#save links into the internet archive/wayback machine!

[raavenb2619]

I’m not sure when exactly this happened, but I think it’s clear that the aro community really is a community, now.

For the longest time I’ve felt like we were still in stasis, not quite there; a proto-community, yes, but not quite a community. But we have more history now to lean back on, more of each other to talk to and laugh with and cry with and learn from. More people that’ll go forward and make a part of modern aro history. More people that believe us, believe in us, will stand with us if we ask them.

I wouldn’t consider myself an aro elder yet, though each year I’m surprised at how long aromanticism has been a part of my life, how long I’ve been free of doubt or insecurity about my aromanticism, how far we’ve come since I was questioning. Then again, when I was questioning, some of the people I looked up to for guidance were probably close to the age I am now, so I might be there sooner than I think.

And, I’m so so hopeful for all aros, young or old, new or not, because we’ve come so far. Day by day, progress is slow (and yes, it’s unfair, it should be so much faster), but looking back it feels fast. We are our own role models, the people we look up to for guidance. We carve our own path through life, making things up as we go. I used to find that terrifying, because I had no idea what the future would bring. But it’s actually amazing, because I can ignore all these silly “rules” and guidelines about what my life should be, and instead ask, “what do I want my life to be?”

Younger me, you have no idea how awesome your future is gonna be. I’m sorry about the pain and hardship you’ll go through first; it won’t be fair and you shouldn’t have to deal with it. But you’ll make it through, and one day you’ll be me. I can’t wait for you to get here.

[saint-theophania]

where would we as a society (compulsive fanfic readers) be without our sexy sexy wife (wayback machine). she has saved me more times than i can count...

[0sbrain]

here's a list of mozilla add-ons for all of you tumblrinas out there to have a better internet experience

also, if you like my post, please reblog it. Tumblr hates links but i had to put them so you adhd bitches actually download them <3 i know because i am also adhd bitches

BASIC STUFF:

AdGuard AdBlocker / uBlock Origin : adguard is a basic adblock and with origin you can also block any other element you want. for example i got rid of the shop menu on tumblr

Privacy Badger : this add on will block trackers. if an element contains a tracker it will give you the option to use it or not

Shinigami Eyes: this will highlight transphobic and trans friendly users and sites using different colors by using a moderated database. perfect to avoid terfs on any social media. i will explain how to use this and other add-ons on android as well under the read more cut

THINGS YOU TUMBLINAS WANT:

Xkit: the best tumblr related add on. with many customizable options, xkit not only enhances your experience from a visual standpoint, but provides some much needed accessibility tools

bonus: if you are into tf2 and wanna be a cool cat, you can also get the old version to add cool reblog icons

AO3 enhancer: some basic enhancements including reading time and the ability to block authors and tags

YOUTUBE

Return of the YouTube Dislike : pretty self explanatory

Youtube non-stop: gets rid of the annoying "Video paused. Continue watching?" popup when you have a video in the background

SponsorBlock: gives you options to skip either automatically or manually sponsors, videoclip non music sectors and discloses other type of sponsorships/paid partnerships

Enhancer for YouTube: adds some useful options such as custom play speed, let's you play videos in a window and most important of all, it allows you to make the youtube interface as ugly as your heart desires. I can't show a full image of what it looks like because i've been told its eye strainy and i want this post to be accessible but look at this <3

PocketTube: allows you to organize your subscriptions into groups

YouTube Comment Search: what it says

FINDING STUFF

WayBack Machine: you probably know about this site and definitely should get the add on. this allows you to save pages and access older versions with the click of a button. while you can search wayback using web archives, please get this one as well as it allows you to easily save pages and contribute to the archive.

Web Archives: it allows you to search through multiple archives and search engines including WayBack Machine, Google, Yandex and more.

Search by Image: allows you to reverse image search using multiple search engines (in my experience yandex tends to yield the best results)

Image Search Options: similar to the last one

this next section is pretty niche but... STEAM AND STEAM TRADING

SteamDB: adds some interesting and useful statistics

Augmented Steam: useful info specially for browsing and buying games

TF2 Trade Helper: an absolute godsend, lets you add items in bundles, keeps track of your keys and metal and your recent trades, displays links to the backpack tf page next to users profiles and more. look it tells me how much moneys i have and adds metal to trades without clicking one by one oh may god

IN CONCLUSION: oooooh you want to change to firefox so badly, you want to delete chrome and all the chrome clones that are actually just spyware and use firefox

HOW TO USE MOZILLA ADD-ONS ON YOUR PHONE

if you already use firefox on android, you'll know there are certain add-ons compatible with the app, some of them even being made just for the mobile version such as Video Background Play FIx. while most of them are pretty useful, some more specific ones aren't available on this version of the browser, but there's a way of getting some of them to work

you need to download the firefox nightly app, which is basically the same as the regular firefox browser but with the ability of activating developer mode. you can find how to do that here. once you've enabled it, you need to create a collection with all the add ons you want. i wouldn't recommend adding extensions if the creators haven't talked about phone compatibility, but XKit and Shinigami Eyes should work

also, don't tell the government this secret skater move, but you can try using both the regular firefox browser and nightly so you can have youtube videos in a floating box while you browse social media.

see? i can block this terf while Rick Rolling the people following this tutorial. isn't that tubular?

[littlegreenfag-archive]

Regarding @littlegreenfag

Tldr: Adina, known by the Tumblr urls littlegreenfag and prksoda, has spent the past several years lying about many facets of their life. The list of lies includes, but is not limited to, being half manouche Romani, being Jewish, and being descended from Holocaust survivors.

I never wanted to have to do this. I’ve spent months trying my best to encourage Adina to come clean themself. My methods were not ideal. I should not have used anonymous messages. I used to be friends with them, I should've talked to them openly as their friend. I also should’ve attempted to be less aggressive at times, even though I think it is incredibly reasonable to have felt the way I felt when I was sending some of those messages. I understand and regret both of these things. Unfortunately, since Adina has deactivated @littlegreenfag, I cannot provide links or screenshots to every ask of mine that they responded to, only those I saved at the time. I will do this later, upon request. This post is already going to be enough of a monster without them.

Though the last day has been a complete nightmare, I am satisfied with one thing: Adina came clean about everything, even if not publicly. My worry was always with the though of having to reveal their personal information, as many of the things they’ve lied about would require me to, functionally, dox them. Though it's technically all public, I would much rather that no one who doesn't already have access to this information gain it.

So, why am I writing this post? For those of you who were on Adina’s blog last night, you may have seen this post. I was also able to save a capture of their blog on the Internet Archive. Here is a screenshot that I took around when the post was first published. Apologies for the formatting.

To summarize, Adina begins to by admitting to a small lie, that they were born in Chicago, before admitting that they had been lying about their race. Though it was not present at the time of the blog's deletion, I would like to note that Adina had the phrase "jewish and half-romani" in their blog's bio for a very long time. This phrase was quietly removed after I sent the first anon message telling them that I was aware of their lies, on March 16th 2024. This can be seen on the Wayback Machine, by looking at the capture taken on March 5th, 2024, in comparison to the capture taken on March 24th, 2024.

