Dan GillmorJun 25, 2024

Anyone who creates media that third parties publish should always, always make a back-up of what appeared online.

I learned this the hard way when a former employer disappeared years worth of my blog from a major news organization's website.

It still sucks when companies take down archives, as Paramount has done with MTV News, but at least there's the possibility of resurrecting some of it if individuals save it.

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/mtv-news-website-archives-pulled-offline-1236047163/

MTV News Website Goes Dark, Archives Pulled Offline

The website of the already-defunct MTV News has been fully pulled offline.

Variety
Show threadPhil WolffJun 26, 2024
You've read about movie production companies writing off and throwing away entirely complete unreleased movies and television shows for tax or M&A positioning reasons. So one preservation approach is to drive into the root causes of content abandonment and destruction.
Show threadPhil Wolff

@dangillmor But there are other paths.

For example, reducing barriers to companies transferring mothballed media sites to an archive.org-like NGO.

Legal concerns. Are there complex rights to the material and ongoing duties (like residual payments)?

Jun 26, 2024 at 1:47amWeb
Show threadPhil WolffJun 26, 2024

Financial tradeoffs. It's faster, cheaper and easier to stop paying for servers (two bullets to the brain) than to hand them off to archivists (a graceful exit).

Any handoff is understood as costing more time, complexity, and risk when the decision makers are under stress. The challenge is to make handing off nearly free, instant, and simple.

Show threadPhil WolffJun 26, 2024

If not handing off to an NGO like The Smithsonian, maybe a government agency like the US Departments of Education or Commerce, concerned with preserving cultural and economic legacies.

A third approach is entangling the assets up front as they are made. for example, Unions including rights for asset reversion to all the contributors (or an NGO acting on their behalf) if the company no longer meets (or wants to meet) its obligations to preserve and offer them.

Show threadPhil WolffJun 26, 2024
Whose has enough at stake to work on these systemically? For a long time? Who will pay for the work?
Show threadDan GillmorJun 26, 2024
@evanwolf The work has been paid for. The question is who will pay to preserve it.