In addition to the national libraries, it's extremely common for librarians and archivists to keep things in a personal collection on the DL regardless of copyright.
I have every ROM released for pre-2000 consoles + a ton of old software, OSes, and PC games on hard drives that I keep backed up. I have friends who prefer to specialize in keeping/archiving zines. Someone else does fanmade ROMs. Etc. Most of us have a good understanding of copyright law even where we disagree with it, and it's common to archive 'grey' material off the record and then fight for the right to make it official.
Books are even easier than digital assets since the laws around book archiving and preservation are much kinder to archivists. So yes, there are definitely DRM-free, digital copies of MOST books floating around and will continue to be for quite some time. The main issue is whether or not we'll be prosecuted if we open up our personal archives or distribute them.
I have every ROM released for pre-2000 consoles + a ton of old software, OSes, and PC games on hard drives that I keep backed up. I have friends who prefer to specialize in keeping/archiving zines. Someone else does fanmade ROMs. Etc. Most of us have a good understanding of copyright law even where we disagree with it, and it's common to archive 'grey' material off the record and then fight for the right to make it official.
Books are even easier than digital assets since the laws around book archiving and preservation are much kinder to archivists. So yes, there are definitely DRM-free, digital copies of MOST books floating around and will continue to be for quite some time. The main issue is whether or not we'll be prosecuted if we open up our personal archives or distribute them.