That is what you may have seen. However, it is not the only major lie Adina has told. After suggesting Adina should turn off anons, I sent them another ask with my blog name visible, telling them that I could tell everyone about the other lies for them, if they wished to log off and be done with it. They messaged me privately, and this is the resulting conversation.

I apologize for the block of images, but I figured it was necessary to include the entire conversation. Here, Adina openly admits to not being Jewish. Adina has spent months receiving social benefits for claiming to be Jewish, and they've even used this claim to support arguments. Truth be told, Adina has one Jewish great-grandfather. How Adina expected me to believe they would know about this without knowing his surname, I will never know. However, I should emphasize that Adina is not Jewish by the standards of any main movement of Judaism. Orthodox and Conservative look for an unbroken line of Jewish women, while Reform asks that you be raised Jewish by a Jewish parent. Adina is descended from a Jewish man who converted to Catholicism and raised his children Catholic.

Regarding the Holocaust claim, I understand hat Adina did not directly address this. I will say that I find it suspicious that they deactivated as soon as I mentioned it, but they technically never confirmed it was a lie. However, with the information that:

The ancestors they mention as being survivors or victims quite literally do not exist and

Their Jewish ancestor was born in the United States well before WWII

I believe it is quite safe to say this was also a lie. My screenshots of their claims come mostly from their Reddit account, which is now deleted.

It is absolutely ghoulish to me to create fake relatives so that you can pretend they were tortured and killed during the Holocaust. All to receive sympathy.

Though there are many, many other lies Adina has peddled, such as being a child of divorce and having a dead biological mother, I don't think any of them matter much in the grand scheme of things when these are the other lies that have been told.

It is also worth noting that this is a pattern of behavior from Adina. As some of you who followed them may know, back in 2019, a blog was created with the intent of calling them out for lies. Frankly, this blog, @prksodalies , is what put me on to Adina's trail in the first place. Though I believe that several of the things Adina was accused of on this blog are downright cruel to accuse someone of without evidence, the fact that there were so many smaller obvious lies made me very uneasy. What specifically made me curious was the post, here, where Adina claims that they are half Lebanese. Obviously, this did not make a ton of sense with the half Roma and half Ashkenazi Jewish Adina we all knew. As it turns out, this was one of the very few shreds of truth from Adina. They're a quarter Lebanese on their father's side, and other than that and a Jewish great-grandfather, are of mostly Polish and German descent.

This being a pattern of behavior, alongside the way Adina behaved in messages with me, tells me that this will likely unfortunately not be the last time this person creates a Tumblr blog with a fabricated life story. I feel immense guilt at the thought that they may continue to swindle and hurt people, and that I will never know or be able to help again.

To everyone who was friends with this person and has been hurt by their actions, I am truly, truly sorry. This has been an absolutely miserable experience for me and I can't imagine it's much different for any of you. If you have questions, I'll be available for a least a few hours. I do not want to share any of their personal information, but I will share what I need to (privately) if some of you need or want more information.

[howlingmoonrise]

Guide to backing up AO3 fics on the Wayback Machine

okay so on the interest of being able to link back to this instead of having to type it all over again the next time a friend asks:

yes, you CAN back up fic (and other websites in general) to the wayback machine, you don't have to be a specific profession or a member of the internet archive or anything

you can do this without an account, but you have extra options when you're saving a website using an internet archive account (saving ALL outlinks from that page, which is a huge time-saver; saving it to your web archive, which is useful when you want to look up the stuff you saved; etc). making an account is free.

specific things need to be taken into consideration when saving, such as whether a webpage requires login in order to enter. the wayback machine only saves a page exactly as it would show up to you if you were to open it on an anonymous tab right now with no extras installed (logged out, no saved cookies, stuff unclicked, etc) so you need to take this into consideration when saving stuff

why does this matter? because when it comes to ao3 fic, specifically, this poses some issues. at the risk of this post being nearly exclusively lists and bullet-points:

login-locked fics can't be saved to the web archive like this (please download them through ao3 itself if you'd like to save them as they are)

fics rated as explicit, mature, or not rated don't get saved properly if you use the normal fic link. they only get saved as the page where you confirm that you're willing to proceed unless you add this confirmation to the link you're saving (more on this below)

fics with more than one chapter don't get saved properly if you use the normal fic link. i see this happen a LOT with people who think they saved stuff but then only the first chapter was actually backed up. you also need to add a parameter to consider this to the link you're saving (more on this below). no, using the save all outlinks option won't help you here as the links to the next chapters aren't all indexed.

saving outlinks won't work if the fics listed in the page are explicit or multichapter, because you'll run into the same issues as in points 2 and 3. using the "save outlinks" option works when you're dealing with the page for a series where all the works are gen/teen oneshots. maybe twoshots, since ao3 now links to the latest chapter on the chapter count, but i haven't tested this yet.

--

step-by-step guide to how to back up fic and deal with the pesky multichapter/rating issues below the cut:

1. get the fic link

you want the one that is formatted like below, with only the work ID listed in the link

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007075

you can get this straight-up on oneshots, or right-click+"copy link" on the fic name when the fic is listed on an ao3 page (such as in the pages for bookmarks, series, or just in the plain fandom/ship tag). alternatively, if the link you have has anything else on it, such as:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007075/chapters/49717460

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007075/bookmarks?page=7

you can just remove everything after the work ID so that the format is the same as in the first example.

2. edit the link

if the fic is a gen/teen oneshot, you can just leave the link as it is

if the fic is explicit/mature/not rated, add ?view_adult=true to the end of the link

if the fic is a multichapter, add ?view_full_work=true to the end of the link

if the fic is explicit/mature/not rated and a multichapter, add ?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true to the end of the link

you can just use the last one for any fics and it'll work! it's just more difficult to find on the wayback machine if you only have the original link to work with, so i try to keep it to the simplest version possible.

as an example, you'll end up with something like this for the last case:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007075?view_adult=true&view_full_work=true

the edited link you end up with is the one you'll use from now on in this tutorial!

3. check whether the link has already been saved on the web archive (optional)

if the fic was saved, say, yesterday, or the writer has vanished from the interwebz since like 2003, and everything looks to be in order, there's little point in saving it again unless there were major changes since (and PLEASE check if the only save wasn't just an error page instead of the page itself, sometimes this happens and it's heartbreaking when you only notice after the page is gone.)

you can check this by going to the main page of the web archive, entering the link, and then checking on the timeline for how many lines there are in it (if there are no saves at all, they will ask you if you want to save the page). for the fic we're using as an example, someone appears to have saved it in 2021. click on that line, and then on the calendar below (where there'll presumably be either a blue or a green bubble around the date in which someone tried to back it up. other colours are no bueno):

green bubbles/links indicate a redirect. this is not particularly worrying by itself: it happens, for example, when the link is being redirected from the work ID-only format to the ID/chapters/chapter-ID format. but it can also be a redirect to a warning, for example. click on one of those timestamps and check whether the fic shows up as you expect it to. (once you have the page for a snapshot, you can just paste your next links in there to check if they exist instead of doing this all over again.)

for example, in the case of this particular fic, only the third chapter appears to have been saved. weird! you definitely don't want the only back-up of it to be this one, so it's time to move on to the next step.

