The Internet's Public Domain: Access To Government Information On The Internet

摘要

Information on the Internet has an ephemeral character. It's easy to put up, and it's easy to take down. The ease with which online reality can change has concerned historians, librarians, archivists, and Internet visionaries like the founder of the Internet Archive since the early days of the worldwide Web. When the source of the information is the government, the ephemeral nature of online information is even less acceptable. Congress has concurred in this sentiment. Although Web pages differ from written records in the ease with which they can be removed from public view, they are still government documents and, as such, are records that form a part of the history of the country. The Federal Records Act prohibits the destruction of government records, except in accordance with statutorily mandated procedures. So information that has been removed should not have been destroyed, and once published on the Internet, information has entered the public domain.