The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/throwawaysportsvids on 2024-12-28 22:36:27.

Throwaway account due to the dubious legality of all this. I’m a long time lurker here though.

I was subscribed to a YouTube channel that restored and uploaded archival footage for a particular sport. Within the past week, that channel was taken down by that sport’s leading organization (trying to keep this vague, sorry). A large number of these restorations were created using the uploader’s own personal archives in the first place, and very many of the videos likely do not exist elsewhere on the internet.

There are 760 videos in total, all of which were downloaded in the best possible quality, with embedded metadata, subs, and thumbnails. My collection isn’t 100% complete however, as I did not have any automated backup system in place.

As far as I can tell, this creator hasn’t popped up anywhere else on YouTube yet, and I have no idea how to get in contact with them in order to coordinate uploading this archive elsewhere with them. Regardless, due to the historical significance of a lot of this footage, I’d really like to upload this archive somewhere where other people can easily access it. I’m not really sure what’s the best way to go about doing this however.

I’ve thought about reuploading them to YouTube or to the Internet Archive, but both of those would likely be DMCA’d at some point in the future, leaving us back at square one. Additionally, my internet speeds aren’t particularly fast, and doing this would likely take an incredibly significant amount of time to complete. These two factors together make me hesitant to take this approach.

Is there a better alternative to hosting this much content while avoiding DMCA’s/getting myself personally into legal trouble (if at all possible)? Thanks!