blog a brief section of their opening appellate brief. They also posted some ways that Internet Archive users can show their support. Posting this entry is one of the ways to show support for the Internet Archive. It is not going to bring out major changes, but I hope this message brings a little awareness of what is occurring.  

    The Internet Archive is a valuable source for me because of the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine allows me to research for information that is unavailable and difficult to find. The reasons due to websites and web pages becoming offline for various reasons. 

    Here is an example why the Internet Archive is important to me. For my information behavior project, I depended on the Wayback Machine to observe and view anime fan websites from the 2000s. Many of which do not exist due to web domains expiring. The websites contained various information behaviors that were relevant to my assignment. In addition, I observed how the fandom's internet behavior changed (or not) throughout the years. Without that, doing my project would be difficult. While my university has articles and books related to the various theories and models of information behavior, there are scarce academic resources on anime fandom behavior. (That doesn't surprise me as, if I recalled, that fandom studies is a new thing in academia compared to other subjects.)

    And that concludes my post about what is happening in the Hachette v. Internet Archive lawsuit. I hope the case goes well for the Internet Archive.  

  

 

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Update

 Hello. I apologize for the long absence. I was busy finishing my class. And now I'm finally done. I'm currently working on part 2 o...