Comment on Keep the News in the Wayback Machine by Ken Panton

Though I have used the Wayback Machine, successfully, a few times, I am somewhat torn, even mystified, by this notion of preserving a snapshot of all the bits that have traversed (been published on?) the internet.

First, there is the very real idea that everything digital does not warrant preservation. Any more than every person who ever lived be preserved at the local Madame Tussaud's. Even if all that was published digitally was, in some way, worthy, is it a good thing to store that record for all time?

Second, what is published is generally copyrighted, including news media. We've read about the kerfuffle regarding AI owners flaunting copyright laws to train their entities. Why would one expect less of a kerfuffle if an organization like archive.org wished to do the same thing, if for different (more altruistic?) reasons.

I imagine the news archives that have been available for some time through public libraries are paid services. To all of a sudden change the underlying rules of publishing and copyright to allow another organization the ability to freely hold and make accessible that same material seems a little, let's call it, counterintuitive.

This shift requires more than a simple petition.

This endeavour reminds me a little of Aaron Swartz, and his doomed effort to make the scientific record freely accessible to all.

I'd be far more inclined to support an initiative to ensure that all the digital artifacts -- e.g. music, ebooks -- that I have purchased will always be available to me and not simply disappear when an organization goes poof. Even better, that I could bequeath my acquired licence to those digital artifacts so, say, archive.org, or my local library.