> I recently bought the expired domain of a niche interest site because the previous owner was determined to let it die and did not want to put any effort in it anymore. Is there a way I can "revive" it from archive.org in a more or less automated fashion?
Buying a domain name does not award you ownership of the content it previously hosted. If you have not come to some agreement with the previous owner, you should not proceed.
Well we can't really assume either way, as OP was vague about how the site was left abandoned. They may have some arragement that would make this not copyright infringing. In the absence of any affirmative assent in writing reviewed by legal counsel, I'd be inclined to agree with you, and yet I sought to provide the best answer to the question provided, as the legal issues were outside the scope of the question as asked, and the legal issues you raised seem obvious to you and I, and ought also to be so to OP, but we can't make assumptions about the license of the content in question and/or the relevant jurisdiction(s), which may make these points all moot.
Which is the part that really annoys me. The owner would much rather shut it off than selling it or letting others to run even in archive mode.
I recently learned CGTalk was completely shut down and ALL the information shared over the pass 20 years are gone. It never received the attention like DPreview. There are plenty of other examples where forum owner no longer wants the burden of owning it.
It really is a sad state of things.
Is there a site or exchange somewhere where owner could sell their site or at least put up a whole archive as asset?
Buying a domain name does not award you ownership of the content it previously hosted. If you have not come to some agreement with the previous owner, you should not proceed.