4 ms·

It's not that, archive.org has a DMCA exemption for being a library. It makes it legal for them to host the data, but that doesn't mean it's legal for you to do

It's not that, archive.org has a DMCA exemption for being a library. It makes it legal for them to host the data, but that doesn't mean it's legal for you to download it. Weird I know... I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? I've never gotten a straight answer to that.

wtallis 4y ago
> I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? It's not permanently illegal to access. In the US, there's a constitutional requirement that copyright and patents be time-limited, so eventually all that stuff will be public domain. And the copyright period is current so absurdly long that by the time XP is public domain, it will be hard to find outside of dedicated archives.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  Let me rephrase... why make it available for download to the public if it's illegal to do so in 99% of cases?
sp332 4y ago
They have fairly strong protections, but it's not a blank check. Nintendo for example is aggressive about getting stuff taken down from there.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bscphil 4y ago
An ordinary library can not scan a copy of a book and allow unlimited downloads of that scan from the web. The DMCA exemption doesn't allow that. Actually, archive.org got in trouble pretty recently because they were accused of doing almost just that. Their response was not that they had the right to do it but rather that they had never been doing it to begin with - that each copy given out was merely "lended" and backed for the duration of the lend by an actual physical copy in a partnering library. Similarly, you will find a bunch of copyright software on there, including for recent DRM-free and cracked video games. Unfortunately, my impression is that the archive managers simply do not care about copyright. Anyone who wants to get something they own taken off the site has to put in quite a bit of work, similar to the old wild-west days of YouTube.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  As far as not caring, Jason Scott has said himself that they take a "ask forgiveness instead" approach because getting permission is too difficult and time-consuming. In 2016 they were adding 15TB per day with a total storage volume of 30PB, and by 2020 that total was 70PB.

wtallis 4y ago

> I mean why else would they store it if it's illegal to access? It's not permanently illegal to access. In the US, there's a constitutional requirement that copyright and patents be time-limited, so eventually all that stuff will be public domain. And the copyright period is current so absurdly long that by the time XP is public domain, it will be hard to find outside of dedicated archives.

ranger_danger 4y ago
Let me rephrase... why make it available for download to the public if it's illegal to do so in 99% of cases?

sp332 4y ago

They have fairly strong protections, but it's not a blank check. Nintendo for example is aggressive about getting stuff taken down from there.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bscphil 4y ago

An ordinary library can not scan a copy of a book and allow unlimited downloads of that scan from the web. The DMCA exemption doesn't allow that. Actually, archive.org got in trouble pretty recently because they were accused of doing almost just that. Their response was not that they had the right to do it but rather that they had never been doing it to begin with - that each copy given out was merely "lended" and backed for the duration of the lend by an actual physical copy in a partnering library. Similarly, you will find a bunch of copyright software on there, including for recent DRM-free and cracked video games. Unfortunately, my impression is that the archive managers simply do not care about copyright. Anyone who wants to get something they own taken off the site has to put in quite a bit of work, similar to the old wild-west days of YouTube.

ranger_danger 4y ago
As far as not caring, Jason Scott has said himself that they take a "ask forgiveness instead" approach because getting permission is too difficult and time-consuming. In 2016 they were adding 15TB per day with a total storage volume of 30PB, and by 2020 that total was 70PB.