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This really only tells us that there's nothing special about digital archives. They can come and go just like physical archives. If you want something to be available for longer than it's commercial lifespan you need to put it in a library or an archive that's designed and funded with the specific goal of preserving things.

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When I’m in a library, or perhaps a Goodwill store, and see some woefully out-of-date volume (that 1991 copy of “Let’s Go: Chicago”), I think about how it survives because it takes work to remove it. Multiply this by the number of physical copies that can be scattered about, and it just seems more intrinsically stable than a purely digital work. Sure, we could be making infinite digital copies, but it seems like so far we’re cool with 2 (the original, and internet archive)

Agreed, for MTV the (archival) content might have just served to generate search hits, eyeballs and ad-serving space. A library has a different set of goals with the same content.

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