4. save the fic!!!!

go to the wayback machine save page. paste the link. if you have an account and want to keep the saved website at hand, check the "save in my web archive" option.

whether you want to save error pages (for example, in case ao3 is having server issues, or for archival/historical reasons) or not is up to you, but i prefer to uncheck the box because it's usually more visible if there was an issue. below is the page of a 404 page i tried to save with the box unchecked:

and here is an attempt for another 404 page with the box checked:

the second example saved the error page only, and can mislead you into thinking that the fic was properly archived when it was, in fact, not.

DO NOT CLOSE THE PAGE UNTIL THE ARCHIVING IS DONE OR UNLESS THEY TELL YOU YOU CAN! this latter case usually happens when there's a lot of strain in the archive and the back-ups are happening with some delay, but in general you want to keep the page open so you can see the status of your save.

YES, it's slow as fuck, you're just gonna have to deal with it. i usually have 3-4 pages open when i'm working on saving several fics at a time. be patient. do other stuff meanwhile. i usually do this at the same time i'm updating my bookmarks with the fic title/author/summary/link in case the fic gets deleted and i have no clue which one it was anymore, so i have a pretty steady "copy link->edit link->save fic->update bookmark for that fic->repeat" workflow going on.

5. save the link you used!

bestie. i'm pleading with you. save the fic link somewhere. any! fic link! for that fic! even the original will do! any link that you can reverse-engineer into the one you want! because good fucking luck finding the save you did when you no longer know how to get there, even if you save it on your own web archive (i have a couple thousand websites saved on mine so it's like finding a needle in a haystack).

the web archive does not neatly save the page name so that you can search it easily, so you ABSOLUTELY need the link for the fic or you're likely done for💀

you have a couple options here! place the link in your ao3 bookmark directly, if you have the fic saved on there. if you're the kind of person who bookmarks directly on their browser, go for it, i guess? (but keep a backup of your bookmarks somewhere). create an excel with the fic data in a column or two and their corresponding links on the following one. it's up to you! just save it somewhere.

preferably, save a downloaded copy of the fics you love, too, instead of solely relying on the web archive, but that's a lecture for another day.

6. bonus round: saving series!

also adaptable for saving works by a specific author - the essence of it is that you want every page you'd need to navigate to in order to reach the rest of the works. for an author, this would likely be their main page -> their works page (or their [works in specific fandom] page) -> every page within that -> the works within each page.

this is where the outlinks are your best friend.

get the series link (the format is something like https://archiveofourown.org/series/2930166).

open the save page on the web archive.

if the works are all mature/explicit/not rated and/or contain more than two chapter each, don't bother checking "save outlinks". if the series has a large amount of gen/teen works and they're only oneshots and twoshots, check "save outlinks". you'll save time doing this instead of backing each of them up individually, but please verify that the second chapters of the twoshots have indeed been saved.

save the series page. save also the link to the series page: from this one you can then navigate to the works you save within it.

now individually save each of the works within that series that you want to keep (and that you haven't covered in point 6.3) by using points 1-4 of the larger fic-centric tutorial.

i hope this helps!

[working-dreamer]

Looking for a lost Nightmare Before Christmas fanfic that used to be very popular in the 2000s:

Tumblr I’m gonna need your Internet powers to find this.

Does anyone know of an old Nightmare Before Christmas fanfic called The Bone Collector? It was on an old school fandom website and unfortunately seems to be dead now. I found the web archive of the first chapter but the rest seems to be lost.

If you might know of the fic or know how wayback machine works I’d really appreciate help to find the rest of this fic. (Bonus points if you’re familiar with it and might have it saved somewhere? Very small chance I know but I’m getting desperate).

We lost a lot of creative writing when social media shifted the way we navigated the internet away from dedicated fandom websites. Help me recover just this little bit of Nightmare Before Christmas fandom history.

Anyway here is the web archive link of chapter one that has been recovered: https://web.archive.org/web/20170427180654/http://www.nightmarebeforechristmas.net:80/fanstuff/fanfiction/608

Any help to find the other chapters would be greatly appreciated! I know some of y’all used to print out fic on the school computers to read during class. If this fic is familiar to you and you might have it saved on an old doc somewhere please let me know!

[wangxianficfinder]

Hello!! This blog has frequently helped fans find deleted/hidden fics by accessing them through the Wayback Machine (Internet Archive catalogued page). I have learned how to use a url to look for an old fic, with some success, thank you! I was wondering: is it possible for average joes like myself to add captures to the Wayback Machine? Like, can I go in and archive a bunch of my favorite fics? Or is the cataloguing done only by people who work at the Internet Archive? Thank you for any advice!

Of course! Anyone can save a site/link onto WayBack ^^ That's the best thing about it, if you go to the site and scroll down you will see this -

A "search bar" titled Save Page Now. All you have to do is copy the link you want saved and drop it into this nifty little bar and hit Save Page. It does have limits, it can only save pages that exist at the current moment and not in the past, and there are some sites that don't allow archive to save them, but AO3 is, thankfully, able to be saved.

Just be sure that if you save a fic, you either save it as a full work or you add the link to chapter by chapter.

There are exceptions to which fics can be saved though, hidden or already deleted fics will not be saved unless you managed to do it before it was hidden or deleted. If it's a multi chapter work, make sure you also add the link to each chapter or a full work. It will not do it automatically.

Just adding a link to the beginning of a fic will not save the whole thing. You need to get every chapter or you won't be able to read the fic. Which is why I prefer doing it with the full work link, but each their own.

I wish you luck! Happy saving ☺️ if you have any more questions, let me know and I will try my best to answer them!

- Mod C

---

danmeiireader: In addition to saving the full work, if you are saving an M or E rated story, make sure to add the following to the url so it doesn't get stuck on the warning page:

?view_full_work=true&view_adult=true

(per this reddit post)

alexseanchai: same goes for a Not Rated story, as those also get the adult-content splash page

Oh yes! Thank you for the addition, I can't believe I forgot to add this 😅 please make sure you save the link after hitting the button too!

