January 21, 2025: Help The Internet Archive Keep It Clean

For decades, the Internet Archive has performed a valuable service by preserving our history.

Recently, SJ Games ran into a situation where we could have had beef with the IA. We do not WANT beef with the IA. But we found literally hundreds of PDFs of our games – the same ones we sell – posted on the IA, many organized neatly by game system or "Steve Jackson Games."

Not a pretty sight!

Long story short, the IA depends on volunteers to do its work, and clearly some of those volunteers have run up the black flag and gone a-pirating. This is not the fault of the organization as a whole. But it makes them look bad!

The IA is cooperating with us fully in removing pirated material as we find it. But there are a few things you can do to help them keep it clean . . .

- If you run across copies of professionally-published game material there, especially in PDF, it's probably not legit. You cannot send the IA a DMCA takedown notice for someone else's work – don't try. Just advise the publisher, and if the material is problematic, the publisher can send a takedown notice.

- If you yourself are a publisher, take a few minutes to make the obvious searches – your company name, your big game titles - on the IA, just to make sure. (And if this is material you actually intend to give away, well, the IA is doing that, so thank them.)

- Whether you are a publisher or not, if you use and value the work the IA does, a contribution would not be out of line. Just saying!

-- Steve Jackson