Charter
of the Marxists Internet Archive (M.I.A.)
1. The M.I.A. will always be 100% Free to Users
The mission of the M.I.A. is to provide a free-to-the-world archive of the works of Marxists and other works relevant to the understanding of Marxism.
The M.I.A. encourages the free copying and re-distribution of all public domain materials on the site. Material that is explicitly marked as copyright may be redistributed only with the explicit permission of the copyright holder(s), who must be contacted separately. All material that is created by an MIA volunteer is protected under the terms of the Attribution-Share-alike Creative Commons License and may be freely used and redistributed under the terms of that license.
2. The M.I.A. will always be a non-profit organization
The M.I.A. will never be owned by any person, group or for-profit organization. Any funds in excess of our expenses will be retained for emergencies or necessary development. M.I.A. volunteers and administrators are unpaid.
The M.I.A. will never carry advertisements or tracking software, and will always endeavour to protect the identity of its users.
3. We will always be based on democratic decision making
The central organizational principle of the M.I.A. is democratic decision making. Any person is welcome to work on the MIA on this basis. All volunteers and administrators have the right to vote and raise issues to vote on, equal to every other M.I.A. volunteer or administrator.
Amendments to the Charter will require consensus or the agreement of at least three quarters of those entitled to vote.
This Charter applies to all language sections of the M.I.A., and all material within them, without exception. Language sections, however, have relative autonomy to make decisions within the rules set by this Charter under the direction of the language section administrators.
4. The M.I.A. will always have full disclosure
All of our budget, bylaws, Charter, legal information, and any source code created, will always be freely available to all.
5. The M.I.A. will always remain politically independent
The M.I.A. will never be controlled by, a part of, or affiliated with, any political party, or coalition, or group.
6. The M.I.A. does not ‘judge’ writers.
The only material which cannot be included on the M.I.A. is material in breach of copyright; or the writings of authors who are still politically active; or far-right, jihadist, pornographic; or other such material which would be illegal in the country where our main server is located.
Otherwise, volunteers may create archives of any writer whose work they deem to be relevant to the understanding of Marxism.
If an author self-identifies as Marxist, volunteers will never express – whether by placement of an author’s archive or by editorial text – a judgment on whether a writer is or is not a Marxist. That is for the user to decide.
We provide supporting information for archival material – in the form of editorial footnotes, encyclopedia articles, etc. – to enhance understanding of the primary sources, while avoiding, so far as possible, judgmental formulations.
7. Our priority is to provide Archival Information
- Each language section shall include a Writers Archive (whether called ‘Library’ or whatever) containing the archives of authors who are dead or no longer politically active, with material written by the authors themselves and biographical material, or occasionally, explanatory articles supporting an archive. The Writers Archive index may be structured however each Language Section decides, other than categorizations based on Marxist / Non-Marxist.
- A language section may include a History Archive which focuses on primary sources, and contains links to past or contemporary analysis on the M.I.A. and may include histories of events which are written by living writers.
- A language section may include a Subject Archive which contains links to material on the M.I.A. relevant to various events, concepts and currents of Marxism.
- A language section may include a Encyclopedia of Marxism which contains factual material, and so far as possible employs quotes from and direct links to relevant material in the Writers Archive, with material written by volunteers based on widely shared Marxist ideas.
- A language section may include a Selected Marxists archive, along the lines of the Selected Marxists archive in the English language section, but relevant to the given language section. This will include up to 20 writers who were already widely accepted as significant Marxists by 1939. This Selection will not include Stalin or Mao.
- A language section may include an Archive of Periodicals, which focuses on complete scans of long runs of journals. Runs of Periodicals may continue up into recent times, and are therefore exempted from the requirement to exclude authors who are still politically active.
- The M.I.A. mirrors or incorporates Sites which have been originated by others, focusing on specific political currents or subject matter, and subject to an M.I.A. decision made at the time of incorporation, these sections are exempt from the exclusion of politically active writers and restrictions on editorial judgment