this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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The problem is that the litigation was entirely "just", as far as the legal system goes. It's an open-and-shut case and everyone saw it coming. The Internet Archive basically stood in front of a train and dared it to turn, and now they're crying the victim. Doesn't exactly entice me to send them donations to cover their lawyers and executives right now.
They really need to admit "okay, so that was a dumb idea, and ultimately not related to archiving the Internet anyway. We're not going to do that again."
Note that I'm not saying the publishers are "good guys" here, I hate the existing copyright system and would love to see it contested. Just not by Internet Archive. Let someone else who's purpose is fighting those fights take it on and stick to preserving those precious archives out of harm's way.
Why not them in particular?
I explained why not in the sentence directly following the one that you quoted. Here it is again:
To explain in more detail: The Internet Archive is custodian to an irreplaceable archive of Internet history and raw data. If they go and get themselves destroyed at the hands of book publishers fighting lawsuits over ebook piracy, that archive is at risk of being destroyed along with them. Or being sold off at whatever going-out-of-business sale they have, perhaps even to those very giant publishers that destroyed them.
That is why not them in particular. Let someone who isn't carrying around that precious archive go and get into fights like this.
That does make sense. They do have "more to lose" in that sense.