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I'm curious - how does Archive.org get around DMCA? I assume it's because Fair Use and the fact that they're a not-for-profit, but more details would be great.

I'm curious - how does Archive.org get around DMCA? I assume it's because Fair Use and the fact that they're a not-for-profit, but more details would be great. Other sites like outline.com (which I guess is a for-profit) entity don't really allow you to get around paywalls the way the Wayback Machine does. As someone interested in building a site that gets around paywalls for semi-educational purposes I'm curious if anyone has details!

joe_the_user 5y ago
My impression archive.org follows whatever directions are in robots.txt. If those directions allow a site to be archived, they do it, otherwise they don't. That's from looking at not-archived sites, ezboard, which mention in another post.
- Santosh83 5y ago
  And what about sites that do not have robots.txt? Does IA snapshot those?
  - nlitened 5y ago
    Yes. By default, if you put information on the web, it is assumed that you are okay with people seeing it.
toomuchtodo 5y ago
Takedowns cause the content to be “darked.” It’s no longer publicly available, but still archived on disk until a future date.
pabs3 5y ago
IA are a designated library, which confers a set of privileges under US copyright law.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  Yes as a non-US based user this is one of the most amazing things for me with IA. in my head IA was just the wayback machine with cached pages. But during the pandemic I realized that there is a plethora of actual books that one can checkout with far less friction than in a standard library. It is such a cool concept, also there are IA satellite projects (not sure if they are owned by or in partnership), for different non-english languages e.g. arquivo.pt so you can have the same plethora of content in other non-english languages as well.
- ghaff 5y ago
  A very limited set of privileges. And AFAIK it's only a "designated library" in California. I'm not sure there is such a thing at the federal level other than the Library of Congress. Basically, most people are fine with what the Wayback Machine does and they'll take down any mirror that the domain owner asks them to.

joe_the_user 5y ago

My impression archive.org follows whatever directions are in robots.txt. If those directions allow a site to be archived, they do it, otherwise they don't. That's from looking at not-archived sites, ezboard, which mention in another post.

Santosh83 5y ago
And what about sites that do not have robots.txt? Does IA snapshot those?
- nlitened 5y ago
  Yes. By default, if you put information on the web, it is assumed that you are okay with people seeing it.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

Takedowns cause the content to be “darked.” It’s no longer publicly available, but still archived on disk until a future date.

pabs3 5y ago

IA are a designated library, which confers a set of privileges under US copyright law.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
Yes as a non-US based user this is one of the most amazing things for me with IA. in my head IA was just the wayback machine with cached pages. But during the pandemic I realized that there is a plethora of actual books that one can checkout with far less friction than in a standard library. It is such a cool concept, also there are IA satellite projects (not sure if they are owned by or in partnership), for different non-english languages e.g. arquivo.pt so you can have the same plethora of content in other non-english languages as well.
ghaff 5y ago
A very limited set of privileges. And AFAIK it's only a "designated library" in California. I'm not sure there is such a thing at the federal level other than the Library of Congress. Basically, most people are fine with what the Wayback Machine does and they'll take down any mirror that the domain owner asks them to.