I don't usually want to stand on a soapbox, but this situation is important, not only to me, but to the entire internet as a whole. The Internet Archive is slowly getting destroyed by corporate greed and record labels who are willing to destroy availability to their works because of "profit-loss." There are thousands and thousands of recordings that are not archived properly other than on The Internet Archive. The main cause for the lawsuit is what the Archive calls "The Great 78 Project", which the labels considered to be illegal and undermines the value of the original. If these are considered "illegal" and "undermines value", then why haven't you took it in your hands to make it available for people? Why have you kept it to yourself this whole time? These questions should always be at the forefront when it comes to questioning the archival of media, if the label is not willing to archive a piece of music history, who's to say someone else will? I should point out, at this point, that The Internet Archive is solely non-profit. They make absolutely zero profit on any of their efforts, and are recognized by the Government as a library and a source of information. With this in mind, why would anyone take their time to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours digitizing music with nothing to gain from it? To share art that would've been gone otherwise. That is the most important action anyone can do. Preserving media and art that has an impact on history is absolutely important when the companies are too lazy to do it themselves, it should be applauded that people are willing to spend time to this. It's absolutely disgusting and disrespectful to art as a whole to limit what people can hear and get access to. This doesn't even scratch music, this also extends to literature. Several years back, The Internet Archive, which I must remind you is officially recognized as a library by the Government, was being sued due to "unauthorized publishing" of books which could result in the lost of hypothetical profit. Their system worked the same as a public library, but only digital. If digital libraries are scrutinized for doing something as simple as sharing educational information, then why can't a physical library also be scrutinized? It makes no sense. Corporations are slowly taking control of media, art and history, and it's absolutely disgusting to see. If the courts decided to go through with the lawsuit they have against Archive, it's entirely possible for the entire website to shut down, resulting in literal petabytes of data to be considered lost. The Internet Archive is the most important website on the Internet, so much media would be considered lost without it. I can not stress how much would be considered lost, and how DEVASTATING that would mean for the future of the Internet as well. That is an entirely different situation I can't even grasp. Corporate greed is slowly destroying access to media and information, and pieces of history.
If there's one thing I stand for, it's preservation. I am an avid user of archive.org, and I pride myself as such. I believe having access to education for free is so important, especially in the age where they're trying to limit knowledge to anyone who can pay. Losing access to so much information, media, education and so much more because of greed. If you agree with the music labels, I have absolutely zero respect for you, and I don't want you to interact with me or my art.
Inside the $621 Million Legal Battle for the 'Soul of the Internet' by Jon Blistein - Rolling Stones
NETLORE BONUS: The Internet Archive Lawsuit by NETLORE - YouTube