Backups of information you have access to -- a very different thing. I can backup chunks of Wikipedia without owning it, for example.

Wikipedia is licensed with a creative commons license that allows you to copy it's content. It's very different from the way a lot of textbooks are licensed.

DRM right protection laws forbid a lot of backup creation.

Bullshit. He didn't want backups, he wanted to make it available.

The whole point of achieving information is to make it available. Archive.org also makes the information available that it archives.

If he would have succeeded than we would now have thousands of copies of the Jstor database distributed all over the world. That creates resilience for that information in times of a catastrophe.