Frey Lindsay

We think of the internet as a kind of a place, a place where you can go and see things that are stored there. The material in that place is kept on servers, on physical hard drives all around the world. But companies go out of business, or they shut down a particular server sort of vision, or they just migrate to a new website and they don't do it very well.

We think of the internet as a kind of a place, a place where you can go and see things that are stored there. The material in that place is kept on servers, on physical hard drives all around the world. But companies go out of business, or they shut down a particular server sort of vision, or they just migrate to a new website and they don't do it very well.

And all that leads to what's called link rot,

And all that leads to what's called link rot,

Aaron Smith is director of data labs at Pew Research Center.

Aaron Smith is director of data labs at Pew Research Center.

The thing is, though, for many of those dead links, there's still a copy of the original page preserved on the Internet Archive and a few other similar sites.

The thing is, though, for many of those dead links, there's still a copy of the original page preserved on the Internet Archive and a few other similar sites.

Journalism is a job that over the last few decades has become ever more online. You, listening right now, might be the last person to ever hear this. And that's the story of a lot of now-defunct online news sites, such as Gawker, MTV News, The All. It doesn't have to be this way, though.

Journalism is a job that over the last few decades has become ever more online. You, listening right now, might be the last person to ever hear this. And that's the story of a lot of now-defunct online news sites, such as Gawker, MTV News, The All. It doesn't have to be this way, though.

Grantland was a well-respected US long-form sports and culture site for the four years that it existed, before the owner ESPN pulled the plug. But the thing is, ESPN are still paying to keep Grantland's archive online. ESPN have chosen to pay that small amount to keep Grantland up, but it's not normally that way.

Grantland was a well-respected US long-form sports and culture site for the four years that it existed, before the owner ESPN pulled the plug. But the thing is, ESPN are still paying to keep Grantland's archive online. ESPN have chosen to pay that small amount to keep Grantland up, but it's not normally that way.

Businesses typically operate for profit, and there's little incentive to pay to maintain archives of these sites, even if the owners are still in business. But at the same time, companies really don't like it when someone else makes a copy of their intellectual property. And that's where the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine come back into the picture.

Businesses typically operate for profit, and there's little incentive to pay to maintain archives of these sites, even if the owners are still in business. But at the same time, companies really don't like it when someone else makes a copy of their intellectual property. And that's where the Internet Archive and its Wayback Machine come back into the picture.

That's writer and activist Corey Doctorow. He's a visiting professor of computer science at the Open University and co-founder of the Open Rights Group.

That's writer and activist Corey Doctorow. He's a visiting professor of computer science at the Open University and co-founder of the Open Rights Group.