Apple has filed thousands of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices against The Unofficial Apple Archive, an archived collection of more than 15,000 classic Apple ads, training videos, and other historic Apple content.
The DMCA notices mean that much of the site’s content has now been removed and the future of the site is uncertain.
The site’s owner, Sam Henri Gold recently tweeted out screenshots of some of the many DMCA notices Apple had sent to Vimeo – the video hosting service Gold uses for The Unofficial Apple Archive.
In a follow-up tweet, Gold said that a total of 3,700 DMCA complaints had been filed against The Unofficial Apple Archive within a three-hour period.
I'd like to reach out to Apple this coming week but the demon decided to file 3,700 complaints between 10pm and 1am. And now they're out of office for the weekend. So that wasn't very cash money of them.
As of Friday, Gold said that 264 of The Unofficial Apple Archive’s videos now remain.
There are 264 that have yet to be taken down, try to spot them all!
While many of the site’s videos are no longer available, Gold has confirmed that he has all the content backed up locally and on several services.
“They may take my website BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE MY DATA!,” Gold tweeted.
don’t you worry, I’ve got backups stored on a handful of services in a couple continents in addition to my local drive. they may take my website BUT THEY WILL NEVER TAKE MY DATA! LA PAIX POUR LES CHERCHEURS, LA GUERRE POUR LE BUREAU DU CERCLE!! VIVE LA FRANCE!!!!!!
— Sam “Danger” Gold (@samhenrigold) January 27, 2020
In a statement posted to The Unofficial Apple Archive, Gold said: “My videos may be down but my spirit is up. Standby please.”
Gold added that he is willing to collaborate with Apple but so far there are no additional updates on this possible future project.
I’m ready and willing to work with Apple Marcom, I think a collaboration could result in a kickass end product. But I have been listening to a lot of Les Mis music to pump me up
— Sam “Danger” Gold (@samhenrigold) January 27, 2020
As MacStories managing editor John Voorhees points out, many of the videos that were available in The Unofficial Archive are hard to find elsewhere so the removal of this content makes it difficult for those doing research on Apple’s history.
This is a real shame. So many of these videos are hard to find elsewhere or are poor copies. I get that it’s within Apple’s rights to protect these videos and it needs to be vigilant about its IP, but the absence of an official source leaves a big hole for anyone doing research. https://t.co/WNyzEF6jVj
— John Voorhees (@johnvoorhees) January 25, 2020
The incident highlights how DMCA is often used by large corporations to crush smaller creators and communities that are built in honor of those companies. For example, Nintendo has previously used similar mass DMCA blasts to shut down fans who are sharing their love of the company’s in-game music.
