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Wayback Archives as a Law Tool

Posted by Zonk on from the time-travel-is-fun dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The Wayback Machine's internet archive and Google's cached pages are becoming indispensable tools for some lawyers, especially specialists in intellectual-property law. Dell has used copies of expired websites to get the domain name DellComputersSuck.com transferred to it, the Wall Street Journal reports. EchoStar used Wayback in a case against a Polish TV company. Playboy checks Wayback to look for infringers of its trademark bunny or other images. And Wayback was even used to discredit a witness and reach a mistrial in a Canada murder case."

5 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. And this is a big deal why? by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Peaple go to the library and dig through hundreds of old newspapers and records, whats the big deal with using wayback for websites?

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    1. Re:And this is a big deal why? by TTK+Ciar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For one its not quite as verifiable. Who is to say, for example, that someone with access to the Wayback servers couldn't put their own content and dates on there, and then use that as "evidence" for some suit?

      I don't know how (if?) its regulated, any insights into this?

      I work at The Archive. There are only two people, three at most, with the expertise and access to pull something like this off, and if someone tried Brad would almost definitely notice. There are checks in place to detect bitrot in the web archive, and altering older ARCs to include new information would be detected as bitrot and flagged for closer attention. They would then be compared against the copies in our sister organization's data cluster in Europe, and possibly also compared against the copies in the datacenter in Egypt.

      To make it work, you'd pretty much have to get Brad to play along, and he is fanatical about the integrity of the web data. I don't think you could pay him enough to do it, and he doesn't have any sons or daughters you could kidnap for blackmail.

      How one would go about demonstrating all of this in court, though, I do not know. IANAL.

      -- TTK

  2. One easy workaround... by DJ+Rubbie · · Score: 5, Informative

    $ cat robots.txt
    User-agent: ia_archiver
    Disallow: /

    My site is not archived there, problem solved.

    (Of course, if another of these service pops up...)

    --
    Please direct all bug reports to /dev/null
  3. Re:Not everything is archived .... by pilgrim23 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Another point of note: Net Nanny and Surf Watch or other such tools blcok the main sites. they do NOT block the WBM archive of goatse.cx or the like. AND THAT IS A GOOD THING!!!

    Example:

    www.copstalk.com used to be the home page for a maker of Macintosh to PC via Appletalk cross platform communications tools. They were later bought out. If you wish to look at documentation on their older products, go to the WBM. www.copstalk.com these days IS A PORN SITE.

    --
    - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
  4. Re:What about copyrights? by Ngwenya · · Score: 5, Informative

    OK, you may look at WBM as a library, but IS it?

    Yes. It really is. It's a registered member of the American Library Association. Details on http://www.archive.org/about/about.php

    It's an honest to God library, which also means that Section 108 of the USC on Copyright applies. Public libraries in the US (and here in the UK) have some pertinent exemptions to the copyright restrictions that bind us mere mortals.

    --Ng