[watashime-ciel]

Happy b-day Soushi! fanart♪

it's July 7th here still, so here we go

copied and pasted from my Instagram

Happy birthday to the artist that changed my life. The man who got me into visual kei. The most important human as a Rhythm Heaven fan. Happy birthday, Soushi Tanaka!

it's not like he knows me or ever will, but he means a lot to me. Watashime Slug is a big part of my life and personality, and it wouldn't be Watashime Slug without Soushi. The HOURS i spent making research, entering shady websites and learning how the Wayback Machine works to find everything i can about him and Leo is not possible to name. I even check his only social media everyday to see if there's something new, because as a fan i miss him a lot and his internet presence, i want to be there for any updates messages or pictures

i met him and Leo thanks to Rhythm Heaven DS, later finding out he sang WISH ~ Kimi Wo Matenakute and Lonely Storm in the Japanese version of RH Fever. i was hypnotized by his voice and all the songs available online are not enough. heck i even am saving money to buy a visual kei compilation album that has Watashime Slug's "京x罰 (Kyo x Batsu)" in japanese, as the english version is the only one available online and the lyrics are inaudible. and even if i had it, it's not enough for me. i would need more and more

i can't say other words to express how much he means to me and how dedicated i am to save and archive all his songs, promo and blog pictures, blogs, videos and comments. because the fandom may not know it, but he is a big part in Rhythm Heaven's story. at least that's what i think

and if somehow Soushi sees this, i can just say: thank you. thank you for your music, for your voice and energy. you changed someone's life; my life★

happy birthday♪

(seriously tho, i have an unholy amount of links to shady websties, videos, pictures and probably viruses that's all my research on Watashime Slug, all in a google docs just for me and my friend Pandi. and i JUST updated it with a new link i found accidentaly. someone take my phone away)

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

KOSA Won't Just Effect Americans

I got a question on my recent update post about KOSA from someone who isn't American asking what they could do to help. Which has prompted me to make this post to clarify/add something that I completely glossed over in the previous post.

KOSA won't just effect Americans.

If this bill passes, it will effect every single website and social media platform that is based in America. meaning facebook, instagram, yooutube, twitter, tumblr, AO3, fanfiction.net

And as we know, these sites are used by not just ppl in America, but also ppl from all over the world.

Which means regardless of what country you live in, if you use any of these sites, ANYTHING that you post on any of these sites or any message that you send through these sites will be subject to censorship or even strait up deletion or maybe even legal trouble if KOSA passes.

And this will also effect any American based charity website or informational/activism related websites regarding lgbtqia rights, history, history of palestine, historical archives like the wayback machine, ect.

Basically any website that has info or resources the government doesn't want you to know about

So no. being in a different country or using a VPN and pretending you're in a different country won't save/help you.

And like I said in my last post, America isn't the only place trying to pull this stunt. Last year the UK passed a bill that is very similar to KOSA and Germany and France may or may not be looking to follow suit.

So what can you do as a non American to help? simple! Spread the word anyway! if you know anyone that is American and is currently living in America, tell them about KOSA. warn them. let your online and IRL American friends know and share the resources I'll be linking again below cuz we need as many people making as much noise on this as possible and to spread awareness. this site is pretty much the only place I haven't been extreamly suppressed and largly ignored when trying to bring awareness to KOSA

Resources for learning abt KOSA

Petition and Call Script for contacting reps and senators

Sign the open letter against KOSA

Stop KOSA Movement's linktree with more actions

[thingswereadtoday]

_____________________________________

ROOFTOP SESSIONS BEATLES FAN FICTION:

I have a lot of (mostly George-centric) stories I downloaded onto my computer from the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine. Right now even though I have the correct URLs when I try to link I get a message about “Huge Domains for Sale” and it won’t let me access the old website with the links I copied onto my computer.

I still have those stories on my computer but I’m a little hesitant about posting them here in the event the authors of those stories don’t want them posted. Until I get it figure out (which I hope to do) this is a bit of a workaround:

Go to the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine

Type in: http:www.rooftopsessions.com and hit enter.

That should take you to a page that says: Saved 192 times between 2001 and 2024.

In the bar chart underneath that, click somewhere in the black bar anywhere up to around 2014. It seems that the “Huge Domains” message blocks Rooftop Sessions entries sometime around then.

Once you’re there, click on any of the BLUE CIRCLED DATES on the calendar. It’ll show SNAPSHOTS taken. Click on the number in the bulleted area. THAT TAKES YOU TO THE ROOFTOP SESSIONS fictional information WHICH IS WHERE YOU WANT TO BE.

Scroll down and find the ROOFTOP SESSIONS STORY ARCHIVE BY AUTHOR.

CLICK ON ANY STORY THAT INTERESTS YOU AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ACCESS THEM.

THE STORIES I INTENDED TO RECOMMEND TONIGHT BUT WHICH I CAN’T SHARE THE ACTUAL LINKS CAN BE FOUND THERE. These are the authors and stories:

Hamburger Daze by Cheryl Mortensen

In Spite of All the Danger by Suzanne Warren

[kryptoncat]

The Miser Brothers Song Rap Battle Remix Parody Video by Pat Noonan

This video was deleted off of youtube, but has been saved through the internet archive.

Links to the archived video: wayback machine, direct link

[walks-the-ages]

Hey, EDAs fans! Remember that link that was going around a few years ago with some fan-made audiobooks of the EDAs?

[ID: a graphic of a muscular angel wielding a sword with their wings outstretched, gazing down into a fire below them, with the words "Heroic Efforts Fan Productions - Audios, Videos by R. A. Mitchell - Heaven is for the holy, hell is for heroes." End ID]

Remember how I had a project going, backing up all the links to the Wayback Machine ?

Well, I found out this year that the last of the EDA audiobook links have all died sometime last year after being on the website for ~13 years, so everything I had managed to save to my computer has now been uploaded to the Internet Archive!

this is why, when you find fandom gems like this, you need to start backing them up as soon as you find them!

Especially content that is older than a decade!

Webhosting does not last forever, especially if an account has been inactive for years, and we already know that Google and all its monopolies is changing their policies to start removing content that has been inactive for x amount of years....

If you see something, save something.

[ID: the cover of the Eighth Doctor Adventure novel 'Vampire Science', a mostly-rec cover with the silhouette of a giant vampire bat swooping towards the official seal of the United States, a circle with an eagle in the center, now styled like an Audiobook cover, saying "Doctor Who - Vampire Science by Jonathan Blum & Kate Orman, Unabridged with Music and Sound Effects performed by R. A. Mitchell." End ID]

Get the Official Wayback Machine extension and set it to auto-archive all the pages you visit if they haven't been archived in the last 24 hours.

If you find fan-made audio dramas like this, right click on the play button and download them, and make folders with dates so you know what is from where and by whom, then keep hold of it somewhere safe.

If you find fan-made audios on Youtube, you can back the whole channel up to the wayback machine, and download the videos using a variety of websites and tools.

If you find old fan-made comics, you can usually save them as PDFs, or save individual panels in a folder, then create a PDF version from them.

Just like so many Classic Who episodes were lost to the BBC trashing reels because they didn't see their worth, so too does tons of fan-content vanish from the internet every year, either because the website finally broke or someone couldn't pay the hosting fee, or just someone vanishing one day and not being around to preserve their works!

Let's make this the official Doctor Who Fandom Motto please:

If you see something, save something.

[trekkie-lkm-archive]

Kink meme archiving project: Star Trek

Hello! I've started a personal project in 2024 to archive the old kink memes on livejournal for my favourite show: Star Trek. I'll be working my way through them all slowly- so while I'm starting with the reboot one (which is a huge undertaking! will definitely take me a while) this blog will go through every single one I can find. This is not to repost fictions, you will not find actual works posted here just links to the original threads I find them on with additional links whenever possible to authors personal livejournals and other places they may have posted it, as well as a final link to where I am archiving said fics via the wayback machine-- Which seems to be as screenshots of the kink page as otherwise the comments (where the fics are) does not appear so please forgive any clunky/outdated appearances

This is not an ask blog, a rec blog, or anything else of the sort. It is purely for archival purposes to have everything located in one place-even then it is mainly to be used as a reference point for myself with my work with the wayback machine. As such asks will never be open and besides this I will not be posting anything besides links.

