A landmark campaign at the intersection of legal advocacy, digital history, and creative storytelling — designed to shape public opinion around one of the most consequential intellectual property battles in internet history.
Two interactive timelines — one tracing the history of knowledge access from the 7th century BCE to 2021, and a second projecting a dystopian future without open access through to 2046.
Visit SiteA speculative search engine transporting visitors to 2046 — visualizing a world where favorite websites are paywalled, restricted, and locked behind institutional firewalls.
ExploreA social experiment where supporters tweeted as members of a resistance movement from the year 2046, imagining a future where access to knowledge had been lost.
View @IA2046Community members and global partners recorded personal video messages celebrating 25 years of the Internet Archive — capturing voices from around the world in a living digital archive.
WatchA complete visual identity for the anniversary — spanning social media graphics across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, plus dystopian imagery projecting life in 2046.
View Case StudyA live event broadcast across social media platforms — bringing together voices from the internet freedom community for a public celebration of the Archive's 25-year legacy.
Watch BroadcastResearching and compiling a timeline spanning nearly three millennia — from the earliest organized efforts to preserve knowledge to the Internet Archive's 25-year mission to keep the web's memory alive. Every milestone was sourced, verified, and designed to connect the past to the present.
Working with subject matter experts, legal professionals, and designers to imagine a plausible future without open access to knowledge — extrapolating from the Hachette lawsuit to paint a vivid, researched picture of what's at stake if the internet's library loses the right to preserve.
The campaign reached across industries and communities — drawing support from technologists, musicians, journalists, legal advocates, and institutions that share a stake in what happens to the open web.
"Global media corporations are exerting absolute control over digital information. How we handle this ongoing clash will define our civic discourse in the next 25 years. If we fail to forge the right path, publishers' business models could eliminate one of the great tools for democratizing society: our independent libraries."
Brewster Kahle, Founder — Internet ArchiveThe campaign was formally recognized by the United States House of Representatives as an official part of our nation's history — an outcome that reflected the campaign's reach, credibility, and cultural resonance.
Coverage spanned TIME magazine and more than 30 news outlets worldwide. Fourteen global partner organizations co-signed and amplified the campaign's core message.
Read the Congressional Record"25 years ago this month, the @InternetArchive began the complex and exhaustive work of preserving and archiving the Internet. We've collaborated with and learned from them since starting our own archiving program in 2000. From one web archiving pioneer to another — happy anniversary!"
Library of Congress — October 26, 2021