A Wonder of the Digital World (To Wonder in the Digital World)
“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire” ― Charles Bukowski
The Internet Archive is having a bad week…or maybe just a bad year. Last week, every major label filed a lawsuit against the Archive (to the tune of $400,000,000) for infringing on their copyrights. The New York Times just reported that the Archive lost its battle against the book business, who sued them for the same reason. For an archive that is a “non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 624 billion archived web pages” (taken from their website) there is a big chunk of their holdings that might not be available anymore (as well as their reserves).
Brewster Kahle started the Archive back on May 10, 1996 initially to archive the web…every webpage and the content of websites. Having the foresight to understand both the value of such an archive and the ever-changing world of the World Wide Web, The Wayback Machine (which is what he ended up calling the program) is a pretty amazing e-contraption. Do you want to see a storefront you used to go to a decade ago…maybe find a recipe from a e-magazine that is long extinct? Check out the Wayback Machine. I completely lost one of my record label’s websites because of a hosting screw up: the Wayback had all the content there for me to start a rebuild.
A few years later, Kahle saw a bigger opportunity in front of him, and started archiving other collections. It began with the Prelinger Archives, a fantastic collection of films, newspapers, books and ephemera tracking culture and history in the United States (Rick Prelinger, the founder, also curates the Lost Landscapes of San Francisco). We should do an entire Signal on the Prelinger Archives, but for now the important piece is that with the Prelinger Archives, the Internet Archive developed the ability of hosting pretty much all mediums: audio, video, visual—books, records, newspapers, home movies, films.
The Internet Archive became two things: a crowdsourcing mechanism where the public could upload content, and a place where the Archive could intentionally grow its collection by digitizing others and curating new ones. Do you want to see every political add by city, by state, from the last Presidential Election? The Internet Archive has that. Do you want to see the complete digitized collection of The Yiddish Book Center? The Archive has that too. The Archive became the place where Grateful Dead fans traded concert tapes. Researching antiquated software? The Archive has “the largest collection of historical software online in the world.” Scholars who need access to specific articles can search the database of 25 million of them that the Archive has collected. Want to see photos of horses or fairs or sox from the 1800s: oh yeah, there are tons of them.
Over the years the Archive has added more incredible programs…too many to list without losing the script. It truly is one of the great wonders of the digital world. And yes, you can also read books, magazines, listen to music and watch movies through the Archive. And this is where things have gotten very muddy.
In Kahle’s quest to be the archivist and distributor of all public knowledge…the greatest on-line library in the world…he started digitizing book and record collections, both content that is in and out of copyright. His Great 78 project is designed to digitize and make available all music from 1898 to the 1950s, which contains both music that is in the public domain and music that is still owned by the record labels. Instead of going to the record labels and asking for permission, Kahle pushed forward with the idea that as a library, the Archive was doing its job to preserve and to make accessible. But there were a slew of 78s that carried with them names like Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams….Billie Holliday. And while his intentions were good, he made the fatal mistake of not first asking the master owners for use of the recordings (a theme for early-stage Internet companies that deal with cultural content).
At the start of the pandemic, Kahle unveiled The National Emergency Library, to allow anyone access to any book that has been digitized and is on their site….for free (as usual). Many of these books are owned by the big publishers, and Kahle did not get permission from them to make this offer. Despite his good intentions, the publishers were not happy with the perceived loss of revenue from giving their content away, and took the Archive to court…and won. Just recently. If the Archive loses the appeal they will have to take down thousands of books from their site and pay the labels for damages. I would assume this story will be repeated with the recent record label lawsuit.
