Publishers are absolutely terrified "preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes," so the US copyright office has struck down a major effort for game preservation
Publishers are absolutely terrified "preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes," so the US copyright office has struck down a major effort for game preservation
"This fails the needs of citizens in favor of a weak sauce argument from the industry, and it's really disappointing"
A three-year fight to help support game preservation has come to a sad end today. The US copyright office has denied a request for a DMCA exemption that would allow libraries to remotely share digital access to preserved video games.
"For the past three years, the Video Game History Foundation has been supporting with the Software Preservation Network (SPN) on a petition to allow libraries and archives to remotely share digital access to out-of-print video games in their collections," VGHF explains in its statement. "Under the current anti-circumvention rules in Section 1201 of the DMCA, libraries and archives are unable to break copy protection on games in order to make them remotely accessible to researchers."
Essentially, this exemption would open up the possibility of a digital library where historians and researchers could 'check out' digital games that run through emulators. The VGHF argues that around 87% of all video games released in the US before 2010 are now out of print, and the only legal way to access those games now is through the occasionally exorbitant prices and often failing hardware that defines the retro gaming market.
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They're right though. Those archived games would definitely be played... For fun. The problem is that even though the graphics aren't as good, a lot of older games were fun and had great replayability. Eventually, there will be such a big historical catalog of games that people will be able to enjoy just legacy games without ever buying new ones.
The solution is simple: have some non-profit org manage the historical catalog, sell the old games super cheap, and send that way whoever holds the rights can still get profits off the old games. They could even give you different download options like game-only, or game in a VM that is guaranteed to actually be able to run the game.
Problem with their logic is that, as stated in the article, goods such as preserved books are already used for recreation. Your idea that a catalogue of old media would prevent consumption of new media is provably false by example. People read old books and it doesn't stop them from reading new ones. Can you imagine saying this exact same thing about music? People's tastes change over time and they like new things- old things don't stop us from consuming the new things. All the copyright lobbyists are doing is preventing the public from enjoying old games that can no longer be played because the hardware is dated or there are no viable copies left.