As it is not a rec blog or anything of the sort I will not be vetting the fics- by this I mean I will not be leaving anything (purposefully) undocumented in regards to these fics, regardless of how I or anyone else may feel about their subject matter--it is a Kink Meme and all possible warnings apply. I will be adding verbatim how the original prompts listed its kinks/warning and if an author added any warnings to the very start of the fic I will do my best to add them as well. But if you see a post and decide to read the fic it contains please do your own research if you know certain content upsets you.

I will not be saving unfilled prompts but the content that is there may not be complete either, basically as long as some sort of fill is there and available I will be posting it--If there claims to be a fic but I have no way to access it it will be made into a special post with screenshots and asks for help in regards to original content if I can not find it on any other archive-- a long shot but maybe someone knows someone who has screenshots or was the original author who can add a link to where they have saved their work!

All of this to say, while tumblr is questionable my posts may or may not end up in the tags, so I hope this pinned post is a useful as a sort of FAQ and that I don't get reported for spam or anything

projects like this are a big undertaking, and it's just me doing this, I can't be sure how fast or if at all I will complete this but I believe it's important to preserve fandom history, the kink memes are a big part of my fandom experience, and I've been so so happy to see them start to make a reappearance as 'prompt memes' on tumblr and A03, as the kink memes on livejournal are over a decade old there's bound to be TONS of fans who have never experienced them and find livejournal confusing to navigate, I'm hoping this inspires people to give older fics a try, give lots of love to those fic writers who might come across this blog, and even gives a boost to the current prompt meme revivals!

While asks are off, if you need to contact me you can reply to this post, I'm hesitant to give out my personal tumblr in case the content causes fandom wank--the internet is a very different place than it was a decade ago and terminology and kink that was commonplace in those circles may be harshly met now but we will see how it goes!

ALSO!!! if at any point in the future you see this and think this would be a good idea for other fandoms ( I know Glee has a fucking HUGE kink meme presence for example) you can just straight up go ahead and do it! no need to reinvent the wheel or ask permission if you like how I organized the info you can have the blue print-- I think the important part is archiving on the wayback machine. Think of how much past fandom history has been lost, and how much will be lost once old giants like livejournal and ff.net go down-- hell I think I even use to read fics on sites like quizzila at one point, gone now, and all the other places that existed like geocities, MAILING LISTS!! EMAIL AND GOOD OLD POSTAGE!

While A03 is doing amazing at archiving, places like the kink memes are hidden gems, so many fics are just small bits of love that don't get posted anywhere else and it's so sad to think about what will be lost.

Edit 11/1/24

I think I'm making steady progress! I know its going to be a slug getting through it all, just this one kink meme has 14 parts to it with like an average of 8000 comments each which could be like . . . at least a thousand or a good few hundred fics in each (would it be an 8:1 ratio??? i feel like that's too high) either way combined i'm looking at a good few thousand fics for ONE kink meme and there's TONS out there-- and if i manage to get through all of them before LJ gets shut down (this could very well take me years) then there's all the communities they get cross posted in who have their own fandom events and a whole bunch of fics to maybe also archive. Or just all the authors i'm finding who have other fics on their Journals who haven't been active in years! But I can't think that far ahead or I get overwhelmed, this is at its core a kink meme archive.

I've sorted out an issue I've had with a handful of fics where the adult warning archives instead of the fic. as far as i can tell there's no solution through it using the main archive (there is with other sites, but LJ is a special old girl) but there's a different archive I can use-though i cant seem to then archive THAT on the main site . . . so that's still a problem, but I've tagged those fics 'other archive' to come back to at a later date.

I have a hard time trying to locate other places people may have posted their fics if they don't leave me very obvious bread crumbs so if you (yes, YOU, the person reading this sometime in the future) see a writer you recognize you're more than welcome to tag them or add additional author info in a reblog or just whisper in the tags or reply (if this blog is still active mystery person reading this a decade in the future)

either way, i'm hoping to get through this particular kink meme by the end of the year. I know it's only 11 days into the new year but i'm really trying to pace myself so I don't burn out. I'm almost positive I can get through the first part this month so an average of one a month shouldn't be impossible (so average like a page and a half a day, which is still like 18 fics/per day)

24/1 lmao ok so I started Vyvanse, and I hyperfocused and basically archived 163 fics in the last 24 hours and finished the first of fourteen sections of the first kink meme on my list-- which is golden! Awesome! Spectacular! 410 fics in just that first part,( they tapered off from an average of 11 fics per page to 8 basically) I'm doing amazing! And--this is looking way to far ahead-- but I like to think now that I'm in a solid rhythm (of how to archive not how to pace myself) once all the kink memes are done I'll start a whole new blog and archive all the other trek comms I can find, because theres a lot of crossposting going on and theres just so many comms with their own special events and things that have been archived but on things like delicious which is gone or in blogs that have been deleted as a whole. like st-anon! But anyway I'm having a lot of fun! And I'm probably not gonna look at this blog for a week but I've got days in the bank baby!

19/2 I've reached part 3!!!! I'm right on track where I want to be mid february, there was a small decrease in the number of fics in #2 but a lot more than going through page by page made it seem-- a common theme I've noticed is misplaced comment fics, which is so fascinating! It's so easy to misplace your comment on threads, and instead of hostility or mod culling it's treated with comradery (get it?) and kindness. I'm still looking at around several thousand individual fics just for this kinkmeme and after this one there's so many more, one is already lost to a purge but there's at least one other huge one. My queue ran out the other day because I was dealing with a dead rat somewhere in my kitchen walls, very distressing, and a bit embarrassing cause this blog doubled its following in the last few days, and it definitely feels a bit strange to know that this project is getting attention. Feels a bit like I'm sitting on my bed, back to the window, and every time I peer around my shoulder I see more people peering down at what I'm doing. Which I WANT people to be able to do cause that's the whole reason I'm doing this but it's like a 'damn wish I'd thought to put pants on' kinda vibe. I don't feel very professional. But still . . . we persevere!!!

22/2 horrific news. Just realised I wasn’t counting the posts with multiple fics . . . As multiple fics. So even the posts with five individual fics. Have only counted as one in my count. The absolute buffoonery. The agonising idea of having to individually check each post. The massive urge to quit and sulk for five years. But still. . . We persevere. So I need to come back to stixk 1 & 2 and recount. But from the start of 3 we’re on track.

[minerwarfare-suzuya]

Throwback to when I was a way more terrible person in this community.

Do I regret this part of me? Yes I do. Though this was something that Mobox87 and I did move on from. We talked it out on Amino when we made amends for our actions online

But-

I'm still critical of Mobox87's actions as much as everyone is when she had harassed Crying Blossom and downplayed a lot of things. Especially with her recent video on YouTube as mentioned before and clearly Cagney is mutual about being critical with Mobox87 since the video is archived on the Google Drive folder pinned on this blog.

