Hello! It's been a while since I've blogposted, but I felt like this is something that should be brought to everyone's attention, as I feel not everyone has seen it!

(Click here for an official blogpost from Internet Archive, thank you Yatsufusa for the heads up!

Internet Archive, the website that pretty much holds the extensive history of internet, is being threatened by record labels. While, legally speaking, they are in the very right to act on their rights to request their propriety to be taken down from the site, the 700 million dollar lawsuit could spell the end of internet history!

The Internet Archive themselves have started a petition online, which you can check here. Please help us preserve internet history!

Why should I care?

Do you remember these cool websites that you used to browse as a kid, and doesn't exist anymore? You could easily revisit it now! There is a very big chance that Internet Archive holds snapshots of your favorite websites from years ago! Why don't you give it a try?

(Did you know it also runs every flash on a page with Ruffle? Even websites that rely 100% on it can be visited)

Don't have any particular memories from websites you used to browse in your childhood? Why don't you check how the websites you use today used to look like! Even Newgrounds has a very well archived history of its pages in the site. See first hand how things used to be like even before the Tumblr exodus!

(Personally, I miss this design a lot!)

Did you know, Wikipedia, a website as important as Internet Archive, relies on it to mention references only located on websites long gone? In Wikipedia, if that information doesn't have a reference, then it should be removed from the article. What will we do if we can't reliably find the old information anymore? Homework will get much harder this way!

(Life as it is today VS Life if Internet Archive disappeared!)

Lastly, I have not yet mentioned that besides websites, Internet Archive hosts a lot of books, texts, pictures, films, audios and even software! As practical examples, I often use it to find abandonware, old video game magazines and literature that I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else.

(Over 928 billion web pages and many more millions of other stuff? Insanity!)

How can I help?

As mentioned earlier, they started a petition on change.org. All you have to do is to give your name, your city and your e-mail. The website in several places ask you to donate too, which I find a bit misleading, because it feels like it's donating to change.org specifically, to then boost the attention of the petition in the site. Personally, I think this is unneeded! I trust on the passion of the above-average internet users to come together to defend internet history on their own.

Let's protect our history!

Note: It seems like change.org doesn't allow any/all VPNs to access the website, so be wary of that. Thank you Yatsufusa yet again for the heads up!