We are talking about abuse of DMCA related to takedowns and copyright, and you are muddling the issue by stretching into privacy. Is privacy covered by DMCA? Is the DMCA something that an OP could use to request takedown of data from a site? If it is, then that would be what you should be speaking about, not grand visions of "how dare they copy and then host things that were on the public internet because some of those things might be privacy-sensitive!"
To play devils advocate against myself, I have made mistakes in the earlier days of the internet, that I am glad the archives failed to keep. I do understand that there is a need for privacy friendly user sites, but I am sceptical about what tools are allowed to actually perform this structure. Right now, the internet is a threat to the power that be, which is why we will see an ever increasing attempt to legislate it into the ground. If we allow government corruption to seep into the internet anymore than it already is, the real concern will be one of censorship and propaganda, and user privacy is less to do with publicly posting things you shouldnt, but more to do with the corporate/government merger and data sharing that is going on around us. Loopholes everywhere for suppressing dissidents.
I don't have a problem with IA's operation in general, but individuals do own the exclusive copyright on their works. The forums they post on generally have a ToS that states the user grants them non-exclusive license to display the content. This doesn't automatically extend to the IA. Thus, if an individual doesn't want its work to appear on the IA anymore, they can issue a DMCA takedown request, as can be done for any other copyrighted information on the internet. The IA should respect these instead of trying to claim that there is a public interest in keeping them accessible.
It's a valid question. If, for whatever reason, someone wanted to purge their identity from the Internet Archive as much as possible--including from properties that they did not control--I suppose they could try, but I doubt they's have much luck. For example, if you were to ask them to expunge any HN page that you had comments on. One issue is that there's no easy way to delete only your content if you're embedded in other discussions.
I expect it's a legal gray area that mostly works in part because most random forum posts are pseudonymous.
Not all pages contain content from other people. Most message boards have a page that shows just that users' posts. At least these should be pretty easy to get taken down by informing the IA that they don't have a license to display the content (which is true).
Is the DMCA something that an OP could use to request takedown of data from a site?
Why not? Forum posts are copyrighted at the moment of creation just like any other work, and while one certainly gives a license (implied or not) to the forum, there's no reason why that license would extend to the IA.
Interesting. So under this working theory, the entirety of the IA is fundamentally against copyright unless specifically allowed/released per site?
IANAL, but basically yes. It's one reason why the IA respects robots.txt even retroactively. The reality is that, if something was posted publicly by a copyright holder and intended to be shared, the overwhelming majority of people/entities don't care that it's being archived somewhere but there's no particular exemption for something like the IA.
Because of first sale doctrine. Anyone can set up a library by buying physical books, DVDs, or anything else they want to lend out to one person at a time without any sort of special permission. Digital library content, on the other hand, is based on specific contracts with the rights holders.
To be more precise, it doesn't *matter" if the Internet Archive is a "library" or not because libraries don't have any special status with respect to copyright law in the US. (Beyond whatever special status publishers may choose to give certain classes of libraries with respect to digital rights.) You or I can choose to setup a lending library tomorrow and we have the same rights to loan out physical books as the New York Public Library does.
Comments
We are talking about abuse of DMCA related to takedowns and copyright, and you are muddling the issue by stretching into privacy. Is privacy covered by DMCA? Is the DMCA something that an OP could use to request takedown of data from a site? If it is, then that would be what you should be speaking about, not grand visions of "how dare they copy and then host things that were on the public internet because some of those things might be privacy-sensitive!"
To play devils advocate against myself, I have made mistakes in the earlier days of the internet, that I am glad the archives failed to keep. I do understand that there is a need for privacy friendly user sites, but I am sceptical about what tools are allowed to actually perform this structure. Right now, the internet is a threat to the power that be, which is why we will see an ever increasing attempt to legislate it into the ground. If we allow government corruption to seep into the internet anymore than it already is, the real concern will be one of censorship and propaganda, and user privacy is less to do with publicly posting things you shouldnt, but more to do with the corporate/government merger and data sharing that is going on around us. Loopholes everywhere for suppressing dissidents.
I don't have a problem with IA's operation in general, but individuals do own the exclusive copyright on their works. The forums they post on generally have a ToS that states the user grants them non-exclusive license to display the content. This doesn't automatically extend to the IA. Thus, if an individual doesn't want its work to appear on the IA anymore, they can issue a DMCA takedown request, as can be done for any other copyrighted information on the internet. The IA should respect these instead of trying to claim that there is a public interest in keeping them accessible.
It's a valid question. If, for whatever reason, someone wanted to purge their identity from the Internet Archive as much as possible--including from properties that they did not control--I suppose they could try, but I doubt they's have much luck. For example, if you were to ask them to expunge any HN page that you had comments on. One issue is that there's no easy way to delete only your content if you're embedded in other discussions.
I expect it's a legal gray area that mostly works in part because most random forum posts are pseudonymous.
Not all pages contain content from other people. Most message boards have a page that shows just that users' posts. At least these should be pretty easy to get taken down by informing the IA that they don't have a license to display the content (which is true).
Is the DMCA something that an OP could use to request takedown of data from a site?
Why not? Forum posts are copyrighted at the moment of creation just like any other work, and while one certainly gives a license (implied or not) to the forum, there's no reason why that license would extend to the IA.
Interesting. So under this working theory, the entirety of the IA is fundamentally against copyright unless specifically allowed/released per site?
So perhaps a new IA that only indexes creative commons licensed sites might be in order?
IANAL, but basically yes. It's one reason why the IA respects robots.txt even retroactively. The reality is that, if something was posted publicly by a copyright holder and intended to be shared, the overwhelming majority of people/entities don't care that it's being archived somewhere but there's no particular exemption for something like the IA.
The IA is like a library. Libraries don't have to get special permission from book publishers to be libraries.
Because of first sale doctrine. Anyone can set up a library by buying physical books, DVDs, or anything else they want to lend out to one person at a time without any sort of special permission. Digital library content, on the other hand, is based on specific contracts with the rights holders.
Except it isn't. By this standard, book publishers would have to go pound sand if libraries started giving away infinitely many copies of their book.
To be more precise, it doesn't *matter" if the Internet Archive is a "library" or not because libraries don't have any special status with respect to copyright law in the US. (Beyond whatever special status publishers may choose to give certain classes of libraries with respect to digital rights.) You or I can choose to setup a lending library tomorrow and we have the same rights to loan out physical books as the New York Public Library does.
Yes, as you point out, due to the first sale doctrine. Such a thing doesn't exist in the digital realm.