First I support the Internet Archive and I wish them the best. I really like that DOS Video Games are being saved.<p>I have to question the legality of it because they didn't ask publishers permission first. They just downloaded the DOS video games, hosted them, run EM-DOSBOX to play them in the web browser, and then have a link to a DMCA page to email them to remove the game from the publisher.<p>This is sort of what many Bittorrent sites did, and they too claimed to be saving the games, and making an archive, and hosting a library and they still got shut down and people got arrested. One famous one is The Pirate Bay that has a ton of DOS based games from Razor 911 and other groups. They got raided recently and their site taken down and they haven't made a functional one yet.<p>This is sort of a grey area that The Underdogs once did, and they had to take down a lot of DOS Video Games in their abandonware archive.<p>As it turns out a lot of DOS based video games get put for sale on Steam or GOG.COM and they usually run on some DOS Emulator like DOSBOX. With the Internet Archive hosting the same DOS video games for free, I ask will this cut into their sales?<p>I used to work for lawyers who did IP and they would issue DMCA takedowns of copyrighted materials. Sometimes suing the owners of the website even if they were a non-profit, etc.<p>If IA asked for permission first, it would have been a different story. Some publishers might agree that allowing a free version of their game might stir interest in a remake of the same game for modern platforms. This was once done with Daggerfall when Skyrim came out. It would have been good PR for the IA and the publishers. But by not asking permission first, doesn't it sort of open up a hole that might allow them to be sued?