The U.S. Copyright Office denied an exemption from the DMCA to allow gaming historians to access out-of-print games they can’t legally get.

“Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Friday. Feds declared that you or any researcher has no right to access old games under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.”

  • mPony@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29·
    3 hours ago

    FTA

    Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand. They also argued that there’s a “substantial market” for older or classic games, and a new, free library to access games would “jeopardize” this market. Perlmutter agreed with the industry groups.

    So as long as someone, somewhere, might make a penny off of them, they can’t be free. Insert your own metaphor here.

    • zarenki@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      12 minutes ago

      This argument is even more ridiculous than it seems. During the copyright office hearing for this exemption request (back in April), the people arguing in favor of libraries talked about the measures they have in place. They don’t just let people download a ROM to use in any emulator they please. It’s not even one of those browser-based emulators where you can pull the ROM data out of your browser cache if you know how. It’s a video stream of an emulator running on a server managed by the library, with plenty enough latency to make it very clearly a worse gaming experience.

      It’s far easier to find ROMs of these games elsewhere than it is to contact a librarian and ask for access to a protected collection, so there’d be no reason to redistribute the files even if they were offered, which they aren’t.

      On top of that, this exemption request was explicitly limited to old games that have been long unavailable on the market in any form, which seems like an insane limitation to put on libraries, places that have always held collections of books both new and old.

      All of that is still not enough to sate the US Copyright Office, the ESA, AACS, or DVD CSS. Those three were the organizations that fought against this.

      • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.ggEnglish
        4·
        1 hour ago

        There is a difference there in that these are digital copies (easy to make more copies) vs physical books (hard to make more copies).

        That said, the only reason this is an issue is copyright lasts too long on relatively short lived games. If copyright on games was a more reasonable “15 years since their last major revision”, this wouldn’t be a problem.

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
    681·
    5 hours ago

    Read a comment a while ago that if libraries weren’t a thing today and someone would propose them, the FBI would be on their ass and stalk after them for even suggesting such radical views. Copyright law is utterly broken and a disservice to society in it’s current form and execution. Politicians need to get their fat fingers out of the stock market by law.

    • tehn00bi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      2 hours ago

      I really feel like the source code needs to be released after 25 years. We need to be able to protect older games.

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
    921·
    10 hours ago

    That’s cool. Won’t really stop any of the shit that’s been happening though.

    Good luck corpos, for every pirate you take away ten more will take their place.

    hack the planet

  • henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    1192·
    13 hours ago

    Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand.

    Good grief. Some of these games have been on the Internet longer than I have been alive. They are 100-fucking-percent already available on ROM sites. You’re just shitting on people’s enjoyment for the sake of shitting.

    “The game industry’s absolutist position… forces researchers to explore extra-legal methods to access the vast majority of out-of-print video games that are otherwise unavailable,” the VGHF wrote.

    The spice must flow, and I can assure you that it already does.

    • el_bhm@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      3 hours ago

      Physical books have no safeguards from photocopying.

      I have more terrifying news about museums. We are talking pictures worth MILLIONS just waiting to be photographed.

    • magikmw@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      4 hours ago

      Wait till they hear of scanners and copy machines. The books aren’t safe either!

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
      38·
      10 hours ago

      Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand.

      And what exactly is stopping me from scanning library books and uploading them online? Are you going to ban libraries too?

      Actually, let’s not give them ideas.

    • ogeist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      57·
      12 hours ago

      Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand.

      So libraries are also illegal? Books, DVDs, VHS, CDS, etc. You can replace games with any of those.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 hours ago

      In this case it’s the corporate lawyers and lawmakers setting these precedents, not the police.

      To be honest, as bad as police can be wherever you live, I’m sure if you called them and said your neighbour pirated The Simpsons Movie and some SNES games last night, they’d sooner laugh in your face and tell them to stop wasting their time than doing anything about it.

    • lud@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 hours ago

      Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

      1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
      2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
      3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
      4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

      The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

      I’m no lawyer, but I can’t really find a way that fair use is applicable in this case. Also point 4 is taken into consideration here. And no I obviously don’t agree that games shouldn’t be allowed in libraries. The law should be changed. I just don’t see how fair use is relevant.

    • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      38·
      7 hours ago

      Pearson is trying really fucking hard to write that out of the public consciousness. I took an econ 101 class about 12y ago for funsies and the section of the course on copyright insisted that “the rights of copyright owners” were absolute with no exemptions.

      • GreenKnight23@lemmy.worldEnglish
        161·
        10 hours ago

        Of course, it’s in their best interests to falsely educate.

        IMO when it comes to educational books that are intended to be used within an educational system like a college, first amendment shouldn’t apply. The entire purpose is to educate the public your freedom of speech interferes with facts. Should it be found that your books consciously represented misinformation, the company is automatically found at fault and must recall then replace all books at their own cost and be fined tens of thousands of dollars per book that remains after five years.

        Should they fail to replace 80% of all sold books within those 5 years, the entire chain of command responsible will face prison terms no lower than one year.

        There were so many textbooks I had through my years of education that were blatantly wrong.

        I’m also looking at those schools who want to teach creationism in place of evolution. Can’t misrepresent facts when the books you can use get recalled.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      16·
      12 hours ago

      It aint the country doing this per se… It is the ownrr class using the state against the slaves. Again

      • PineRune@lemmy.worldEnglish
        83·
        11 hours ago

        Unfortunately, this is exactly what is turning (and has been turning) the US into a shithole country.