The difference is that archive.org is not a pirate site, or at least it has a reputation of being something else.
Then again, if we start going very deep into this, I don't think they have ever asked any permissions to archive and redistribute all those websites either, so you can make an argument that everything they do is illegal, I guess.


There's no need to change any laws there. Or I'm not sure which countries we are talking about, but playing a clip of few seconds is totally legal (assuming that the song is actually longer than that), at least in most European countries, so if something has been shut down because of that, that in itself is against existing laws.

Then again many streamers really go over the line, like all those channels where they "react" to music, basically in worst cases they just play videos in their entirety, adding something like "I liked that" in the end to "review" it. And some people even pay for that on Patreon, which is the weirdest thing. I can only assume that complete shutdowns are reactions to that, rather than somebody really being offended by a small sample clip being played.

Piracy I think will always be around. Nothing we can do about it. I appreciate Gog's approach with DRM Free and pro consumer policies. Like the refund policy, fair price policy for games. Gog Galaxy, reclaim, gog connect and all of that.
I was also a teenager and i know how hard it was to get a hold of the latest games releasing. So I understand the impulse to pursue piracy. However I understand now that it is not the way to go and that the challenges of today are different from 30 years ago.

30 years ago you bought a magazine filled with Demos, and if you were lucky enough you did not catch a virus that would compromise your Pc and make you reinstall it again. Today its different and more challenging. You can go to a website and if you are not cautious, you can execute a script that hijacks your cached browser passwords and take over your camera and accounts without even noticing. Most of the time under the radar of AV Software because custom code is harder to be identifiable through heuristics or under the tag of malware as soon as it hits. Today there is an added risk in downloading SW from illegitimate sources that didn't exist 20 years ago.

You may make the question then: how does GOG certify the SW that they post here? I would think that the answer to that is that they ask for the source code to the developers or rights owner and they use that. Scan whatever they are given against malware, viruses and all and then they post it here. However this is another discussion.

Point being is I trust GOG over any other distributor or platform and if I am consistent and loyal then It will be ok.

:)

True, but it can easily be used for piracy as well as is apparent from the OP. This is all a very morally grey area though.
I meant NA. DMCA itself is an NA thing after all and I think EU companies can't even use it to directly claim stuff.

But I've read about cases where streamers were shut down even for playing in-game music, playing their own music or even being taken down after removing all VODs and clips. Twitch themselves have been responding with things like "Read the game EULA and if you are not sure, disable the game audio". The problem is they don't discriminate between actual abuse and fair use/transformative content. In most gaming streams for example, the music is not the actual focus and from experience, it only helps with artist exposure when people ask what the song is etc. From my point of view, it's just label companies smelling money and finally pulling the trigger.

As MadalinStroe states, to not fall into a reverse Streisand-effect here and give it more publicity, it's best to just report it and not spread info about the user/site any further.

Yes, Archive.org is mostly running a fine line, and I do appreciate that they have original DOS executable for old games and extra game stuff (from old magazines f.ex), but I'm not exactly happy about someone sharing these packs that are still maintained by GOG. Sharing games are not limited to DRM-free games. In fact, D-armed games are way more likely to be cracked and pirated anyway (I personally on occasion still do when it comes to Epic and Steam. Not touching GOG games).

Thinking of it - piracy isn't Archive.orgs worst offense to the human race here. They really should have more control and delete things that are utter crap. While searching for games, I found a bunch of VLOGS by empty people talking nonsense. Most had nothing to do with games. You know, the kind that are low on intelligence and just talks rubbish just to get attention (mostly from girls - shocking!). In fact, I'm less happy with that kind of archiving abuse. Seeing how the modern age have become I'm actually not surprised...

That's one of the few positive points on Twitch - they don't archive for very long.

Indeed it is another discussion, and it was going on not too long ago.
I can't remember which thread it was, but some people were claiming that what GOG does is that they just download files from abandonware sites and add to their own installers.

I'm sure you can find that discussion somehow on the forum, if you really want to read it.


Archive.org is actually not the best place to download old magazines. Most of the time those scans are so bad it's almost hard to read them. There are some exceptions, of course, like StarLog magazine that was uploaded by StarLog themselves.

There are some sites where people are real magazine lovers, and go to great lengths to offer best possible quality. I'm not sure if I should reveal those sites, because technically speaking they are illegal, but even at the risk of revealing one site, I must point to an article about the restoration work that they do. They in some cases spend hundreds of hours, and thousands of euros/dollars to offer those old magazines.

http://www.outofprintarchive.com/articles/features/out-of-print/the_restoration_process.html


Well, if we think that archive.org tries to archive digital culture to later generations, archiving all kind of nonsense should be on the list as well, because that is a real part of the present culture and society.
Being selective there really wouldn't give an honest picture of what the world was like around this time, when looking back from some time in the future.

I like how you can find many old books and roms for ancient consoles on archive org, which either arent available to get legally anywhere else or already turned into public domain. Also remember some underground music labels using this site as mirror to store and share their own stuff for free under cc0 or similar licenses.

TLDR: its not something like "evil piratebay clone", as some people in this thread may assume

As for topic's theme in particular - report the page, then moderators will ban it

The other downside of the pirate gog material is it makes it more difficult to find the original sources for preservation purposes.
Especially when some regions have something like starforce and others didn't.

Unless it was archived with a proper search function then it clogs archives with rubbish. Unless they have infinite space then there would need to be a process to decide on what to keep. There's probably various theories and strategies by professional archivists to work with this problem.