[tangent128]

Data in a dat, just like data in a torrent, only lives as long as there are peers interested in seeding that particular dat; it's not a blockchain-style "everybody has to replicate everything".

You can't unilaterally withdraw content somebody else is also seeding; the best you can do to my knowledge is publish a new version that replaces all the dat's content with a "please delete your history of this archive" message, but as with any distributed system you have no real way of knowing if that was respected.