Archive.org


Bad News for Deadheads

In a nutshell, the pioneers of music trading appear to have joined the dinosaurs of the recording industry. Read and weep (there were 2300 shows here yesterday).
I’ve downloaded only a few complete GD shows from the Archive, streamed quite a few more, bought many commercial releases over the years including the just shipping 1969 Box Set (why hasn’t it arrived yet) and never, ever traded one of the Dead’s commercial releases. And still won’t. But I also will not be adding any new commercial releases to my collection for a while, if ever again…hell, I don’t even get close to cycling through my collection once every 5 years.
The music is theirs to control however they want. However, if they want to change the culture I can damn well change my buying habits.
Update: David Gans has some thoughts to share.


It’s Gone and Nothin’s Gonna to Bring it Back

Well, maybe there is a way to get back that old file that you can’t find. Especially if it was ever on the WWW. Kim’s story (shortened a bit):

I have a client with a site that’s been in operation since early 2000, and we recently discovered that a couple of archived issues of her newsletter from that time were missing. We’ve ported the site over to several new designs over the years, ….
I was convinced they were simply gone for good, but then I had a last ditch idea: the Wayback Machine. I went and put in her site, checked back to one of the 2000 versions, and sure enough, there were the missing archives. I recreated the pages on her site, and now I’m a hero.
The Wayback Machine definitely has practical applications.
Yep, another great use of an already indispensible resource. I use the audio section of Archive.org to listen to and download great music on a regular basis. And there is much more.