Libraries don’t lead the way. Again.
Internet Archive Gets DMCA Exemption To Help Archive Vintage Software
The Internet Archive (www.archive.org) has received a temporary exemption fromt he Digital Millenium Copyright Act to archive “at-risk software.” There is no mention here of the larger problem of archiving content and content that is tied to software.
Seeing the Internet Archive do this reminds me of the
Vanderbuilt TV News Archive, which not only started taping and preserving and indexing TV News in 1968, but fought off network attempts to prevent them from doing so, and got their right to do so written in to the 1976 Copyright Act. The law allows nonprofits like the library to legally tape broadcasts if they are opened up to a wide, scholarly audience or to the general public.
See,
TV News Archive preserves network news broadcasts dating back to ’60s
by Jessica Howard. Vanderbuilt Daily Register (10/29/02).