Here's how it works:
When a user creates a Perma.cc link, Perma.cc archives a copy of the referenced content, and generates a link to an unalterable hosted instance of the site. Regardless of what may happen to the original source, if the link is later published by a journal using the Perma.cc service, the archived version will always be available through the Perma.cc link.
Perma CC is currently focusing on academic publishing: While dead links are frustrating for the average user, they're a huge issue for legal and academic journals.
Authors use links to cite influential work a lot, but web pages are often temporary, fleeting things. Half of all the U.S. Supreme Court's citations of web links lead to dead ends, according to the New York Times.
A study cited in The Times Higher Education supplement says 98.3 per cent of all web pages are changed in some way within six months.