I found Internet Archive during the months when we couldn't go to shops or travel. The very first books I read there were fiction set in the time of the Spanish flu. One was Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Porter. Another was They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell (about whom Edward Mendelson is fascinating in another book you can find on Internet Archive; I suspect he puts a similar argument here).
I loved both of these books. Given that our "pandemic" didn't turn out to be a true pandemic of the Spanish flu variety, I wonder whether works of such poignance will be inspired by people's experience of this more recent iteration. I expect that as time goes by and the consequences of the panicked public policy we were persuaded to accept become more terrible, we may see an increasing anger emerging in people's recollection of what happened.
Anyway, I think Internet Archive is a wonderful thing and the attacks being made upon it by publishers are misguided and selfish. So often it is impossible to find older books anywhere but in the Archive's collection. The Archive is doing a huge service, preserving so much that publishers cannot be bothered to keep available.
And it is not only books. Today I found this fascinating bit of footage in which you can see Ferenc Nagy being interviewed in the calm manner of a former era.
For those who may not know, Ferenc Nagy was democratically elected Prime Minister of Hungary until Mátyás Rákosi's Communist Party, aided by Soviet soldiers, kidnapped his party's General Secretary & deported him to the Soviet Union and then kidnapped Nagy's own son, only returning him when Nagy agreed to resign from office.
Once they'd achieved that, the Communist Party seized power in Hungary, despite having won only 22 per cent of the vote at free elections.
"I do not believe coexistence is possible between ideologies. Communism is an imperialistic ideology" Nagy states in the Internet Archive footage. Sadly, Communism is also a very insidious ideology, and if you look carefully enough you will see that it is the force behind many of today's problems. Along with the thing it claims to be the cure for - human greed.
I also support the Internet Archive - literally, with a modest substack-level monthly donation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the “attacks” being made on the IA are not entirely without foundation. Some of what the IA is doing could reasonably be considered to be copyright infringement. Digitizing a book and making it available on the internet is not quite the same as what libraries do, which involves purchasing a digital copy of the book under a licensing arrangement, and distributing the book under agreed conditions.
On the other hand, when publishers let writers’ works go out of print, and do nothing to monetize the books involved, the protective intent of copyright, which is not only to reward writers and publishers, but to insure distribution of books and other created art, is nullified by their inaction. So digitizing a book which is still under copyright but out of print really only hurts used book stores, which are exempted from the impact of copyright law by the “first sale doctrine.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
My general approach to this issue is to limit my downloads of digital books from IA to those instances in which the publisher has allowed a book to go out of print. In those instances in which a book is still in print, but a digital copy is not available, I just buy a print copy & then go ahead & download the digital copy if IA has one. I figure I’ve paid for the book.
As a side note, it is not always a question of the publisher deciding not to keep books available. You can blame this one on Congress, and the IRS treating books as ordinary commodities which must be handled for tax purposes under normal inventory rules. The key case in this area, which I am not suggesting you read, is Thor Power Tool v. Commissioner, https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/439/522/ It doesn’t involve book inventory, but the unanticipated consequences do. This case resulted in publishers finding it to be economically unadvantageous to keep stockpiles of unsold books - so they get remaindered.
Thank you for such an interesting comment - & for letting me off the case ruling reading (phew). When you say "digitised" & "download", I begin to suspect I may be suffering from my usual technical incompetence when using internet archive, as I've only encountered their carefully photographed page by page old library books - do they stock actual e-texts & I haven't been noticing? Best ZMKC (yes, it's true, I can't persuade my own blog to let me comment on it)
ReplyDeleteOne of the things you can do on IA is download files containing the books, or other media, shown on the site. Basically, you can “check them out”, just as you do with the library. You can download an epub or mobi file, or an mp3 if you are dealing with audio, and have access to them on your computer, kindle, or whatever ebook reader you have. In order to do that, you have to have, for epub files, the Adobe Digital Editions app, or for mobi files, the Kindle app. In many instances, DRM (digital rights management) is involved. But when the dust settles, you find that you have access to the books from your own computer or, more importantly, ebook reader.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a computer literate friend, he or she can show you how to do this. Differs, of course, for Mac or PC. I’d say go to the help menu, but frankly, if things aren’t obvious to you from the web pages, you probably won’t be able to work out how to do this stuff. By the time the help files are comprehensible, you don’t need help…
Maybe this will help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBy9z3f9Mw I haven’t watched it myself, so I really don’t know…
"Frankly, if things aren't obvious to you from the web pages, you probably won't be able to work out how to do this stuff". So sad, so true.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting worse. I have different ereaders kobo and kindle. With kobo (epub format) I have not difficulty downloading anything on gutenberg.org which as you likely know is an offshoot of internet.archive. The books there are in the public domain and are proof read. However with Kindle I am getting a notice about DRM (digital rights management) saying that I am not allowed to download them. Presumeably these books are in print from some reprint house. eg 'The Prisoner of Zenda' by Anthony Hope. There have been others too. Luckily if you are bound to kindle and amazon there are other option to download a lot of books/ standard ebooks, grey ebooks, fadedpage.com (from Canada with a 50 year limit) and more besides. I got Prisoner of Zenda from https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anthony-hope/the-prisoner-of-zenda
ReplyDeleteReally ancient books of limited general interest are free still of course but generally only readable in the pdf format as the epub and kindle will be full of errors.
(ombhurbhuva)
I had no idea Gutenberg & Internet Archive were connected. How interesting. I am extremely grateful for those links. ZMKC
ReplyDeleteProject Gutenberg is not an offshoot of the Internet Archive. It is it’s own thing, set up years ago. You could be able to download directly from Gutenberg.org, and no DRM should be involved with such downloads. But you have to be sure to download the proper file format - mobi for kindle, epub for kobo, I think.
ReplyDeleteInternet archive merely scrapes books from Project Gutenberg. And you should always check Amazon or B&N for anything that’s on PG. Frequently, someone has downloaded, reformatted, & added the PG book to Amazon/B&N and you can get it for a nominal fee. Some complain about this, but I think there’s some added value with the formatting, particularly when the uploaded has hyperlinked the table of contents involved.
The problem for me is when I load on to the kindle from Calibre eg. Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley. (downloaded from P.G.) I get an
ReplyDelete'unable to open' notice. It's opening on Calibre fine but not on the kindle. This is a recent phenomenon.
Thanks Harmon for correction.
ReplyDeleteI'm still getting that with loading from Calibre on to kindle. Book opens on Calibre but not on the Kindle eg. Trent's Last Case by E.C. Bentley. notice says cannot open.