I have established on Wayback Machine an archive of not only the Parlor, but have also begun to archive other websites and blogs of mine. I do not allow archiving of my current websites and/or blogs by anyone besides myself, nor do I allow archiving of any of my social media or other content by anyone besides myself.
Not because I don't appreciate the importance of preserving the history of the Internet. That is one of the reasons I archived the Original Parlor on Wayback Machine. But the biggest reason is because regardless of whatever happened later on (such as the collapse of Tripod Lycos), I wanted to make sure I made it clear: MINE.
When you have a website, even if it's a fan website, your own words are still yours. The parts of the derivative works that are you belong to you. I know. Whaaaaa...?
I'm going to try to explain this and hope it doesn't sound too terribly like legal advice, though it's a good idea to get some if you have questions about stuff like this.
Anne Rice's novels and characters (ahem, fan fiction writers, respectfully...keep this in mind, please?) still belong to her. When I write commentary about it, that doesn't change, but my words still belong to me. If I create an image of what, based upon my own interpretation of Anne Rice's own words, I believe Rowan Mayfair most likely looked like, I can't just throw it up on a website and sell it. Because although the work I put in is mine, Rowan Mayfair is Anne Rice's character. That part is still hers.
And THIS, class, is one of the reasons why I have never monetized the Parlor (although the web host certainly had no problem running all those fugly ads when the site was using its subdomain, %&$*!#) and never will. It is very much about ethics, about intellectual property. We live in a country that does allow us certain freedoms, such as the freedom to provide our own commentary on something that is a part of our popular culture to this day, God bless America. There are limits, though.
Those limits can be found in the Fair Use Doctrine. We all have to allow for fair use--as long as it actually is fair use.
Now, the archive sites themselves, for example, the one I have content archived with, don't profit from what they curate. I allow my site to be archived for purposes of establishing what's mine for its protection, yes, but it is even more so an historical record. History is preserved by volunteers who maintain such a collection and the only money involved is in the form of donations. They don't buy our site metadata from us and we don't sell it to them.
What I am saying is, I do indeed support the preservation of Internet history and I support the way Internet Archive does it. They aren't perfect, but then, neither am I. I could show you one of my earliest attempts at sketch to image. I laughed so hard I almost wet the couch. I'm still looking for where I saved it, so if I ever find it, I'll display it so you can join in on the hilarity.
Anyway.
This is all fine and good, but that isn't the main concern. The main concern is, understandably, that publishers want their intellectual property to be protected. Stopping the archiving of their content won't stop AI as a whole, no. To me, though, the concern is pretty cut and dry: how can publishers like newspapers over a century old protect their intellectual property from being used by AI in ways that would violate their rights under copyright laws?
Are the archive sites the ones inadvertently causing the problem? Or is it a matter of identifying the AI companies who--presumably--are actually responsible?
Let's start there so I don't have to hunt down where I read of the condescending, dismissive attitude stage actors had towards people who were appearing in those newfangled thangs called moving pictures over a century ago.
I see this easily turning into a legal battle. The publishers do have every right to protect their intellectual property from being used in ways that violate their rights. If they entrust their own digital archives to another organization, how much responsibility does that organization bear to protect it? If it's actually the AI companies who are the problem and not the archive, then how do we address it with them? Either directly or via policy, legislation, legal recourse or some combination of those?
I couldn't tell you for certain, but again, I do understand the concerns the publishers have.
My concerns are slightly different. Regardless of whether a person thinks my content has any quality or not, there are people in the world who will look at a website they (mistakenly) think is abandoned or the owner has vanished into the ether (she hasn't) or whatever makes them think they will not be seen and help themselves. My aim was and is to give them a message: don't even try it.
I don't care WHO you are.
Sweetheart, I have to monitor my website even if the last time I read one of Anne's novels, it was so emotional I had to put the book down several times. When I finally finished it, I was crying so hard I couldn't even SEE the book. Not because the book was sad, but because I knew there would never be another new Anne Rice novel to read.
I look at what was probably the most famous page of my website, The Witching Hour: The Mayfair House, and for the record, I do not know the reason she sold the house. I never asked. I remember Anne saying in comments online when she saw the page years ago and when she saw a gallery of photos of it on Flickr (not my gallery) how she still walked through it in her mind. But a part of me wonders if maybe...
My Wayback Machine archive is starting to grow now. Have a look...