In The Latest Cyber-news: The Internet Archive Has Lost Their Case Against 4 Major Publishing Houses

in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.

learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.

get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.

donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.

and finally…

saw people drawing astarion like this and i've got inspired

POINTS!! POINTS! POINTS AT YOU LIKE A SPIDERMAN

I love seeing other gith Tav/Durges! Ours have the same hair!! :D

Sairarze is so cool! I love her! Give me more Gith ocs!!

Mine's name is Tava'zir, and she is a monk or fighter depending on which playthrough I'm doing

Meet Sairarze (Sai-rawrze, e is silent lol)

She's my durge gith and she's a sorcerer :3

She's also romancing Lae'zel ofc<3 even tho she got with Astarion at the tiefling party lmaooo

I took inspiration for her eyes from Tasha from ACNH for the heterochromia~

Same color but different shades

Overall I'm really proud of her~

The murder queens

maggie robertson the master of playing murderous unhinged monster women