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Internet Archive Gets DMCA Exemption
Paul Hickman writes "The Internet Archive has successfully lobbied for a DMCA exemption for the Software Archive. The IA keeps out-of-date programs, games and other random craziness for future programmers to savor. At the rapid pace of software development, this makes sure that we can create a history for us to remember and wonder at the programming of early games."
a personal DMCA exemption for every US Citizen.... sigh
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Does this mean that they can ignore DMCA takedown orders on all content? Or just that they're immune to prosecution if they reverse-engineer and break a copy-protection system of a work that's already in the public domain and out of copyright?
If it's the latter, while it's a nice move, there isn't really any software (except stuff on Hollerith cards) that's anywhere near getting into the public domain anyway. So it would seem to be a moot point. If they have permission to archive all content though, even stuff that's still in copyright, that would be decent.
I've read elsewhere though that the exemptions from the Copyright Office aren't permanent, but need to be renewed every few years or they expire. So all that has to happen to destroy everything is for an administration to pressure the Copyright Office to let the exemption slip, and then threaten to prosecute the IA if they don't destroy the de-protected works. Someone in another thread likened it to being given a Band-Aid after you've gotten the crap beaten out of you with a lead pipe; a nice gesture, but ultimately it would have been nicer to not get beaten in the first place.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I am a special archivist librarian, um, responsible for the collection of laser-readable media in my home^H^H^H^H *library* and I need a special exemption also so that my friends^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fellow librarians are able to enjoy^H^H^^H^H^H access the material contained therein.
Sincerely
Pirate^H^H^H^H^H^H Bob
What's important to note here is that the exemption isn't limited just to the Internet Archive. IANAL but unless I'm reading something hideously wrongly, this seems to generally exempt software from the protection granted by the DMCA if the hardware to run it isn't reasonably available. Have they just legitimized the abandonware scene?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
That future generations will have a source (other than oldversion.com) for previous versions of software for use with version specific cracks.
Whoops! Was that out loud?
It's nice to know the lawyers spent a whole 50 minutes on this case....
1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university's film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors. 2. 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. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. 3. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or Recommendation of the Register of Copyrights November 17, 2006 Page 2 damage and which are obsolete. A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. 4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book's read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format. 5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network. 6. Sound recordings, and audiovisual works associated with those sound recordings, distributed in compact disc format and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully purchased works and create or exploit security flaws or vulnerabilities that compromise the security of personal computers, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing, investigating, or correcting such security flaws or vulnerabilities.
The troll with karma.
I really am, on copyrights and the "me, me, me" mindset. I say let those folks crap be lost to the ages, gone. People who want the "don't you dare touch my stuff!" form of rights-go right ahead! I hope it gets lost in time, never to be seen again. Data of any kind that is open format, licensed to use, will survive. All those "artists" and closed off DRM content? fine! let it go away! Softare, games? Who cares really? Let it go, ignore it, ridicule it, make fun of it! I say go about using and creating open content, that is the only content that is guaranteed to at least have a chance to survive. the rest-as soon as company x goes out of business or some new format comes out and people lose interest..buh bye!
In the past, cultures that didn't care, didn't leave readable records-we don't know-or *care*- much about them. They are gone, as they should be. Whereas cultures that wrote things down in an intelligent way, using the best tech of the time, had their culture and language and works survive and they are still important today. Evolution not only goes to survival of the fittest, but survival of the most robust and open, because their knowledge base expanded rapidly, which lead to them being important, which lead them to being viable down through time.
Let the jerks go to all the trouble to create something, then make it a bear to stay viable or readable, their loss! Let them lock it up, charge huge fees for every peek at it or use, let them stay walled off, keep it buried in their vaults, throw away the key, bury it, obfuscate it, make it just so hard to use that..no one in the future will care! Let their own hubris be their legacy, their paranoid delusions of grandeur that their stuff is so valuable that humans will make the effort to try and decipher their weirdly coded and encumbered "works", when reality will be that the stuff that is easy to get to and easy to read and use and enjoy will stick around much better.
"$50,000 in pro bono lawyer time". WTF is wrong with government when it takes this kind of leverage to get anything done? How would the average person ever hope to get any consideration at all?
And let's not forget - this "exemption" is courtesy of the very same people who created the need for an exemption - congress.
Stop voting for incumbent politicians and DMCA-type garbage will stop happening in the first place.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php
... probably not. At least not if you haven't deliberately installed some of their software.
..
Alexa Internet has been crawling the web since 1996, which has resulted in a massive archive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet
Alexa Internet is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com, that is best known for operating a website (www.alexa.com) that provides information on the web traffic to other websites. Alexa collects information from users who have installed an Alexa Toolbar, allowing them to provide statistics on web site traffic, as well as lists of related links.
http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm
Is Alexa spyware?
Well, no
But Lavasoft's Ad-Aware identifies a standard registry key included with Internet Explorer as "Data Miner" spyware, with little or no further explanation, and offers to delete it. I hope this page offers a better explanation, and other alternatives to deletion. Spybot identifies it too, with more explanation, and they have a smarter strategy to deal with it (more below).
The issue is the 'Related Links' feature of IE (pre-XP SP2) which appears as the 'Tools'/'Show Related Links' menu item (and a corresponding toolbar button if you added it from the 'Customize...' link on the toolbar). If you use that feature, IE will contact the Alexa servers, via MSN, to obtain information about other web pages which seem to be related, open an Explorer Bar, and display those (plus adverts and whatnot). Go check the Alexa web site to see if you think that is a good idea (and, just to be clear, I think it's a very sucky idea), or just to double-check that you haven't deliberately or unintentionally or absent-mindedly installed some of their software.
Essentially it a two edged sword.
you have the positive in the internet archive which is kind of a byproduct from alexas data mining activitys
It didnt have to be created at all but Alexas authors figured we wouldnt mind if they tracked our visits to different sites if they gave something useful back (The Internet Archive).
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
The internet archive predates Alexa, although both were founded by Brewster Kahle. As for ad-aware, they have not offered any explanation as to why alexa is identified for removal, yet the google toolbar, even with "advanced features" enabled, is not. A friend of mine who is swedish and works for alexa even stopped by the lavasoft office in sweden to request a meeting. Most likely it helps that google bundles ad-aware with the google desktop.
Not yay!
Seeking and receiving an exemption validates and legitimizes the DMCA. This is very similar to answering "no" to "Did you steal software today?"
There are 1.1... kinds of people.