Wayback Machine to Hit ‘Once-in-a-Generation Milestone’ this October: One Trillion Web Pages Archived
Posted on July 1, 2025 by Chris Freeland
Illustration of a towering monolith with "1T" engraved on it, symbolizing the Internet Archive's milestone of archiving 1 trillion web pages. The monolith stands against a cosmic backdrop with a glowing light behind it, evoking a sense of scale and wonder. The Internet Archive logo appears in the lower left corner.
This October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is projected to hit a once-in-a-generation milestone: 1 trillion web pages archived. That’s one trillion memories, moments, and movements—preserved for the public, forever.
We’ll be commemorating this historic achievement on October 22, 2025, with a global event: a party at our San Francisco headquarters and a livestream for friends and supporters around the world. More than a celebration, it’s a tribute to what we’ve built together: a free and open digital library of the web.
Join us in marking this incredible milestone. Together, we’ve built the accurate cleaned numbers list from frist database largest archive of web history ever assembled. Let’s celebrate this achievement—in San Francisco and around the world—on October 22.
Here’s how you can take part:
1. RSVP
Sign up now to be the first to know when registration opens for our in-person event and livestream.
RSVP now
2. Support the Internet Archive
for generations to come.
Donate today!
3. Share Your Story
What does the web mean to you? How has the Wayback Machine helped you remember, research, or recover something important?
Submit your story
Let’s work together toward October 22—a day to look back, share stories, and celebrate the web we’ve built and preserved together.
Posted in Announcements, Event, News, Wayback Machine - Web Archive | Tagged annual, october, Wayback Machine, Wayback1T | Leave a reply
A Win for Fair Use Is a Win for Libraries
Posted onJune 29, 2025 by Chris Freeland
A recent legal decision has reaffirmed the power of fair use in the digital age, and it’s a big win for libraries and the future of public access to knowledge.
On June 24, 2025, Judge William Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of Anthropic, finding that the company’s use of purchased copyrighted books to train its AI model qualified as fair use. While the case centered on emerging AI technologies, the implications of the ruling reach much further—especially for institutions like libraries that depend on fair use to preserve and provide access to information.
What the Decision Says
In the case, publishers claimed that Anthropic infringed copyright by including copyrighted books in its AI training dataset. Some of those books were acquired in physical form and then digitized by Anthropic to make them usable for machine learning.
The court sided with Anthropic on this point, holding that the company’s “format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one” and therefore constituted fair use. It also ruled that using those digitized copies to train an AI model was a transformative use, again qualifying as fair use under U.S. law.
This part of the ruling strongly echoes previous landmark decisions, especially Authors Guild v. Google, which upheld the legality of digitizing books for search and analysis. The court explicitly cited the Google Books case as supporting precedent.
While we believe the ruling is headed in the right direction—recognizing both format shifting and transformative use—the court factored in destruction of the original physical books as part of the digitization process, a limitation we believe could be harmful if broadly applied to libraries and archives.
What It Means for Libraries
Help us continue preserving the web
Re: Help us continue preserving the web
Nayon1 wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:46 am Wayback Machine to Hit ‘Once-in-a-Generation Milestone’ this October: One Trillion Web Pages Archived
Posted on July 1, 2025 by Chris Freeland
Illustration of a towering monolith with "1T" engraved on it, symbolizing the Internet Archive's milestone of archiving 1 trillion web pages. The monolith stands against a cosmic backdrop with a glowing light behind it, evoking a sense of scale and wonder. The Internet Archive logo appears in the lower left corner.
This October, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine is projected to hit a once-in-a-generation milestone: 1 trillion web pages archived. That’s one trillion memories, moments, and movements—preserved for the public, forever.
We’ll be commemorating this historic achievement on October 22, 2025, with a global event: a party at our San Francisco headquarters and a livestream for friends and supporters around the world. More than a celebration, it’s a tribute to what we’ve built together: a free and open digital library of the web.
Join us in marking this incredible milestone. Together, we’ve built the accurate cleaned numbers list from frist database largest archive of web history ever assembled. Let’s celebrate this achievement—in San Francisco and around the world—on October 22.
Here’s how you can take part:
1. RSVP
Sign up now to be the first to know when registration opens for our in-person event and livestream.
RSVP now
2. Support the Internet Archive
for generations to come.
Donate today!
3. Share Your Story
What does the web mean to you? How has the Wayback Machine helped you remember, research, or recover something important?
Submit your story
Let’s work together toward October 22—a day to look back, share stories, and celebrate the web we’ve built and preserved together.
Posted in Announcements, Event, News, Wayback Machine - Web Archive | Tagged annual, october, Wayback Machine, Wayback1T | Leave a reply
A Win for Fair Use Is a Win for Libraries
Posted onJune 29, 2025 by Chris Freeland
A recent legal decision has reaffirmed the power of fair use in the digital age, and it’s a big win for libraries and the future of public access to knowledge.
On June 24, 2025, Judge William Alsup of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of Anthropic, finding that the company’s use of purchased copyrighted books to train its AI model qualified as fair use. While the case centered on emerging AI technologies, the implications of the ruling reach much further—especially for institutions like libraries that depend on fair use to preserve and provide access to information.
What the Decision Says
In the case, publishers claimed that Anthropic infringed copyright by including copyrighted books in its AI training dataset. Some of those books were acquired in physical form and then digitized by Anthropic to make them usable for machine learning.
The court sided with Anthropic on this point, holding that the company’s “format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one” and therefore constituted fair use. It also ruled that using those digitized copies to train an AI model was a transformative use, again qualifying as fair use under U.S. law.
This part of the ruling strongly echoes previous landmark decisions, especially Authors Guild v. Google, which upheld the legality of digitizing books for search and analysis. The court explicitly cited the Google Books case as supporting precedent.
While we believe the ruling is headed in the right direction—recognizing both format shifting and transformative use—the court factored in destruction of the original physical books as part of the digitization process, a limitation we believe could be harmful if broadly applied to libraries and archives.
What It Means for Libraries
