This might theoretically be copyright infringement. Since Aaron didn't specify any license (like CC) for his blog, reproducing his content without his estate's permission is technically illegal.
If IRC chat logs are legally admissible, I can provide documentation going back to at least 2001 of Aaron being in favour of putting all of his work into the Public Domain.
The Wayback Machine will most probably take care of the archiving. But if you want to host a backup, better ask for forgiveness than permission... I'd be surprised if a DMCA account were to be sent.
Since his mother appears to have registered an HN account today, we could ask her directly.
Considering Aaron's legacy of "full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturb[ing]" as so eloquently put by Cory Doctorow, he probably wouldn't have wanted us to deal with the trivialities of copyright law at the expense of a good cause.
Aaron knew about copyright's implications - hell right around the time of RSS, he helped launch Creative Commons. And he didn't put a license on his site. So maybe by not stating a license he was making a statement about copyright. But now we'll never be able to know for sure.
> he probably wouldn't have wanted us to deal with the trivialities of copyright law at the expense of a good cause.
Unfortunately, the same might be said of Martin Luther King and his "I Have a Dream" speech, which still can't be reprinted or rebroadcast in full until 2038, thanks to the greed of his estate.
It's a shame that legal technicalities can end up being so important, but the fact is that it's true.
