{"id":15157,"date":"2024-10-28T12:54:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T12:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/?p=15157"},"modified":"2024-11-04T12:00:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T12:00:03","slug":"the-internet-archives-621m-legal-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/2024\/10\/28\/the-internet-archives-621m-legal-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Internet Archive&#8217;s $621M Legal Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15158\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/10\/broken-record.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"678\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Did you know<\/strong> the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/internet-archive-major-label-music-lawsuit-1235105273\/\"> Internet Archive<\/a> operates out of an old church in San Francisco? Well, it does \u2014 and it&#8217;s at the centre of a massive lawsuit that could determine the future of digital preservation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The story starts with shellac&#8230;<\/strong> Remember those old 78 rpm records? They&#8217;re brittle discs made from insect resin (yes, really) that were the main way people listened to music in the early 1900s. Not exactly high-fidelity stuff \u2014 think pops, hisses, and crackles galore.<\/p>\n<p>Enter the Great<a href=\"https:\/\/great78.archive.org\/\"> 78 Project<\/a>&#8230; The Internet Archive has digitized over 400k of these historical recordings. Great project, right? Well, major record labels don&#8217;t think so.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s where it gets messy:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Universal, Sony, and other big labels are suing for $621M<\/li>\n<li>They&#8217;re upset about 4,142 specific recordings (think Sinatra, Holiday, Elvis)<\/li>\n<li>Each song could cost the Archive $150k in damages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The labels say:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;This is theft, not preservation&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>These songs are already available elsewhere<\/li>\n<li>Nobody needs crackling old versions when remastered ones exist<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Archive argues:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;re a nonprofit library, not a pirate ship<\/li>\n<li>These scratchy originals are totally different from modern remasters<\/li>\n<li>Someone needs to preserve this stuff<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Plot twist: <\/strong>The same labels suing over &#8220;preservation concerns&#8221; lost countless master recordings in a 2008 Universal Studios fire. Ironic, no?<\/p>\n<p><strong>The bigger picture: <\/strong>This isn&#8217;t just about old records \u2014 it&#8217;s about who controls access to our cultural history. The Archive is also fighting book publishers over its digital library practices.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Not-so-fun fact: <\/strong>If the labels win, it could shut down more than just the 78 project \u2014 it might kill the Internet Archive entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Internet Archive is at the centre of a massive lawsuit that could determine the future of digital preservation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[360,2,25,259,30],"tags":[480],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2024\/10\/broken-record.gif","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15157"}],"version-history":[{"count":57,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15220,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157\/revisions\/15220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15157"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=15157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}