in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

1. boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.
2. learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.
3. get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.
4. donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.

and finally…

ALT

ALT

See I agree with all of this except the piracy. As a legitimate published author it isn’t just the pub houses that suffer. The ones who will suffer the most are the authors, because mostly we don’t get paid until we sell x amount of copies. If you pirate that’s basically akin to going out to eat and stiffing the waitress on the tip because you don’t like the restaurant. The waitress ends up paying for your meal in a sense.

Really insightful opinion. Could you drop the names of your books so I can promptly not buy them? Being exploited by your employer and then going to bat for the employer is weird behavior.

It’s protecting the works of the authors. You missed my point- I’m not saying pub houses are great by any means. They’re absolutely the problem here and I’m in favor of watching things change, but pirating authors books hurts the ones that write them far more than the pub houses who’ve already made money off the books was where I was getting at considering that was the only thing I was against. 🤷‍♀️

you wouldn’t get it because I suppose you’re not an author, and that’s ok. But thinking it’s okay to steal the works of someone who put their heart into their project just because the publishing industry sucks is weird behavior. Why not recommend buying the books directly from said author instead? Most of us have plenty of our own books and why a lot of us self publish instead at this point.

I write tabletop roleplaying games, where the industry standard for small creators is putting works up for pay what you want. But I appreciate the shitty assumption. I can tell you’re a genuinely kind and loving person who cares about other creatives. I’ll send you a pdf of the game I’m currently playtesting if you’d like, free of charge 😉

Where did you get a shitty assumption from this when you’re attacking me based on my views? Lol

If anything I’ve been nothing but kind 🤷‍♀️ it’s the internet- you can’t tell my tone and I’m not making assumptions on you, but feel free to think of me as you wish. I’m just tired of people saying it’s ok to steal works from people just because of the entity that makes it that way because it hurts us smaller folk way more than the big bads.

(Also, to clarify) I’m being genuine here because of said tone- my friends and I love the idea of tabletop role playing games.. I actually would like to know where I can support if you have a ko-fi or Patreon. 💜

The shitty assumption was that I must not be a creative because I have an opinion that differs from yours. Regardless of the intent, that comes off as condescending. I understand that wasn’t what you’re going for, so I won’t harp on it further. Seems to just be one limitation of communicating with the limitations of this hellsite. I do not want you to pay me following this interaction. I will gladly send you a pdf for free. I came in guns blazing and set the tone for the discourse, so that’s on me. My estradiol makes me moody but that isn’t an excuse. That being said, it doesn’t feel right to accept payment following an interaction about the ethics of piracy. Piracy and payment after the fact is normal and accepted and encouraged in my creative circles and I’m not compromising that because mainline fiction circles interact with the mechanism of capitalism differently than we do.

That’s fair. I apologize for coming off as condescending that definitely wasn’t the intent. It seems there’s more to the issue than even my own experiences and research brought me and I’m not above admitting that.

If you want to send me the pdf I am happy to accept! But I do mean it- we all need support where we can regardless.

Thanks for bringing a different view and challenging my ways of thinking in a broader sense. I hope today and every day is kind to you 💜