Here's a link to Mobox87/Goldbox archive so I can save y'all the time of needing to click on my profile to click on the link:

Either way, it seems like the drama isn't dead on the Moboxcritique/Thegoldfiles end of things. Just that we won't know when they'll return and one more thing to bring up is that anything saved on Internet Archive/Wayback Machine is inaccessible cause hackers have made the site unavailable for people to use.

[themthouse]

The Internet Archive, Misinformation & the Problem of Digital Lending

I am in the embarrassing situation of having reblogged a post with misinformation. Specifically, the "Save the Internet Archive" post featuring the below image and its associated link to a website called "Battle for Libraries".

The post claims that the recent lawsuit the IA faced threatened all IA projects, including the Wayback Machine, which is not true. The link to a petition to "show support for the Internet Archive, libraries’ digital rights, and an open internet with uncensored access to knowledge" only has one citation, which is the internet archive's own blog.

After looking for more context, I found that even articles published from sources I trusted didn't seem to adequately cover the complexity of what is going on. Here's what I think someone who loves libraries but is hazy about copyright law and the digital lending world should know to understand what happened and why it matters. I am from the U.S., so the information below is specifically referring to laws protecting American public libraries. I am not a librarian, author or copyright lawyer. This is a guide to make it easier to follow the arguments of people more directly invested in this lawsuit, and the potential additional lawsuits to come.

Table of Contents:

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-books

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

The “National Emergency Library” & Hachette v. Internet Archive

Authors, Publishers & You

-- Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

-- Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

-- You: The Ethics of Piracy

First-Sale Doctrine & the Economics of E-Books

Libraries are digitizing. This is undisputed. As of 2019, 98% of public libraries provided Wi-Fi, 90% provided basic digital literacy programs, and most importantly for this conversation, 94% provided access to e-books and other digital materials. The problem is that for decades, the American public library system has operated on a bit of common law exhaustion applied to copyright known as first-sale doctrine, which states:

"An individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner."

With digital media, however, because there isn't a physical sale happening, first sale doctrine doesn't apply. This wasn't a huge problem back in the early 2010s when most libraries were starting to go digital because the price of a perpetual e-book license was only $14 -- about the price of single physical book. Starting in 2018, however, publishers started limiting how long a single e-book license would last. From Pew Charitable Trusts:

"Today, it is common for e-book licenses from major publishers to expire after two years or 26 borrows, and to cost between $60 and $80 per license, according to Michele Kimpton, the global senior director of the nonprofit library group LYRASIS... While consumers paid $12.99 for a digital version, the same book cost libraries roughly $52 for two years, and almost $520 for 20 years."

Publishers argue that because it's so easy to borrow a digital copy of a book from the library, offering libraries e-book licenses at the same price as individual consumers undermines an author's right to license and profit from the exclusive rights to their works. And they're not entirely wrong about e-book lending affecting e-book sales -- since 2014, e-book sales have decreased while digital library lending has only gone up. The problem, they say, is that e-book lending is simply too easy. Whereas before, e-book sales were competing with the less-convenient option of going to the library and checking out a physical copy, there is essentially no difference for the reader between buying or lending an e-book outside of its cost.

Which brings us to the librarians, authors and lawmakers of today, trying to find any solution they can to make digital media accessible, affordable and still profitable enough to make a livable income for the writers who create the books we read.

Further Reading:

1854. Copyright Infringement -- First Sale Doctrine

The surprising economics of digital lending

Librarians and Lawmakers Push for Greater Access to E-Books

Publishing and Library E-Lending: An Analysis of the Decade Before Covid-19

Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

Controlled digital lending is a legal theory at the heart of the Internet Archive lawsuit that has been proposed as one solution to the economic issue with digital media lending. This quick fix is especially appealing to nonprofits like the IA that are not government, tax-funded programs. Where many other solutions, like a legally enforced max price on e-book licensure for public libraries, would not apply to the IA, CDL would essentially be manipulating copyright law itself as a way to avoid e-book licensure altogether and would apply to the IA as well as public libraries.

Essentially, proponents of CDL argue that through a combination of first-sale and fair use doctrine, it can be legal for libraries to digitize the physical copies of books they have legally paid for and loan those digital copies to one person at a time as if they were loaning the original physical copy.

It is worth noting that the first-sale doctrine protecting physical media lending at public libraries does not cover reproductions:

“The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) & (c). Since the first sale doctrine never protects a defendant who makes unauthorized reproductions of a copyrighted work, the first sale doctrine cannot be a successful defense in cases that allege infringing reproduction.”

This is where fair use comes in, which allows some flexibility in copyright law for nonprofit educational and noncommercial uses. Because the IA and other online collections are nonprofit organizations, proponents of CDL argue that they are covered by fair use so long as their use of CDL follows very specific rules, such as:

A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, by purchase or gift.

The library must maintain an “owned to loaned” ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns.

The library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed.

While this model first earned its name in 2018, it has been practiced by a number of digital collections like The Internet Archive’s Open Library since as early as 2010. It is important to know that controlled digital lending has never been proven officially legal in court. It is a theoretical legal practice that has passed by mostly unchallenged until the Internet Archive lawsuit. This is partially due to the fact that before releasing their official CDL statement in 2018, the IA had been honoring Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests of books in CDL circulation, which authors claim they are not always responding to or honoring anymore. The legality of CDL essentially depends on a judge's interpretation of current copyright law and whether they see the practice as an infringement, which would set a precedent for similar cases moving forward.

There are, however, U.S. court decisions that have rejected similar cases, like Capitol Records v. ReDigi, which argues that digital files (in this case, music files) cannot be resold without copyright holder’s permission on the grounds that digital files do not deteriorate in the same way that physical media does, implying that first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to digital media.

In 2019, the Authors Guild, a group of American authors who advocate for the rights of writers to earn a living wage and practice free speech, pointed out this court case in an article condemning CDL practices. They also argued that not only does CDL undermine e-book licensure (and therefore author profits off e-book sales), but it also would effectively shut down the e-book market for older books (the market for copyrighted books that were published before e-books became popular and are only being digitized and sold now). The National Writers Union has also released an “Appeal from the victims of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL),” that cites many of the same complaints.

Further Reading:

U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index

Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries

FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending [Released by NYU Law’s Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy]

Controlled Digital Lending Is Neither Controlled nor Legal

Appeal from the victims of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL)

FAQ on Controlled Digital Lending [Released by the National Writers Union]

 The "National Emergency Library" & Hachette v. Internet Archive

While the Internet Archive is known as the creator and host of the Wayback Machine and many other internet and digital media preservation projects, the IA collection in question in Hachette v. Internet Archive is their Open Library. The Open Library has been digitizing books since as early as 2005, and in early 2011, began to include and distribute copyrighted books through Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). In total, the IA includes 3.6 million copyrighted books and continues to scan over 4,000 books a day.

