Will The Wayback Machine Face Legal Problems
from the here-come-the-lawyers dept
Those lawyers just can’t be stopped, can they? Last week we told you about the internet’s wayback machine which is both very cool and a great way to waste a few hours. Now, however, some are afraid that lawyers are going to make it useless as they start flipping out over copyright issues. The folks associated with the site say they’ve been able to convince most people that it’s okay (especially since they’re a non-profit), but others aren’t thrilled. Sites that are trying to make money charging for archives are finding it especially problematic.
Comments on “Will The Wayback Machine Face Legal Problems”
Nonsense
Web services is such a stupid idea. The only way that it could even conceviably be useful is if everyone had a high speed, always on, network connection wherever they were in the world. And that is not going to happen any day soon, where soon == ever.
I want my applications and my data on my machine. I don’t want it stored I don’t know where by I don’t know whom.
Wayback Machine
However noble the Internet Archive’s intentions may be, the fact remains that it is taking copyrighted material without the authors’ knowledge or consent, reproducing it and creating derivative works from it.
Copyright exists so that professional writers and artists have some control over the properties they create. Just because material is published on the Web does not mean that the copyright is void, or that any organization that comes along has the right to take it for whatever purpose they wish.
Would you expect that a doctor, CEO or any other professional would work for free, or that they would allow their business reports to be taken without their permission?
I am a professional writer and I am having ALL of my information removed from the Internet Archive. This includes material I was paid to write, and material I posted for fun. The point isn’t about money. The point is that no one has the right to take my work without my permission.