In the age of distributed databases and the dark web and the block chain and federation surely we can figure out a way to archive media that doesn’t put people or organisations at risk of litigation

That limits and gatekeeps access to an enormous degree. The IA wants to be useful to everyone, not just the tiny fraction of the world population savvy enough to use the internet for more than opening a browser and a chat client.

don’t institutionalise the perpetration of rights violations?

Counterpoint: The perpetration of this kind of rights violation precisely needs to be normalized to the point of meaninglessness. Intellectual property can either go away top-down (which considering the way things went over the past century is never going to happen) or it can go away bottom up - it has to be flaunted and disregarded by everybody via continued large-scale disobedience.

Or, of course, it could just never go away.

Correct! Is that particularly important?

The Bay never went away. It’s always been there for you and it will always be there for you.