✘ Digital libraries and the future of music preservation
And: 600+ musicians signing letter against labels' Internet Archive suit; existential copyright trolling in books+music; rising threats to fan privacy; does Spotify Wrapped know you're gay, too?
In 2023, major labels like Sony and UMG hit the Internet Archive with an existential lawsuit seeking $621 million in damages for what might amount to $41,000 in listening since 2006. Their grounds? Copyright infringement over the nonprofit’s Great 78 Project, an unprecedented effort to digitize old records. Sound recordings that are, on average, listened to by one obsolete media nerd per month.
For this, labels are aiming to destroy the nonprofit Internet Archive entirely—not only the Archive’s Great 78s Project, but their lauded collection of live shows, their WayBack Machine that hosts the history of the Internet (and recently saved MTV News)—and their vast, global library of rare books, zines, articles, etcetera.
It’s a bad look. So, we at Fight for the Future just spent months organizing a massive letter from hundreds of musicians who stand with the Archive—a letter that’s still accepting signatures.
“We can’t let this cycle of exploitation continue.”
As our co-organizer, Audre Zee Whitesides of Speedy Ortiz, said in our press release.
The suit is being brought by the same law firm that represented book publishers intent on maintaining their stranglehold on ownership, censorship, and surveillance of digital books. In the book suit, publishers successfully turned a hitherto common library practice called Controlled Digital Lending into, in the words of the American Association of Publishers CEO, nothing “more than infringement”. Over 500,000 books have been deleted from the Internet Archive so far.
Now, citing harms to musicians’ incomes as the impetus for the lawsuit, major labels are deploying the playbook of big publishing to ensure that they alone control musical history—and perpetuate the narrative that pirates, not the late-stage capitalist greed of the music industry itself, are why musicians are struggling.
The first suit positioned authors as human shields. The one going through the courts now is using musicians—and just like for the future of books, there’s a lot at stake for the future of music.
“Archives keep us alive”
As Tommy Cappel, signatory and founding member of Beats Antique, told Rolling Stone.
Over generations, music mediums change with technology. The industry hasn’t been very good at preserving even the mega-hits, much less the work of under-appreciated and culturally crucial musicians from marginalized communities. Even today, we have to wonder what will happen when Spotify is eclipsed, how much of the music no fan ever really owned will just evaporate.
The records involved in the lawsuit contain a wealth of music that is being lost as the 78s themselves physically degrade. Many of these recordings are the only existing copies of historically significant performances, making their preservation vital for future generations.
Let’s be clear: if the labels succeed in this lawsuit, they’ll likely scare off anyone who ever wants to preserve music again — and destroy the historical record of the Internet while they’re at it. Much of the internet is disappearing every day. To preserve our digital culture – whether it’s an article, a skeet or a 78 rpm record – we need to prioritize the importance of archiving.
Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, warns us about the potential dangers ahead if the major labels succeed in their suit:
“It’s a research library. It’s there to record and make available an accurate version of the past. Otherwise, we’ll end up with a George Orwell world where the past can be manipulated and erased.”
“A safe space that people all over the US are desperately going to need now more than ever”
As signatory Amanda Palmer told Rolling Stone.
With Musk about to be Lord of the Internet here in the US, meaningful AI regulations out the window, slop overtaking search results, and Zuck et al wholesale abandoning content moderation on disinfo, people who want knowledge and truth and life saving info are going to turn to libraries and archives. Especially low-surveillance ones like the Internet Archive that they can access regardless of book bans.
As a queer women-led digital rights organization, we’ve decried a lot of legislation and tech misbehavior for its potential to, for example, out LGBTQ+ youth and put them in dangerous situations. These days in the US, it’s hard to listen to music or read a book without being surveilled and analyzed, and the downstream effect of this dynamic in book publishing is that fewer diverse authors are seeing their books succeed in libraries, a crucial revenue stream.
Now imagine you’re a closeted queer kid still riding the high of sapphic pop summer, and your conservative family are all listening to Spotify Wrapped’s AI podcast—you better hope they don’t google Pink Pilates Princess. Or, maybe you’ll stop listening to music that could cause an algorithm to out you in the name of fun?