During the early days of the pandemic, from March 24, 2020, to June 16, 2020, specifically, the Internet Archive offered their National Emergency Library, which did away with the waitlist limitations on their pre-existing Open Library. Instead of following the strict rules laid out in the Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending, which mandates an equal “owned to loaned” ratio, the IA allowed multiple readers to access the same digitized book at once. This, they said, was a direct emergency response to the worldwide pandemic that cut off people’s access to physical libraries.

In response, on June 1, 2020, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit against the IA over copyright infringement. Out of their collective 33,000 copyrighted titles available on Open Library, the publishers’ lawsuit focused on 127 books specifically (known in the legal documentation as the “Works in Suit”). After two years of argument, on March 24, 2023, Judge John George Koeltl ruled in favor of the publishers.

The IA’s fair use defense was found to be insufficient as the scanning and distribution of books was not found to be transformative in any way, as opposed to other copyright lawsuits that ruled in favor of digitizing books for “utility-expanding” purposes, such as Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust. Furthermore, it was found that even prior to the National Emergency Library, the Open Library frequently failed to maintain the “owned to loaned” ratio by not sufficiently monitoring the circulation of books it borrows from partner libraries. Finally, despite being a nonprofit organization overall, the IA was found to profit off of the distribution of the copyrighted books, specifically through a Better World Books link that shares part of every sale made through that specific link with the IA.

It worth noting that this ruling specifies that “even full enforcement of a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio, however, would not excuse IA’s reproduction of the Works in Suit.” This may set precedent for future copyright cases that attempt to claim copyright exemption through the practice of controlled digital lending. It is unclear whether this ruling is limited to the National Emergency Library specifically, or if it will affect the Open Library and other collections that practice CDL moving forward.

Edit: I recommend seeing what @carriesthewind has to say about the most recent updates in the Internet Archive cases for a lawyers perspective of how these cases will effective the future of digital lending law in the U.S.

Further Reading:

Full History of Hachette Book Group, Inc. v. Internet Archive [Released by the Free Law Project]

Hachette v. Internet Archive ruling

Internet Archive Loses Lawsuit Over E-Book Copyright Infringement

The Fight Continues [Released by The Internet Archive]

Authors Guild Celebrates Resounding Win in Internet Archive Infringement Lawsuit [Released by The Authors Guild]

Relevant Court Cases:

Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Authors Guild, Inc. v. HathiTrust

Capitol Records v. ReDigi

 Authors, Publishers & You

This is where I’m going to be a little more subjective, because each person’s interpretation of events as I have seen has depended largely on their characterization and experience with the parties involved. Regardless of my own ideology regarding accessibility of information, the court ruling seems to be completely in line with current copyright law and precedent. Ironically, it seems that if the Internet Archive had not abandoned the strict rules regarding controlled digital lending for the National Emergency Library, and if they had been more diligent with upholding those rules with partner library loans prior to the NEL, they may have had a better case for controlled digital lending in the future. As is, I agree with other commentators that say any appeal the IA makes after this point is more likely to damage future digital lending practices than it is to save the IA’s current collection of copyrighted works in the Open Library. Most importantly, it seems disingenuous, and even dangerously inaccurate, to say that this ruling hurts authors, as the IA claimed in their response.

The IA argues that because of the current digital lending and sales landscape, the only way authors can make their books accessible digitally is through unfair licensing models, and that online collections like the IA’s Open Library offer authors freedom to have their books read. But this argument doesn’t acknowledge that many authors haven’t consented to having their works shared in this way, and some have even asked directly for their work to be removed, without that request being honored.

The problem is that both sides of this argument about the IA lawsuit claim to speak for authors as a group when the truth isn’t that simple.

Authors: Ideology v. Practicality

Those approaching the case from an ideological point of view, including many of the authors who signed Fight for the Future’s Open Letter Defending Libraries’ Rights in a Digital Age, tend to either have a history of sharing their works freely prior to the lawsuit (ex: Hanif Abdurraqib, who had published a free audio version of his book Go Ahead in The Rain on Spotify before Spotify began charging for audiobooks separately from their music subscriptions) or have alternative incomes related to their writing that don’t stem directly from book sales (ex: Neil Gaiman, who famously works with multiple mediums and adaptations of his writing).

In these cases, the IA lawsuit is framed as an ideological battle over the IA’s intention when releasing the National Emergency Library.

Many other authors, including a large number of smaller names and writers early in their careers, take a much more practical approach to the lawsuit, focused on defending their ability to monetarily profit off their works. This is by no means a reflection of their own ideology surrounding who has the right to information and whether libraries are worth protecting. Instead, it is a response to the fact that these authors love writing, and they simply would not be able to afford to continue writing in a world where they do not have the power to stop digital collections from distributing their copyrighted work without their consent. These include the authors, illustrators and book makes working with the Author’s Guild to submit their amicus brief in  Hachette v. Internet Archive.

These authors claim that controlled digital lending practices cause significant harm to their incomes in the following ways:

CDL undermines e-book licensing and sales markets, as most consumers would choose a free e-book over paying for their own copy.

CDL devalues copyright, meaning authors have less bargaining power in future contract negotiations.

CDL undermines authors ability to republish, whether as a reprint or e-book, out of print books once their publisher has ceased production. This includes self-publishing after the rights to their work have been returned to them.

CDL removes the income from public lending rights (PLR) that authors receive from libraries outside of the U.S. which operate on different lending and copyright standards.

The amicus brief provides first-person anecdotes from authors, including Bruce Coville of The Unicorn Chronicles, about how the rights to backlisted books, or books without an immediately obvious market, make up a huge portion of their annual salary. Jacqueline Diamond cites reissues of out-of-print novels as what kept her afloat during her breast cancer treatment.

It is worth noting that according to the Author’s Guild, some authors who originally signed Fight for the Future’s open letter defending the Internet Archive have even retracted their support after learning more about the specific lawsuit, including Daniel Handler, who writes under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. The confusion stems from the use of the term “library” by both the Internet Archive and Fight for the Future. While authors overwhelmingly support public libraries, online collections like the Internet Archive don’t always fit the same role or abide by the same regulations as tax-funded public libraries. Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street, has written the following:

“To this day, I am angry that Internet Archive tells the world that it is a library and that, by bootlegging my books, it is simply doing what libraries have always done. Real libraries do not do what Internet Archive does. The libraries that raised me paid for their books, they never stole them.”

Further Reading:

Amicus Brief [Submitted by the Author’s Guild]

Fight for the Future’s Open Letter Defending Libraries’ Rights in a Digital Age

Joint Statement in Response to Fight for the Future’s Letter Falsely Claiming that the Lawsuit Against Internet Archive’s Open Library Harms Public Libraries [Published by the Author’s Guild]

Copyright: American Publishers File for Summary Judgment Against the Internet Archive

 Publishers: What Authors Are Paid

Some of the commentators I’ve seen are disgruntled specifically with the publishers suing the Internet Archive, and I will say that many of these complaints are valid. The four publishing companies behind the lawsuits (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House) are not known for the stellar treatment of their authors and employees. With the HarperCollins Publishers strike ending only a month before the IA lawsuit ruling, many readers are poised to support any entity at odds with one or more of the “Big Five” publishers. In this particular case, however, the power wielded by these publishing companies was used in defense of author’s rights to their works, for which The Authors Guild and other similar creator groups have expressed gratitude.

