None of those rules are traditional. Those rules are adhoc, constantly changed at the whims of whoever is in charge of the copyright office in any given administration, and heavily lobbied by the media companies. These rules are many things: bureaucratic, official, overly-complicated, contrary to public interest, etc. but have no basis in "tradition".
>At this point I'd be happy if they'd just pick a lane.
No doubt you'd be happy.
>they would have less of a problem partnering with rights holders
These are the same rights holders that have acted irresponsibly when it suited them, leading to the wanton destruction of material that rightfully belongs to the public. You get that right? Copyright is not ownership, it's just a long-term lease... all copyright materials are in the long run property of the public domain. You don't get to destroy them just because you've got a temporary lease on it. The rights holders are the problem.
>Right now they're asking for $17 donations next to pirated material
What piracy? Did someone hijack a ship at sea and hold its crew for ransom?
I work in the space and routinely access material that predates the Berne Convention. There are indeed traditions that archives and libraries follow going back centuries.
This is entirely separate from US copyright law and if we were actually conversing I'd imagine we'd discover that we share a lot of views there.
> You don't get to destroy them just because you've got a temporary lease on it.
And that's where we disagree. For starters, nothing has gotten destroyed here. Yet. The problem as I see it is that some weird-ass white guy annointed himself keeper of the material. And now he's started behaving erratically and unlawfully, and putting everything at risk. Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.
Insiders at the Archive have gone as far as to say Brewster's sabotaging things since there's no plan for funding or running the thing after he passes. Getting sued over and over (and losing) is awful. And imagine how the employees feel -- scanning moldy books for 20 years and then your boss makes one weird decision and now nobody can see your work.
It sets up the quip two sentences later and opens up opportunities for further social commentary such as "Brewster Kahle seems to be the only white guy left who manages to lose in a courtroom each and every time."
None of those rules are traditional. Those rules are adhoc, constantly changed at the whims of whoever is in charge of the copyright office in any given administration, and heavily lobbied by the media companies. These rules are many things: bureaucratic, official, overly-complicated, contrary to public interest, etc. but have no basis in "tradition".
>At this point I'd be happy if they'd just pick a lane.
No doubt you'd be happy.
>they would have less of a problem partnering with rights holders
These are the same rights holders that have acted irresponsibly when it suited them, leading to the wanton destruction of material that rightfully belongs to the public. You get that right? Copyright is not ownership, it's just a long-term lease... all copyright materials are in the long run property of the public domain. You don't get to destroy them just because you've got a temporary lease on it. The rights holders are the problem.
>Right now they're asking for $17 donations next to pirated material
What piracy? Did someone hijack a ship at sea and hold its crew for ransom?