# Legal Advice - Website Archiving

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 7, 2004, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972 "2004-02-07T08:26:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Necro\_Romancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Necro\_Romancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Necro_Romancer)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972/1 "2004-02-07T08:26:13Z")

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Oh wise dopers who are knowledgeable in the law,

When does archiving a website via a .bat file, if ever, become illegal?

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### Author: ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972/2 "2004-02-07T08:40:51Z")

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[The SA forums](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=238489), right?

IANAL

I think a legal website could sue successfully for damages incurred due to denial of service attacks, if they could prove malicious intent. Making one archive copy could surely be considered fair use, but hundreds of “archive copies” for no reason other than to “bring the site down” sounds like a case to me.

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### Author: ![aerodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f08c70/32.png) [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972/3 "2004-02-07T15:59:32Z")

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I’m confused…

I assume by archiving the mean using a program that searches out, transfers, and saves all the content (every page and image) of the site. Is massive archiving by many simultaneous users a deliberate attempt to overwhelm the server and kill the site?

How does that work, anyway? Won’t the problem site come back online once the attacks stop?

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### Author: ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972/4 "2004-02-07T18:04:46Z")

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I’m somewhat confused about this too.  
I know the “Wayback Machine” [www.archive.org](http://www.archive.org) has been archiving my website since it started five years ago. It seems to me, that [www.archive.org](http://www.archive.org) keeps all the information on their servers, drives, etc. So, how would that slow MY site down?  
I update my website quite often and I do not keep the older pages on the Internet. They however, do keep these older pages in their archives. How could a page which I no longer have on the Internet, archived on someone else’s site, slow my website down or cause a denial of service attack?

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### Author: ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legal-advice-website-archiving/227972/5 "2004-02-07T18:35:15Z")

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**audilover** : It also drives up bandwidth bills for the affected site, and makes the web host less likely to want to keep hosting it. Sites also lose visitors as they experience extended downtime.