|
As another poster correctly pointed out, the Wayback Machine is not the official site. It is a snapshot of that site at a particular date hosted by an unrelated party. The owner of the site archived may or may not even know that their site will be archived and available to the public as at a particular date. Clearly if an ebook is offered for free for a particular period the owner is not intending that it be free for download indefinitely from any other site. Nor is it granting any sort of licence for the Wayback Machine to distribute the work. When you download it is the Wayback Machine which is infringing copyright. As the WBM provides a very valuable (and automated) internet service I would hope that it is entitled to some sort of safe harbour protection. Certainly it would need to respond to a DMCA takedown notice if the servers are in the US. As to whether you yourself infringe copyright? You have downloaded it from a source that was not licensed to distribute it? Even if this is infringement, you may well have a good defence. Could/should you know the WBM is not licensed. We may eventually get an answer in at least some countries if rights holders try to sue endusers for downloading. If this occurs it may wll be a video streaming case.
|