The questions that I keep asking…and remember I am a fan of the Internet Archive and its mission…is what is the definition of a modern library? Who decides what is and is not a library and what does it mean for a modern library to offer digital content? Currently, most public libraries offer the on-line ability to check out physical books, CDs, and LPs…as well as digital books and digital albums. They offer research services as well. One difference between the Internet Archive and the public library is the Archive’s incredible drive to grow its holdings, many of which (and to me, a very important point) would not be available at all if it were not for this work. When I wanted to read a book by John Banim, a 19th century Irish author, I could either buy an old antiquarian printing for $500 (the book is wayyy out of print) or borrow it from the Archive. While many of the 78s they have digitized are owned by major labels, there are many that either the big labels have not designated important enough to spend time and money to digitize from the dead or are on smaller labels that have long blasted into forgotten obscurity. The Archive does not archive prioritizing Frank Sinatra over Rose Murphy (the Chee-Chee Girl)…they archive based on what they are receiving in bulk.
Yes, the Archive did not take the incredibly important, necessary, and respectful step of talking to rights holders before crossing serious lines. But Kahle might have thought (wrongly) that they did not need to because they were creating a library. While many artists are against the Archive’s actions, there are many who have signed petitions, both recently and in the past, supporting the work, wanting information/knowledge/inspiration to be readily available for everyone (my friend David Pescovitz pointed me to a past open letter of support for the Archive and otehr on-line libraries signed by Neil Gaiman, Tom Morello, Alyssa Milano, and many others); is there not a world where the major rights holders (and maybe even the government) work with the Archive to become the greatest library it is envisioning itself to be? Instead of suing it out of existence?
With the digital age, the idea of what a library is might be in question. Another article from the New York Times this week quoted Jason Schultz, director of New York University’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic, “The permanence of library collections may become a thing of the past…If the platforms decide not to offer the e-books or publishers decide to pull them off the shelves, the reader loses out.”1
In the turn of the last century, Napster became the biggest threat to the music industry since the rise of tech. And the industry, along with Metallica…who sued their fans over it (nice, right?)…shut Napster down—EVEN WHEN NSYNC’s record No Strings Attached became the biggest traded record on the service while simultaneously becoming the biggest commercial seller of the year (during a bad year for record sales). The industry took Napster down—along with its anarchistic co-founder Sean Parker—even though it proved itself an effective marketing engine, and just needed to be evolved in the effective sales mechanism it and Spotify and others became years later.
The Internet Archive is in no way the same sort of animal Napster was….and to compare both is foolhardy. But, the Internet Archive is at a tenuous moment in both the court and the court of public opinion, where the True understanding of its worth, by the right players, could be the beginning of its next phase of impact in casting the light of knowledge onto the world. Or it could be shut down, or severely stunted, stopping the work that is needed to be done, and what it is best-in-class to do.
The Internet Archive must find a way to survive and thrive.
Top 25 Most Expensive Items Sold on Discogs in July 2023
7K for a Beatles LP, 5K for a Misfits single? You ready? Besides the usual suspects, Italian Prog rocked the sales figures this month, including a record from ‘72 by Jacula called Tardo Pede In Magiam Versus (very organ heavy) that went for close to 4K and the 1975 Apoteosi self titled record whose price was not that far behind (but not close to being as good…pretty lite stuff). What my pick would have been from this month’s list? Probably the Sun Ra single Super Blonde/Talk Soft from 1955 that went for 2K.
Eatonton-Putnam County Library features Alice Walker mini museum
File this article with other completely uninformative ones (C- grade)…think of it as more of an announcement. The legendary writer was the first African American to win a Pulitzer, no doubt (for The Color Purple) and deserves such a place in her hometown. Downtown Eatonton also features “The Georgia Writers Museum (featuring) exhibits and programs commemorating the three writers from the region: Alice Walker, Joel Chandler Harris, and Flannery O’Connor.”2
Flaming Lips Fest at The Four Star This Saturday
With the Flaming Lips coming to Stern Grove this Sunday, the good folks at The Four Star are showing all of their films….the Saturday before. Fearless Freaks, Christmas On Mars, The Space Bubble documentary. It will all be on the Silver Screen…
Lol Tolhurst is in a new band…and their first single sounds great!
