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Dan Gillmor

Others have said this, but the Internet Archive's appeals-court loss to Big Publishing is a disaster for everyone but the cartel of companies and a tiny number of A list authors.

The publishers will tolerate libraries only as long as they can control everything about how books can be loaned. If public libraries were being invented today, the cartel would make their core functions illegal.

theverge.com/2024/9/4/24235958

4 September at 20:06 | Open on mastodon.social
5 comments
Evan Light
Evan Light

@dangillmor in the US, damn near everything resolves down to everyone insisting, "Show me the money." Sadly, we've lost that internet of the early oughts where people would gladly share their ideas freely.

Now platforms like medium, substack, YouTube, et al are all about "monetization". Nearly everything is worth is now hidden behind some sort of paywall or other dark patterns.

We could have had an online library of Alexandria. Instead, we have all of these digital fortresses where intellectual property owners hide their.. property.

It's all, sadly, very Cyberpunk. @GreatDismal et al called it.

@dangillmor in the US, damn near everything resolves down to everyone insisting, "Show me the money." Sadly, we've lost that internet of the early oughts where people would gladly share their ideas freely.

Now platforms like medium, substack, YouTube, et al are all about "monetization". Nearly everything is worth is now hidden behind some sort of paywall or other dark patterns.

4 September at 20:14 | Open on tenforward.social
Arapalla

@dangillmor

But A.I. stealing the world is alright???

4 September at 21:07 | Open on mastodon.social
DELETED

@dangillmor It wasn't just A-list authors who were spitting mad at IA over this. I've seen non-A-list authors complaining bitterly that IA was acting more like The Pirate Bay than a library during the first years of the plague.

(Personally, I think that IA was overly influenced by the "move fast and break things" ethos of the early internet without realizing that that tactic no longer works unless you're already a F500 company.)

4 September at 21:09 | Open on chaosfem.tw
The gallant knight

@dangillmor That's why Anna's Archive is so important. Don't know what it is? Look it up and help save the world of books.

4 September at 21:14 | Open on nrw.social
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