When it comes to finding solutions to the digital lending problem in general, it is important to understand what and how authors are paid for digital copies of their work. Jane Friedman has created the graphic below displaying the industry standards for the Big Five publishers. You can read more about agency and wholesome models here.

As you can see, authors and publishers alike benefit from e-book library licensure when compared to individual e-book sales, especially when you consider the time limits on library licensures. But advocates of this licensure model argue that the high prices for e-book licensure are designed to make up for the lost sales in e-books. While library goers buy more books than book buyers who don’t visit the library, the copies they buy typically vary by format. For example, a reader may borrow an audiobook from the library, decide they like it, and purchase a physical copy for their collection. While readers may buy a physical copy of a book after reading a physical library copy, they are unlikely to buy a digital copy after readying a digital library copy, making e-book lending a replacement for e-book buying in ways that physical lending doesn’t fully replace physical book purchases.

What ISN’T accounted for in this graphic is self-publication and what is known as a right of reversion. Depending on the wording of their contract, an author can request their publication rights be returned to them if the work in question is out of print and no longer being published. The publisher can then either return the work to “in print” status or return the rights to the author, who can then self-publish the work. In these cases, the 5-15% profit they would have made off their traditionally published book becomes a 35-70% profit as a self-published book. This is why authors are particularly frustrated with the IA’s argument that it is perfectly legal and ethical to release digital copies of books that are no longer in print. Those out-of-print works are where many authors earn their most reliable, long-term income, and they provide the largest opportunity for the authors to take control of their own works again and make fairer wages through self-publication.

The most obvious answer to this is that if authors are being the ones hit hardest by library and digital lending, then it is the publishers that need to treat their authors with better contracts. The fact that some authors are only earning 5% of profits on hardcover copies of their books (whether those are being sold to libraries or individuals) is eye opening. Alas, like the “we shouldn’t have to tip waiters” argument, this is much easier said than done.

Further Reading:

What Is the Agency Model for E-books? Your Burning Questions Answered

What Do Authors Earn from Digital Lending at Libraries?

You: The Ethics of Piracy

There are number of contributing factors to Tumblr’s enthusiasm for pirating. We are heavily invested in the media we consume, and it is easy to interpret (sometimes accurately) copyright as a weapon used by publishers and distant descendants of long-dead authors to restrict creativity and representation in adaptations of beloved texts. There are also legitimate barriers that keep us from legally obtaining media, whether that is the physical or digital inaccessibility of our local libraries and library websites, financial concerns, or censorship on an institutional or familial level. In fact, studies have found that 41% of book pirates also buy books, implying that a lot of illegal piracy is an attempt at format shifting (ripping CDs onto your computer to access them as MP3 files, for example, or downloading a digital copy of a book you already own in order to use the search feature).

The interesting thing is that copyright law in the U.S. has a specific loophole to allow for legal format shifting for accessibility purposes. This is due to the Chafee Amendment (17 U.S.C. § 121), passed in 1996, which focused on making published print material more available to people with disabilities that interfere with their ability to read print books, such as blindness, severe dyslexia and any physical disability that makes holding and manipulating a print book prohibitively difficult. In practice, this means nonprofits and government agencies in the U.S. are allowed to create and distribute braille, audio and digital versions of copyrighted books to eligible people without waiting for permission from the copyright holder. While this originally only applied to “nondramatic literary works,” updates to the regulations have been made as recently as 2021 to include printed work of any genre and to expand the ways “print-disabled” readers can be certified. Programs like Bookshare, Learning Ally, and the National Library Service for the Blind and Print-Disabled no longer require certification from a medical doctor to create an account. The Internet Archive also uses the Chafee Amendment to break their Controlled Digital Lending regulations for users with print disabilities. While applications of the Chafee Amendment are still heavily regulated, it is worth noting that even U.S. copyright law acknowledges the ways copyright contributes to making information inaccessible to a large amount of people.

Accessibility is not the only argument when discussing the morality of pirating. For some people, appreciation for piracy and shadow libraries comes from a background in archival work and an awareness how much of our historical archives today wouldn’t exist without pirated copies of media being made decades or even a century ago. But we have to be more careful about the way we talk about piracy. Though piracy is often talked about as a victimless crime, this is not always the case, and each one of us has a responsibility to critically think about our place in the media market and determine our own standards for when piracy is ethical. In some cases, such as the recent conversation surrounding the Harry Potter game, some people may even decide that pirating is a more ethical alternative to purchasing. Here are a few questions to consider when deciding whether or not to pirate a piece of media:

What other alternatives have you seen for legally purchasing, renting or borrowing a copy of this media?

Is the alternative to pirating this media purchasing it or not reading/referencing it at all?

Who does this particular piracy affect? Whether or not you think the creator(s) deserve to have their work pirated, you need to acknowledge there is someone who would otherwise be paid for their work.

If a significant portion of consumers pirated this work, what would the consequences be for future projects? Would you be willing to claim partial responsibility for that outcome?

I’m not making any moral statements about pirating as a whole, just noting that the way we discuss the consequences of pirating has a genuine effect on the media landscape. If you got this far,  thank you so much for reading! It is genuine work to try and understand the complexity behind every day decisions, especially when the topic at hand is as complicated as the modern digital lending crisis.

Further Reading:

Panorama Project Releases Immersive Media & Books 2020 Research Report by Noorda and Berens

The Chafee Amendment: Improving Access To Information

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials

National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled

Books For People With Print Disabilites: The Internet Archive

Bookshare

Learning Ally

[rjalker]

Some random tips for making your blog easier to save to the wayback machine for important posts you want to make sure will be safe if tumblr staff ever deletes your blog or for if tumblr itself ever ceases to exist:

Set your blog to have a custom theme enabled, so that you can go to [blogname].tumblr.com, instead of just tumblr.com/[blogname].

Pick a theme that makes it easy and obvious how to go to individual posts.

Turn off infinite scroll.

Do not use read-mores on posts unless you'd be fine with whatever is below there disappearing forever if you ever change your username, delete the original post, or delete your blog (or get your blog deleted).

If you want to use a read-more because the post is very long, or to help filter images people might want to avoid, immediately save that original post to the wayback machine, (copy the link of the post, paste it into the bar, hit save now) and put a link above the read-more that goes to the archived page. This way, as long as at least one person has reblogged the post, the information below the read-more will be easily available.

Download the official Internet Archive Firefox extension that allows you to save pages to the Wayback Machine without having to go to the internet archive.

Once you've downloaded it, you can click the gear to go to settings, then click the "general" tab, and enable the option to save pages automatically. You can change when you want this to happen, if the page has not been archived in the previous: year, 90 days, 30 days, 7 days, 24 hours, or if it's never been archived before.

Edit: oh another one I forgot. Just save posts that are important to you as documents on your computer, and email them to yourself. Even if your computer dies, as long as you can access your email, they'll be safe. You can even upload the documents directly to the internet archive if you want!