Late night song texting with Jon Blaufarb brought us to a number recorded by The Nat King Cole Trio called Frim-Fram Sauce. Within minutes, Jon found the recipe…and it looks like an amazing one (and a REALLY unhealthy one). But lets be clear, as the Guardian reported:
Frim fram is one of the oldest terms surviving as slang, cited in John Heywood's 1546 book of proverbs: "She maketh earnest matters of every flymflam" about (someone) easily deceived. Flimska is "mockery" in Old Norse, and flim "a lampoon". Thus, as sung by Cole and Krall half a millennium later, "frim fram sauce" is the oleaginous goo of deceit poured over some unsuspecting dupe.
But I just might make the Frim-Fram risotto from the above recipe anyway….I’ll just go to the foo-er-e-nee, snake that go-hunk ‘n glut-eeny and prep the frim-fram for la-ha-la3.
President of the Moon Committee: Walter Benjamin’s radio years.
This is a wonderful article that introduced me to the great thinker Walter Benjamin (who I was ignorant of), the early days of radio and how the audience for it evolved, and the gothic art of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Great journalism (take note, Eatonton Messenger).
“The Arizonan city of Mesa is facing censorship allegations after a show of politically oriented street art was abruptly delayed. According to Arizona’s Family, a local news station, the specific reason for the postponement was one work: a Shepard Fairey piece about police brutality. That work, a print called My Florist Is a Dick (2015), shows a police officer in riot gear holding a baton that sprouts a red flower. “My florist is a dick. When his day starts, your days end,” the accompanying text reads.”
Brice Marden, Painter Who Redefined Abstraction, Dies at 84
Marden’s paintings are such experiences to behold. Standing in front of these huge, humorous, sophisticated crazy works…they just hit you, affect you…beautifully controlled chaos. Re the obit’s headline: I am too young to remember when abstraction needed a redefinition…to me it is the natural next step from Cy Twombly and friends. Or was Twombly part of Marden’s generation? Brice Marden RIP.
Poet of an Ordinary Heartbreak
By: Chris Abani
Who hasn’t been tempted by the sharp edge of a knife?
An ordinary knife cutting ordinary tomatoes on
an ordinary slab of wood on an ordinary Wednesday.
The knife nicks, like a bite to the soul. A reminder
that what is contemplated is as real as the blood
sprouting from a finger. As real as a bruised eye.
Instead turn back to the meat stewing on the stove.
Scrape pulpy red flesh into the heat and turn.
Say: even this is a prayer. Even this.
Elephants 5
By: Chris Abani4
It is not likely that my father and I will take a walk soon
and not just because he is dead.
But he did come back in a dream to cook
me a simple dish of beans with tomatoes
and, through the steam rising from my bowl,
he smiled as he cut me a slice of bread,
vanishing slowly with every saw.
The heart is like this sometimes.
It finds the hands of your dead father
and shaves away another layer
like a thick slab of warm bread.
Sometimes that, Tadeusz. Or sometimes this.
That the lines lead you out of the labyrinth.
That the Minotaur is your toy bear thrown casually
against a chair in the dark.
That rain will come.
That rain will come.
“Nature is no less violent than the history of humanity.”-PETER E. GORDON, on the theories of Walter Benjamin
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/business/media/internet-archive-emergency-lending-library.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
https://www.southernliterarytrail.org/writers/alice-walker
https://fromtheothersideofthemirror.com/2009/04/09/the-original-hipster-dictionary/
This poem is taken from the book Sanctificum which was recently short listed for the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature
The Internet archive is one of the greatest resources we currently have on the Internet. It would be nothing. Short of a tragedy is not allowed to exist. Anyone who uses it, understands its immense value. I had to find archives of my mother’s work in the 60s. Fortunately, the radio station she worked for trusted their archive to the Internet archive. Finding her work was easy, just as going to a research library would be. This is a research resource and should be used as such. Dont take away knowledge for learning! Isn’t that what we’re all fighting right now?
Great post. Re the Internet Archive- this seems like a great topic for Deborah and James Fallows. Their book Our Towns is in part an ode to the local library.