The important thing here is that the British Library has a copy of all the published books, magazines, etc from the UK.
When I self published my book with a physical print, I was required to submit a copy to them free of charge. Which I’m proud to have contributed to. Naturally I don’t want it accessible to all, hence the reading room requirement.
I remember them launching the web archive as an extension of this as a lot of human knowledge has moved online. So yes it feels weird you can only retrieve it from their reading room, but in the context of them having access to physical copyrighted material, it does make more sense.
When I self published my book with a physical print, I was required to submit a copy to them free of charge. Which I’m proud to have contributed to. Naturally I don’t want it accessible to all, hence the reading room requirement.
I remember them launching the web archive as an extension of this as a lot of human knowledge has moved online. So yes it feels weird you can only retrieve it from their reading room, but in the context of them having access to physical copyrighted material, it does make more sense.