First of all, a disclaimer: Us devs don't actually make forum policy, so in case one of the moderators show up and say something different about what's allowed than me, please listen to them instead 
Bighead, I agree that copyright is harming the ability to preserve things into the future. For texture packs that are distributed for free, there tend to not really be any repercussions for sharing them with others when the original download isn't available anymore, since the texture pack authors usually want people to be able to use the texture pack freely. It is however technically illegal unless the authors explicitly have said that redistribution is allowed, so I'm not sure if I can say whether that would be allowed here on the forums or not.
But in the case that _colin was talking about, the texture pack was (unless I've misunderstood things) not released publicly for free, so it's not safe to assume that the authors would be fine with people redistributing it. That's why I believe that the forum moderators won't allow it.
Bighead, I agree that copyright is harming the ability to preserve things into the future. For texture packs that are distributed for free, there tend to not really be any repercussions for sharing them with others when the original download isn't available anymore, since the texture pack authors usually want people to be able to use the texture pack freely. It is however technically illegal unless the authors explicitly have said that redistribution is allowed, so I'm not sure if I can say whether that would be allowed here on the forums or not.
But in the case that _colin was talking about, the texture pack was (unless I've misunderstood things) not released publicly for free, so it's not safe to assume that the authors would be fine with people redistributing it. That's why I believe that the forum moderators won't allow it.