Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent
from the archiving-history dept
In early 2009, Yahoo announced that it was going to put Geocities out of its misery and finally shut down the site entirely, even as it was still getting 11 million unique visitors per month. Soon after the announcement, we had heard about some projects to try to archive the entire site (with some claims that it couldn't be done in time). The actual shut down occurred almost exactly a year ago, and yet a group calling itself The Archive Team is apparently releasing its entire Geocities archive, blinking flashing "under construction signs" and all, as a nearly 1 TB torrent. They don't think they got everything, but do believe they archived "a significant percentage" of the site.It's worth reading the blog post by the folks who did this explaining why they did it, noting how little people realized that this was basically erasing digital history and culture:
What we were facing, you see, was the wholesale destruction of the still-rare combination of words digital heritage, the erasing and silencing of hundreds of thousands of voices, voices that representing the dawn of what one might call "regular people" joining the World Wide Web. A unique moment in human history, preserved for many years and spontaneously combusting due to a few marks in a ledger, the decision of who-knows for who-knows-what.This is interesting on a number of levels. It is fascinating how little most people seemed to care about the loss of Geocities. Yes, it was quite an abandoned digital hangout for much of the past decade, but the group is right that it represented an important watershed in recognizing that anyone could be a content creator. I first learned to make websites via a Geocities account (before it was even called Geocities, mind you). And yet, Yahoo just dumped it.
Of course, someone could make the argument that this archive is copyright infringement. I doubt anyone will, but it is an interesting question. The archiving is an important point in preserving digital history, and yet it's also a moment of massive copyright infringement -- technically speaking. This is the sort of bizarrely bad result you get in a world where copyright is automatically given to any content at the moment of creation. Most of the people creating Geocities pages would have no reason (or desire) to copyright what they created, and yet they all got it by default.
Hopefully, no one decides to pursue the copyright issue in any serious manner. In the meantime, we'll leave you with the parting words of The Archive Team:
While it's quite clear this sort of cavalier attitude to digital history will continue, the hope is that this torrent will bring some attention to both the worth of these archives and the ease at which it can be lost -- and found again.
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Filed Under: archive, bittorrent, copyright, geocities
Companies: geocities, yahoo
Reader Comments
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Almost all modern bittorrent clients have the ability to look inside the torrent and download bits and pieces.
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If you use any decent BitTorrent client, such as uTorrent, you'll be able to select only the files that you want. In your case, you can just download her site.
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default as share-alike beats default as public domain
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Re: default as share-alike beats default as public domain
Just public domain, thanks. Gives the lawyers less to do.
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Which means we'll have to wait another 95 or more years before the public is free to view and appreciate it. By then computers will be obsolete and so will the Internet.
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Copyright should last even longer or else culture will die.
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Category exception
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Re: Category exception
If you think 70's music wasn't any good it's cause you're listening to pop. The real music of the 70's was some of the best ever written or recorded.
Need more words?
Dark Side of the Moon.
Want to get the house really rocking? Look at what movies and TV shows have been using for the last 30 years. Good ol' 1970's vintage rock and roll, soul and folk music.
So nyeah! :p
Last words (from a quick glance through my CDs)
Queen
Jimi Hendrix
Lynrd Skynrd
ELP
ELO
Steve Goodman
John Prine
Loudon Wainwright III
Bob Marley
Jeff Beck
Allman Bros
Moody Blues
Jackson Browne
Fleetwood Mac
Captain Beefheart
Lou Reed/Velvet Underground
Elton John
Genesis
Black Oak Arkansas
Eric Clapton/Cream
War
Black Sabbath
Joan Jett
Grateful Dead
Kinks
Tom Petty
Yes
Jethro Tull
Foghat
Billy Joel
Weather Report
Return to Forever
Edgar Winter
Dr. John
Steve Miller
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Surely to heaven archival activities are fair use aren't they? They ought to be.
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Thanks for the advice!
I'm suing. Hey, if someone's going to be viewing my web designs of yesteryear, I want compensation!
Okay, kidding here, but the statement is going to be another TD article in the future. I can already see the lawyers salivating as each and every one of those bytes in the 1TB file gets downloaded.
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Re: Thanks for the advice!
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I'm a hoarder
I use the freebie HTTrack package to nab a copy of any sites that are important to me. (I'm not associated with that project in any way, just a long-time happy user of it)
Yes, I'm a copyright "criminal", so sue me. I got my best pal's website safely archived (she died 5 years ago) along with a good friend's old geocities site that had lots of pictures of our road trip together a decade ago.
I also have a couple of Russian and English grammar reference websites squirreled away. The original sites disappeared more than a decade ago. I found them very handy and they predate the age of shitty Flash/Flex/Silverlight crap that can't be searched so they're very easy to use and if I don't know the correct name of the rule or term I'm looking for, I can just search for examples or related ideas using grep or Windows search.
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Re: I'm a hoarder
You must first wait 70 years after her death. You have 65 more years to go.
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I'm tracking IP addresses right now...
Wait. I was too good of a developer to ever have a Geocities account. Curses, foiled again!
J/K
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Here's one, for old times sake:
Schr�dinger's cat is <blink>not</blink> dead
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Copyright?
I don't know for sure, but I would think anything you uploaded to geocities would effectively have become their property, to be used as they saw fit. But I don't have the EULA to read so maybe I'm off on that. Anyone know how that would work?
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Need space?
Don't look now, but you can buy 1TB drives for under $60.
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Good Information
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Beverly Hills Internet
I also created two graphics that are still in use on the net 15 years later (signed in the bits). Geocities was really a defining moment akin to turning over printing presses to the masses.
I for one am clearing space to grab this piece of formative digital history while I can.
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Um... why?
Historically significant you say - I say BS it is. I'm not against archiving in general but this is akin to saving every single scribble I made in a pad whilst I was on the phone, on hold and bored. Pointless. Do you love looking at pictures that your friend's 4 year old made - maybe... out of politeness? OK, now imagine that the pictures you get shown are some complete strangers childs pictures with no face to face contact and now how interested are you? This seems like the same thing TBH. Pointless.
Seems like a pointless exercise and story (other than how it's pointless to archive this stuff and some people have too much time on their hands...)
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Torrent
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downloads
its easy to use and download what we want.
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