Comment on Reddit will block the Internet Archive

• General_Effort@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t know their take-down policy. Could be privacy, could be copyright.

  I think they are shielded by Section 230 under US law. That means, if they don’t do take-downs when requested, they become liable just like the original uploader. So it depends on whether they think they can defend something as fair use. IDK what they do with requests under non-US laws.

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  • Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Thanks for your detailed explanation.
    When I look that up it’s specifically about ‘defamatory, illegal, or harmful content’.
    That would be understandable to take down.
    Never encountered that myself, the cases I’m referring to were totally legal content AFAIK.
    Only very damaging or proof of something.
    As a hypothetical example, let’s say an organisation posts it’s associated with Epstein in 1999 which now obviously is very inconvenient.
    They understandably remove it from their website but it should stil be on the archive if captured before.
    However, in similar controversial real cases it wasn’t.
    So it appears certain forces have more influence to get them to remove content beyond what’s legally required.
    Since then I always screenshot the archive page.

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    • General_Effort@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Hmm. There are many things that could cause legal trouble for the Wayback Machine. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

      You can see on Lemmy that many people would prefer to outlaw scraping, fair use, and all that. Well, not for the “good guys” obviously, but the law doesn’t work on vibes. The IA would be legally impossible in most countries. In the EU, it would be a major crime because of copyright and GDPR. It’s only the traditional US commitment to free speech and fair use that makes it possible at all.

      The IA exists in a legally precarious position. That’s not because of any shady backroom dealing. If the crowd in this community had its way, it would be gone.

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      • Bloomcole@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I know the EU has different (stricter) laws and that they vary between states. (Germany being particularly awful)
        There is however some complicated form of fair use policy.
        If the IA hosts music and books that might be problematic.
        But I’m talking about archived webpages and information previously available to the public with zero commercial value that has been removed.
        And this includes American sites.

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