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.
As of Friday, Gold said that 264 of The Unofficial Apple Archive’s videos now remain.
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.
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.
https://twitter.com/samhenrigold/status/1221599653331898368
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.
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.
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