Is the Wayback Machine Hijacking?

According to this Findlaw article, a healthcare group has alleged violation of the DMCA for circumventing script designed to thwart archiving by the internet "Wayback Machine."

According to the complaint, employees of Harding, Earley, Follmer & Frailey, a Valley Forge, Pa., law firm, hacked into previous versions of healthcareadvocates.com, a Web site owned by plaintiff Healthcare Advocates Inc. The company helps patients deal with hospitals, insurers and other components of the health care system.

Old versions of the Web site were stored on computers belonging to Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization that preserves creative works in digital form. According to the complaint, Internet Archive uses special software known as a "crawler" program to copy Web sites as they exist at a particular date and time. Visitors to Internet Archive's Web site can use a search engine known as the "Wayback machine" to locate and view the preserved Web sites.

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The complaint claims the defendants violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal to circumvent technological measures that protect access to copyrighted works. Here, the complaint alleges, the healthcareadvocates.com site is protected by copyright, and the denial text string is a "technological measure" that protects access to it.

The complaint also includes allegations of copyright infringement, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass and "intrusion upon seclusion" against the law firm, and breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and negligent misrepresentation against Internet Archive.

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