Is it actually copyright free? How can such a large library of downloadable content come without any issues? Do they contact all the owners of the footage/work and they release it to them? Am I able to then use any of it in my own projects?
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*Edit: Dang! Sorry, I didn’t realize this was ELIF. This explanation is probably more Explain it Like I’m Ten. Apologies!*
An archivist’s job is to preserve objects and information that has historical obvious value or potentially undiscovered historical value.
This is seen as a good to society and perpetuates into the future. That is, if something is copyrighted *today* that is a legal protection of someone’s rights to their intellectual property.
However, at some point in the future intellectual property rights expire, depending on the media. After all, if you’re dead, it doesn’t make sense any more to protect your right to make money off your own creative efforts.
At that point, your work’s primary value is as an historical artifact that should be preserved so that we do not forget our past.
The best time to preserve cultural artifacts is when they still have their full relevance. The people alive at the time a cultural item is produced are the ones best equipped to explain its full contextual significance. As those people age and die, a thing’s contextual meaning can fade out and disappear completely.
Because we don’t want parts of the Internet to disappear or for us to lose their meaning, Archive.org is allowed to create their live ongoing snapshot of this public place while today, while they still have value and contextual meaning. Another reason for this is that as things lose their *monetary* value over time they are often discarded by the people who were originally exploiting them for gain. So these items aren’t just permanently deleted and thus lost and forgotten, copies are archived today before they can lose all their value.
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