MTV News Has Been Preserved in the Internet Archive (Sort Of)
On May 28, 2002, Paramount Pictures announced that it had optioned Avril Lavigne’s song “Sk8er Boi” for a feature film. This news story, along with others of greater and lesser significance in MTV News’ decades of music and pop culture journalism, might have been lost forever if not for the Internet Archive.
Days after MTV’s parent company Paramount pulled the plug on more than 20 years of online MTV News content, the Internet Archive added a searchable database of 460,575 web pages from mtv.com to its Wayback Machine. news . The archive isn’t complete, and it’s not as easy to use as a full website, but it’s a lot better than letting all that information disappear down a memory hole.
According to a source familiar with Paramount and quoted by Variety , the cost of maintaining and hosting MTV’s old low-traffic news pages was higher than the advertising revenue they generated. A Paramount spokesperson classified the removal of MTV News articles as a “part.” broader changes to Paramount’s websites” designed to introduce “more streamlined versions” of their sites. Paramount also published 86,000 CMT (Country Music Television) articles and Comedy Central videos, including clips from The Daily Show dating back decades.
Is it legal for the Internet Archive to repost old MTV News content?
The Internet Archive argues that it is not violating copyright law because the content it hosts falls within the fair use exception, but it is unclear whether that argument would hold up in court if Paramount asked the Internet Archive to remove MTVNews content and the archive. refused. So if you want to relive your youth by watching outdated MTV News articles, you might want to do it now, just in case.
Last year, a U.S. District Court ruled that fair use does not give the Internet Archive the right to reproduce the works of book publishers and make them available to users in a digital library, but the Internet Archive is appealing that decision .
How to Use the Wayback Machine for Any Website
The Wayback Machine can be used to view archived versions of much more than just MTV news. Earlier versions of countless websites have been archived using the Wayback Machine (the name is taken from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons ), and it is very easy to use. Here’s how to do it:
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Point your web browser here.
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Enter a specific website URL or relevant search terms in the search box:
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Click on any date in the calendar on the results page.
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Enjoy a trip into the past.
If you want to get more involved with the Wayback Machine, you can tell it to archive sites you’re interested in so they’re (presumably) viewable forever, or you can install the Wayback Machine browser extension and set Chrome to automatically redirect to the archived file. the version of any URL that is returned with a 404 or other error (assuming the site is archived by the Wayback Machine).
What even happened to the movie Sk8er Boi ?
Paramount Pictures’ proposal for Lavigne’s iconic teen tune “Sk8er Boi” has long expired, but as of several years ago the film is still in development. In a 2022 interview, Lavigne said she was producing the film herself and was looking for a lead actor with “a ton of cool.” Unfortunately, we won’t be able to rely on MTV News to keep us informed about future events.