Another fun DMCA case

Another fun DMCA case

I don't know why you think it is important to have been in posession of the original -- that part is completely immaterial. That said, if your use is a fair use, and you haven't been infringing the copyright on the work, then obviously you don't have anything to worry about as regards copyright law. Of course the DMCA can sometimes be invoked even when copyright law can't.

In the case in question though, Archive had copied and distributed the pages they had collected from the site alleging harm, so there is basis for both copyright and DMCA action. I don't think the DMCA part will hold up though unless Archive took some affirmative action to bypass the robots.txt file.

(The statutory maximums for the copyright violation by itself probably wouldn't even make it worthwhile to go to court.)