{"rid":"storage/archive-org-download-web-serving-path","card":{"rid":"storage/archive-org-download-web-serving-path","eid":"archive-org-download-web-serving-path","topic":"storage","slug":"archive-org-download-web-serving-path","provider":"archive.org /download web serving path (the free CDN)","url":"https://archive.org/download/<identifier>/<filename>","domain":"archive.org","category":"academic","tier":null,"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","vorder":1,"grp":"usable","confidence":"reported","binding":"per-ip-shaping","identity_kind":"institution","identity_basis":"defaulted","needs_card":null,"needs_phone":null,"needs_id":null,"needs_institution":1,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest,rclone,cli","egress_metered":0,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"inherited","checked_on":"2026-10-21","stale_on":"2026-11-04","n_evidence":4,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"Serving is unmetered and free; no per-file download cap and no egress fee. Practical ceiling is throughput, not quota.","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":8},"record":{"topic":"storage","slug":"archive-org-download-web-serving-path","provider":"archive.org /download web serving path (the free CDN)","url":"https://archive.org/download/<identifier>/<filename>","category":"academic","free_tier":{"stated":"Serving is unmetered and free; no per-file download cap and no egress fee. Practical ceiling is throughput, not quota.","unit":"mixed","metered_on":"unstated","source_url":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html","read_on":"2026-10-21","notes":null},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html","notes":"not stated"},"retention":{"stated":"not stated","source_url":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html","notes":"not stated"},"egress":{"terms":"Free / unmetered. Docs: 'high performance downloads are achieved via the archive web infrastructure' — i.e. GET https://archive.org/download/<item>/<file>, which 302s to an iaNNNNNN.us.archive.org datanode. BitTorrent webseeds supplement it.","metered":false,"source_url":"https://archive.org/download/<item>/<file>"},"interface":["rest","rclone","cli"],"interface_detail":"rest","tooling":"plain HTTPS GET with Range (measured: 206 + accept-ranges: bytes); ia CLI download w/ --checksum resume; rclone 'internetarchive' reads back through the same front end","chaining":"Parallelise across items — different items can be pinned to different iaNNNNNN datanodes, so aggregate throughput scales with item count rather than with connections to one item. Put Cloudflare in front (replay responses carry cache-control: max-age=1800) so repeated fetches of the hot working set never touch IA at all.","limits":[{"kind":"per-ip-shaping","value":"1.19 MB/s","source":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html"},{"kind":"per-ip-shaping","value":"1.66 MB/s","source":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html"}],"limits_note":"Canonical URLs 302 at least once (clients need --location-trusted when sending Authorization); do NOT link iaNNNNNN.us.archive.org directly (nodes move); 429/503 under load; no auth on GET, so everything is world-readable.","identity_cost":{"kind":"institution","detail":"inferred from the category 'academic'; the source record states no identity cost, so this is a class assumption, not evidence","country":null},"reliability_note":"Throughput is the binding constraint, not quota: measured 1.19 MB/s on one 90s stream and 1.66 MB/s aggregate across 8 parallel range requests to one datanode from one IP (~145 GB/day) — against a local link calibrated at 27.6 MB/s, so this is server-side shaping, not the client.","confidence":"reported","confidence_note":"One page read moves it to documented.","evidence":[{"url":"https://archive.org/developers/ias3.html","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'Fast GET downloads ... high performance downloads are achieved via the archive web infrastructure: curl --location http://archive.org/download/sam-s3-test-08/demo-intro-to-k.pdf'"},{"url":"https://archive.org/developers/items.html","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"(snapshot 2025-11-08) — 'A particular file can always be downloaded from https://archive.org/download/<identifier>/<filename>'"},{"url":null,"date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: curl -r 0-1048575 web.archive.org replay of a 406MB ISO -> HTTP 206, content-range honoured, accept-ranges: bytes, cache-control: max-age=1800"},{"url":null,"date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: 8 parallel 5MB range GETs to one replay target -> 40,000,000 bytes in 23s = ~1.7 MB/s aggregate; single 90s stream -> 1.19 MB/s; Cloudflare 50MB control download -> 27.6 MB/s"}],"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"Serving is unmetered and free; no per-file download cap and no egress fee. Practical ceiling is throughput, not quota.","extras":{},"binding":"per-ip-shaping","binding_note":"one stream is shaped, and a user's throughput is the shaped rate times the number of streams"},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:per-ip-shaping","num":1.19,"unit":"MB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[1].value","kind":"limit:per-ip-shaping","num":1.66,"unit":"MB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.evidence[2].url","private-url"],["$.evidence[3].url","private-url"],["$.free_tier.notes","process"],["$.identity_cost.kind","identity-defaulted"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","not-extracted"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-extracted"],["$.retention.notes","not-extracted"],["$.retention.stated","not-extracted"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}