Amanda Palmer expounds on the censorship and surveillance dynamics projects like the Internet Archive combat:
“For decades, the Internet Archive has had the backs of creators of all kinds when no one else was there to protect us, making sure that old recordings, live shows, websites like MTV News, and diverse information and culture from all over the world had a place where they'd never, ever be erased, carving out a haven where all that creativity and storytelling was recognized as a critically valuable contribution to an important historic archive. Moreover, they did this without spying on users, collecting their data, and putting them in danger for what they listened to or read; it was a safe space that people all over the US are desperately going to need now more than ever.”
”There should be a place for what they do in this world, and a place for musicians to thrive following their dreams.”
As Oliver Ackermann, signatory, founder of the effects pedal company Death By Audio and guitarist and vocalist for A Place to Bury Strangers, said in our press release.
Especially because the music industry is not struggling anymore, Musicians are clapping back at the idea that preservation is piracy, and piracy is why they can’t make a dignified income. Well over 600 musicians have signed the open letter demanding that major labels drop their suit and for changes in the industry from record labels, streaming platforms, ticketing outlets, and venues.
In addition to signing the letter, musicians are invited to upload recordings of their live shows to the Internet Archive as an additional show of support.
Music fans and other supporters of the Internet Archive can also sign a petition in solidarity. We’re known for our stunts over here at Fight for the Future (a good chunk of us are music industry escapees ourselves), so if we get enough sign ons, maybe we’ll do something cool to deliver your names to the majors.
Either way, head to SaveTheArchive.com for the full letter text and to support one of the most crucial digital institutions of our lifetime.
LINKS
😶🌫️ Vanishing culture: a report on our fragile cultural record (Luca Messarra, Chris Freeland, Juliya Ziskina)
“When digital materials are vulnerable to sudden removal—whether by design or by attack—our collective memory is compromised, and the public’s ability to access its own history is at risk.”
✘ Each year the Internet Archive puts out a wide-ranging report on what culture is being lost, and how. This year they focused a lot on the dynamics of loss with streaming platforms and cyber-attacks. For those unfamiliar with issues of preservation in music, this is a timely crash course.
💣 How the indie rock boom went bust (Larry Fitzmaurice)
“...in the midst of so many artists struggling on and off the road, a new sense of community has emerged from the collective frustrations of this decade’s indie class.”
✘ The Pitchfork defectors over at Hearing Things have been doing some great work, including this piece that digs into issues of mutual aid, collective organizing, and the grit it takes to exist as a musician these days. It’s an accessible overview of key thoughts and tactics.
🍞 Streaming in the dark: where music listeners’ money goes—and doesn’t (Meredith Filak Rose)
“Consumers are tossing more than $12 billion a year over the garden wall of music streaming services, but artists are seeing fractions of pennies. Money doesn’t just vanish. Rather than being funneled to artists, that $12 billion is being disbursed like a fire sprinkler. So where is it all going?”
✘ This report from our colleague Meredith Rose over at Public Knowledge is one of the best looks at the dynamics that have trapped us all in the broken, screwy world of DSPs. As a grumpy copyright attorney who somehow manages to also be compulsively readable, she’s been one of our top guides in the labyrinth for many years.
🧠 Cultural Memory Lab (Grey Area)
“Throughout history, the stories that shape our collective memory have often been dictated by those in positions of power. However, a growing movement of community-driven and grassroots archiving practices are working to widen the aperture through which we view the past.”
✘ Archiving keeps getting sexier, it seems. This latest project from San Francisco-based arts and tech org Grey Area is an invitation to folks that care about preservation and want to do it themselves. It would be great to see some music orgs apply for their incubator, just saying.
MUSIC
Keeping the motivation up as a digital rights activist demands a fair amount of hyperpop energy. We’ve had Babebee on rotation recently, particularly safe haven as a sound-escape for launching campaigns amid synths and shoegaze guitars.