this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Showerthoughts
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This would have been the job of the national archives and/or the national library.
Where I live, the government has a law stipulating that one copy every published material has to be submitted to the national library. I suppose a similar law exists for a lot of other countries, and extending this law to non-print media (like movies and TV shows) shouldn't be controversial.
Regarding material deemed harmful and/or illegal, I think it should still be collected, but access would be restricted. If need be, access could be restricted to "premises-only" like what is done in a lot of university libraries.
Having this online library of material doesn't have to mean that pirates have to be stamped out. I think this works best with the pirates keeping the government-sponsored media library honest.
However, what I think would be more plausible is an offline library of all the media that country has produced, with limited off-premises access afforded to researchers and others. That much, I think, would be allowed by the real powers that be.
See that's where you lose me. Restricting access may as well be the same thing as not allowing the copy to be stored in the first place.
I know all about projects like the British Library. It's seriously impressive and definitely an important historical archive. It can be burned to the ground and they already don't allow most people to check out a lot of specific things.
But again I must point out that should there be a war or a sudden shift in political ideology of the government they might decide to destroy or remove certain things they don't like.
And back to the "restricted access" topic. Who decides what is restricted? Here in a America we are super weird about nudity and sexuality. Other places wouldn't want their general population to know the recipe for napalm.
I fundamentally disagree with the premise someone else telling me what information I am allowed to see or not. Any version of state or government ran media storage will have those issues.
I mean, yeah, I also dislike having to restrict access, but I've just accepted it as a fact that such an institution must face. The decision on those restrictions would fall on the library/archives institution, so long as they are not running afoul of laws. So, I guess in the US, it'd be on the Library of Congress or in the case of the UK, the British Library.
Of course, it doesn't do a thing to address your concerns, which as far as I am concerned, is very valid. And this is why I think piracy should exist, to keep such institutions honest. Sure, the national library here won't allow me to research xyz, but other sources exists.
In a more philosophical POV, such institutions existing along with other entities (pirates, or what have you) allows for a check, and provides future historians a means of verifying information.
To be clear, I also fundamentally disagree on the concept of restricting access to information. And I think a lot of librarians and archivists agree with both of us. But for such an institution with such a service to exist, restricting access might be an evil they're forced to accept.
I guess, to be honest, I don't think such an institution will be allowed to exist, even with such restrictions in place.
EDIT: Typos and minor changes.
You dont restrict access, somebody resiricts YOUR access while you pay him taxes.