When motion pictures were a new thing, before Hollywood was established as an escape from the worst excesses of the original movie making companies, it was common, even expected, for films to be destroyed after they ceased to be active attractions.

The ruling class wants the good times to be back again.

Dennis Spragg, director of the Glenn Miller archives and the estate’s licensing coordinator, colorfully says he’ll refrain from using the word “thief” to describe the Archive’s activities, because “that’s a judgmental term.” Instead, he settles on a fictional Latin legal descriptor: “Habeas grabus. In other words: I have it, I grab it.”

“They’ve really gotten under the skin of a lot of people,” he adds. “And there are movements among rights holders to get tough on them.”

Glenn Miller died in 1945 and you’re still making money off of his work 80 years later. I can see who the thief is in this equation and it sure as shit ain’t the Internet Archive.

Everybody needs to move to tor.