Internet Archive Seeks Donations of Materials to Build a Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Commun

https://gizmodo.com/internet-archive-seeks-help-building-amateur-radio-coll-1849619444
Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), which will be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications. The DLARC is funded by a significant grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC), a private foundation, to create a digital library that documents, preserves, and provides open access to the history of this community.



nosaj
N1EBC

 

The Internet Archive is not a "library," and many of the materials it distributes are pirated. See

https://publishers.org/news/publish...-scanning-and-distribution-of-literary-works/

It's disappointing to see ARDC funding an operation which is harming authors and creators via the theft of intellectual property.

 

Crickets ! Guess not an interesting topic for many on the Zed.
Never heard of ARDC went to the site to check it out.
One thing is very evident...DOLLARS
https://www.ampr.org/grants/

 

Having a ham radio information group on telegram I was glad to be able to find a pdf of a nato low power communications book. It took me over a year to be able to purchase a printed copy. I like the idea of ham radio PDFs being available. N5DUX had several useful PDFs as does antenna theory website. Some of the fun of the hobby is being able to do one’s own research and experiment with skills that improve over time.

 

Internet Archive has a number of lawsuits against them, and may be facing criminal prosecution as well. As an author, I find their behavior reprehensible. Making public domain material readily available is fine, but they are egregiously violating copyright law left and right.

 

For more on recent lawsuits against the Google-funded copyright scofflaws who call themselves the "Internet Archive" by authors and publishers, see:

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/8688...ernet-archive-for-mass-copyright-infringement

https://publishingperspectives.com/...significance-of-the-internet-archive-lawsuit/

 

Never heard of these archive people or the ARDC.

After reading some links here…

Looks like the Internet Archive people need to apply for some more grants from the ARDC so their folks can pay their fines or use for bail money.

 

Not everything on archive.org is suspected. It's been really handy for me, helped find old driver software, out of print material
and once I found evidence of a defendant lying, presented claims on their old web site in court, clink!

 

As a point of clarification. Anyone can create an account and upload to the internet archive. They are supposed to adhere to the terms of service about having the rights to share. The DMCA take down process is used as the tool to determine orphan works vs violations, etc. So what you see on there is content from a bunch of individual curators like back in the day when all the internet providers gave you space to create a website.

When the IA staff digitizes things that are more recent than say 1920 (the actual rule is mostly the life of the author +75 years), its posted with controlled digital lending which allows one person at a time to "check it out", just like at a library. These digital copies are things that they have own physical copies of.

Things I have curated:

https://archive.org/details/newiham
https://archive.org/details/badgerstatesmokesignals

 

It's true that not everything on the site is pirated. But that's like a thief claiming that not everything he has is stolen. Irrelevant!

 

In other words, they get away with everything they can, and only relent if caught.

IMHO, the amateur radio community should not be supporting this sort of criminal activity against amateur radio organizations and hams who are authors.

 

The problem in my opinion is there really is no central registry for authors. For example I have been trying to borrow a book that only the library of congress has for months now with no success. If there was a known contact method for the author I'd try reaching him that way. (However I do believe he is deceased).

So to clarify the "they" you reference isn't the IA staff, its random people on the internet not adhereing to their terms of service and acceptable use policies. The "only relent if caught" is really a fundamental flaw in the copyright system as I just explained with no central registry anymore, and the DMCA extenstion of 1998 forcing the authors to be their own advocates. It's not feasible with the current system to get written authorization for everything posted to the internet.

In my opinion the grant to fund this "Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications" is a good thing. This will encourage an official channel with a staff member to review it all to get material online rather than a bunch of end users maybe trying their best (or not their best depending on how you look at it) to share information that will help people learn, research and overall appreciate the hobby in general.

Again all my opinion as a research oriented person. Like anything you don't have to support it if you feel differently.

I expect it will grow as grand of resource as https://worldradiohistory.com/

 

Nope. They encourage the posting of copyrighted works with a nod and a wink. And copyright scofflaw Google, in whose interest it is to deprecate copyright, funds them to do it.

 

Authors typically do not own the books they write; the work for hire is sold to the publisher who does whatever with it...

Including go out of business... Then the copyright is held by no one and the work is lost forever. Because copyright duration terms are far excessive.

 

I like the Internet Archive and peruse it often.