The site worldradiohistory is one of my favorites. It has an amazing archive of viewable books and magazines relating to radio and electronics in general.
Unfortunately, I'm seeing more and more DMCA takedown announcements there, as well as bad links (which I assume is the quick and dirty way to implement a takedown until you can get up a proper message).
Some of these may be legitimate, if misguided. Some are almost certainly bogus claims, or at the very least very questionable.
One in particular I saw involved an Australian electronics magazine from the 1930s and 1940s. This particular individual claimed full copyright on these magazines, which is likely false, at least in Australia.
Until 2006, Australia's copyright laws were 50 years for the published work. For magazines, I believe that the entire magazine such as layout, etc. was 50 years, and life+50 years for each individual article. However, if the authors of said articles were unknown, it defaulted to 50 years from publication.
It is highly likely that most magazines published in the 1930s and 1940s were only protected in Australia for that initial 50 years, and therefore are in the public domain in that country.
In the U.S., which is where the worldradiohistory site is located (I think), the magazine would have had to explicitly register the copyright when it was published, and then, for these magazines, renewed that copyright in the 1960s. They would then have had to reregister the copyright during the 1970s, when the laws were changed, to take advantage of the proposed extensions. Otherwise, the copyright would have expired when the initial renewal term ended in the 1980s or 1990s.
Who knows if that was done? I doubt it for an obscure, Australian, electronics magazine.
So it's likely that these magazines are in the public domain in the U.S. Ironically, they're probably also in the public domain in Australia. But for a non profit, it's easier to just acquiesce to these DMCA demands than to legally fight them (and spend lots of money you probably don't have). In the meantime, access to historical documents is effectively lost. All because of stupidity and greed.
Perhaps not monetary greed, as I can't imagine anyone paying to see them. It appears to be sheer possessiveness - they're mine, and I'm not letting anyone else get access to them!
I fear that this copyright insanity, if it keeps going, is going to literally obliterate history.
Another example of radio history being lost is the absence of The Gramophone, the world's premier classical music magazine, from the aforementioned worlradiohistory site.
It started in 1923, so at least all the issues from 1923 through 1930 are in the public domain in the U.S., due to the Music Modernization Act (which covered things other than music). All printed material, including books and magazines, is protected for 95 years; everything older is in the public domain.
And that's assuming that they went through all the copyright registrations and renewals.
The only place I've been able to find the magazine is in The Internet Archive, pretty much all issues up to and including 1961. I don't know what the story is there; perhaps Gramophone didn't do copyright renewals for some of their earlier issues when they could. Or maybe they shouldn't be there (other than the 1923-1930 issues, of course).
I also don't know the history behind worldradiohistory not carrying any issues of The Gramophone. But it should, at least the ones that are definitely in the public domain. I have to assume it's the potential for legal (and the corresponding financial) issues that they're missing.
@artisan-radio A favorite of mine as well. Often over the past several years I've worried about that site coming to an end, it's one that I have used extensively over the last decade researching things I would not have been able to uncover otherwise. Same goes for the internet archive and Google books -- without them never would have ever been able to excavate the history and use of 80 years of part 15 AM.
Not worried about Google books access disappearing as Google has already been sued for infringement over it years ago and Google won, but non-profits like the Internet Archive and the World Radio History site doesn't have the money and resources to fight like Google does.
Just yesterday the Archive was in the news concerning a similar matter:
Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase the Web’s Historical Record
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/blocking-internet-archive-wont-stop-ai-it-will-erase-webs-historical-record