So here's a question... why do record labels, publishers, etc. suddenly have such a big interest in suing the Internet Archive in the past few years, despite the Archive having been around for many years doing basically the same things, and there being 0 chance that the IP companies didn't know about it?
@joepie91 My conspiracy theory is that they've kept suing IA as a back pocket move for bad days. When business is bad and shareholders are screaming that they've getting a bad ROI, labels and such can just say it was IA's fault and we are suing them to rectify the situation.
I have no evidence, I don't get invited to shareholder meetings, but I am convinced.
@joepie91
With the administrative changes in the States, maybe they feel more hopeful for large success?
Laws mean little any more, it's all about business and harming the "woke left".
@silvermoon82 It started a year or 2-3 ago, so that seems unlikely to me.
@joepie91
Hm, you're right. This part of the polycrisis just *seems* like it's gone on longer than that.
@joepie91 If I were to hazard a few (perhaps not particularly well informed) guesses … any or all of
1) the land grab for making proprietary spotify/netflix-a-likes for everything
2) fear of AI companies scraping their content from the Internet Archive for training
3) the publisher lawsuit prompted everyone else to start kicking them while they’re down?
but I’ve not been following the IA’s legal trouble recently due to having so much else to think about