
Ask HN: What's the Legality Around Web Archival? - r0rshrk
What&#x27;s the legality around Web Archival ? Is it possible for a startup to grow around web archiving, or a business to build APIs which allow pages to be archived ?
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naikrovek
Archive.org has a special exemption via US copyright law, I believe, and other
parties will not have the same exemption.

I imagine it would be very difficult for someone to start a website which
hosts a lot of copyrighted material and claim they are genuinely archiving
copyrighted material. This would be the defense of every piracy site ever, if
it were feasible, I imagine.

I am not a copyright lawyer, and I welcome correction on this.

Developing an archival API for those who want their site archived is perfectly
fine, though this is probably what robots.txt is for.

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ilaksh
I don't think there is such a thing as a special exception to copyright law
given to one website.

There is fair use.

I think what happened with archive.org is that it became popular, and also
popular to think of it as fair use. It's a social phenomenon of acceptance
that does not have any legal bearing.

Companies that don't want their stuff 'archived' can and do take action to
enforce laws about digital libraries. For example the book that helped teach
me programming was Turbo Pascal DiskTutor. You cannot simply download that one
on archive.org. You have to get on a waiting list and 'borrow' it when it's
available.

The fact that they made it so there is apparently exactly one digital copy
available for 'borrowing' makes me feel that the digital library laws are
invalid. It should not be legal to enforce only one copy total when it is
possible to make it ten just as easily.

Anyway, there are lots of sites like YouTube that would not exist without
encouraging users to violate copyright. This was the whole reason YouTube got
big in the first place. It was only after they had a massive library of
content and users that they started really playing ball with distribution
companies.

~~~
naikrovek
> I don't think there is such a thing as a special exception to copyright law
> given to one website.

An example of an exception obtained by the internet archive:

[https://archive.org/post/82097/internet-archive-helps-
secure...](https://archive.org/post/82097/internet-archive-helps-secure-
exemption-to-the-digital-millennium-copyright-act)

~~~
ilaksh
They hired people to amend the regulation and succeeded, but like I said, its
not specific to "the Internet Archive".

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otterley
If you plan to do such a thing, consult a copyright lawyer first. You won't
get reliable advice here about the law (speaking as an attorney myself...).
Don't build your business copying other people's stuff unless you really know
what you're doing, lest you end up like Napster, MP3.com, or a bunch of other
startups that were sued into oblivion.

------
ErikAugust
One of the biggest companies in the world did it. Starts with a G.

