This is what Wikipedia says:
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[i]The Internet Archive has "the largest collection of historical software online in the world", spanning 50 years of computer history in terabytes of computer magazines and journals, books, shareware discs, FTP web sites, video games, etc. The Internet Archive has created an archive of what it describes as "vintage software", as a way to preserve them.
The project advocated for an exemption from the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act to permit them to bypass copy protection, which was approved in 2003 for a period of three years. The Archive does not offer the software for download, as the exemption is solely "for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive." The exemption was renewed in 2006, and in 2009 was indefinitely extended pending further rulemakings. The Library reiterated the exemption, as a "Final Rule" with no expiration date, in 2010.
In 2013, the Internet Archive began to provide abandonware video games browser-playable via MESS, for instance the Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Since 23 December 2014, the Internet Archive presents via a browser based DOSBox emulation thousands of DOS/PC games for "scholarship and research purposes only".[/i]
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I guess they could be allowed to gather all that copyrighted games backed by the recognition of being a foundation looking for the preservation of software, but it also seems that they don't care to actively distance themselves from the practices of any abandonware site, both give you all the games for free while just saying "for scolarship and research purposes" or "delete them within 24h".