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Thrifty, Anonymous Benefactor Backs Up BBC Websites Before They Go Dark
revealingheart writes "The BBC is set to close down 200 of its websites in the near future as part of cost-cutting measures. Hearing that 172 of these sites would be deleted from the Web entirely, an anonymous individual has taken matters into his or her own hands. The result is a BitTorrent file that anyone can download to store a backup of these 'lost' websites forever. The cost of the project? Apparently no more than $3.99 for a VPS server to crawl and retrieve all the sites."
The real reason the BBC is cutting back on its online presence is hidden pressure from the commercial sector who have always seen it as a threat to their revenue. "News Corporation's James Murdoch has said that a "dominant" BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK". Of course we all know what kind of 'independent' journalism he really means. One where some Australian pornographer decides who gets to be president or Primeminister.
"James Murdoch, son of Rupert and the man in charge of BSkyB has criticised the BBC iPlayer, insisting that the popular online VOD service is squashing competition" link
But in the USA you do something like that you end up in court.
"But your honor, I was only trying to help them."
"Your honor, he has no RIGHT to help us!"
But seriously it would be a great clause in the copyright scheme that if a copyrighted work is taken out of distribution it should automatically go public domain. Otherwise publishers can simply delete history like those old racist Warner Brothers videos they keep taking down from Youtube.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
BBC has a real problem understanding the concept of "archiving". For some reason they think just because they are done with the sites, nobody else wants them either, so just erase them.
It's somewhat similar to how they destroyed 1950s and 60s television tapes.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Well, if you read the article, you find a link: "You can read the full background to the story here [http://178.63.252.42/]." Look up 178.63.252.42 at ripe.org and you find it's owned by spacerich.com. Visit spacerich.com and you see in large, friendly letters: "Virtual Private Servers from $3.99/month"
So there you go, spacerich.com offers VPS for $3.99/month.
The box said, "Requires Windows XP or Better"...
So I installed Linux.