Preservation

I have been utilizing the many different facets of the Internet Archive for the last decade as a means for inspiration to my artistic endeavors.

The history they preserve cannot be understated and undervalued.

Gifcities is a diamond in the rough when it comes to preserving a cultural era of community driven communication in the 2000s era of the Internet. I would like to think I've exhausted the search queries on Gifcities but it's an never ending treasure trove of cultural references and art that inspires me whenever a dry spell comes about in my imagination.

The Wayback Machine is such a vital resource to artists, designers, web designers, and nostalgic heads alike.
It preserves cultural landmarks in artistic history in the 21st century. The websites created in the 2000s for your favorite video game, cartoon, TV show, musicial act, and toy are most likely are preserved on the Wayback Machine. They were often crafted by a design team that was at the forefront of the Y2k scene. These sites mean something culturally and artistically and the INTERNET ARCHIVE have labourisly combed and preserved these gems because they understand the value of preserving history for future generations.

The people of the future need to see how the internet functioned before corporations blugeoned it into a profit driven centralized 4 app distraction.

The people of the present need to stand up for the Internet Archive to keep a bastion of internet culture from being bullied by corporations that are tone deaf to the importance of preserving internet culture.

As an academic archivist & librarian, I can attest to the incredible service Internet Archive's audio collections provide to student & faculty researchers working in a diverse array of fields. While I *strongly* doubt IA has any negative market impact to the recording industry, the positive educational value of historical sound recordings (and other archival materials) hosted by archive.org is something I witness every single day.

Losing Internet Archive would be a tremendous blow to the global public's access to historical research materials, to education, and to the world's cultural heritage.

This lawsuit is no different from book burning. Under the guise of defending a copyright or what have you, this is oppressive use of legal power to shove these public resources under an umbrella of piracy. I have a background in Jazz and preservation is key to passing on this original American art form to the future. Without resources like IA to fill the books, we have nothing more than fragments to piece together the whole history.