The Archive Team is a project unlike any I have ever come across.  My initial reaction to this was that their practices could no way be legal.  However, the more I think about the Archive Team’s mission and process the more accepting I have become that this may not be such a bad thing.  From what I can tell the site does not legally violate any copyright laws.

The team begins saving files from websites that are about to shut down, but do not reproduce them until the website has been taken offline.  This seems to me the most significant factor in determining whether or not the project commits copyright infringement. When the site is taken offline the copyright laws no longer stands.  These archives consist of posts written directly by the site members/subscribers who are not personally protected by copyright if the forum is taken offline.  Copyright only protects forum itself from being reproduced.

Some individuals would feel this is an invasion of their personal work.  However, they do not realize the rights they have and do not have when posting on public forums.  This is one of the reason why understanding digital history (both ancient and modern) is so important.  People need to understand how it works, their rights, and the rights of others.

On the website’s homepage states that the goal of the site is to preserve the history which will be taken off the web.  They encourage others to become an active part of the project.  I love the idea of the community coming together in the digital world to preserve and create history.  This archive not only allows original works which are being threatened from being lost to continue to be viewed by others, but can be a great help for individuals who lose their own work if it is not backed up in another location when the forum is taken offline.

Note: I did a little research to see if there had been any copyright accusations thrown at the Archive team.  As far as I could tell, there were not legal accusations.