- cross-posted to:
- pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub
- cross-posted to:
- pulse_of_truth@infosec.pub
“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.”
You must log in or register to comment.
Feds are wrong, or would be if copyright continued to serve its original purpose (according to the Constitution of the United States) to create a robust public domain.
All media should be accessible through public libraries, and arguments by federal courts presumes that the public does not have vested interest in content. It presumes the government isn’t there to serve the public, which raises questions as to why we have government in the first place.
Correctamundo! Intellectual property law is yet another thing that needs reform. I don’t even like the term “intellectual property”. It’s a modern invention. For thousands of years everybody just repeated what they saw other people do, in a process called “the spread of civilization.” It worked great until inventions like the printing press created opportunities for business people who didn’t create anything to get rich by getting exclusive rights to other people’s ideas. But even then, copyright was always something you held not something you “owned”. The modern IP industry has done a very effective job at converting everybody to think of rights as property and infringement as theft. We need to return to the original concept that creators, who used to be freely imitated, can temporarily have exclusive rights to what they create because the public lets them. There’s nothing evil about this, it’s just a return to sanity.
So weird because as a kid, I would rent these video games day 1 from the local library… free of charge.
What is the issue now that they are retro. Shame.
Thankful to have all mine… back… up… and running.
This is the kind of fucking bullshit that creates assholes like trump and rfk jr.
IMHO, RFK jr is pro environment and anti big phama. He changes his policies based on fashion more than money. He is populist, not corporatist.
Both the Republican and Democrat parties are corporatist because of lobbying. Nothing to do with Trump. If we voted Hillary and Kamala then the same court outcome would occur.
Fine. I’ll start my own library. With external storage, and ROMS.
Wait I’m already doing that.
And thus. Again, piracy seems to be the moral choice
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.
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.
They’ve been actively fighting libraries over the years, with renewed fervor in the last decade. As numerous others have pointed out before–including the article I linked–if libraries hadn’t already been such a long-standing concept for centuries, they would 100% not be allowed to come into existence nowadays. Hyper greed has poisoned every facet of modern society.
hyper greed
You misspelled neoliberal capitalism
Libraries are clearly communist… or anarchist… either way, I hate it!
We used to rent these games from Blockbuster Video! On DVD when we had DVD burners and little to no drm! How did it suddenly not become acceptable?
Physical rentals are still legal. This is only about the legality of online rom downloads.
I’m speaking mainly of the distrust against the public having access for fear that we’d abuse it and not give them a cut. We can’t have access to these things now, but we used to. Regardless of form, regardless of piracy.
It’s more of a move to restrict ownership when you make a purchase, that has a farther reach than just games. I could see this being applied to cars, houses, etc. In that you only rent a license, and don’t actually own anything. I see this as just a first step, and the logic they use to justify it doesn’t make sense.
We can’t have access to these things now, but we used to.
??? There was no change. It was always illegal. This was a petition to change it to be legal and the petition was denied.
Despite it being illegal, Internet Archive has hosted and I hope will continue to host rom collections like tiny best set go.
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.
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.
They would love to ban libraries.
If they didn’t already exist, it’s doubtful they would have been legal to make.
Isnt that what the InternetArchive did, disabled controlled lending during covid and got sued?
Wait till they hear of scanners and copy machines. The books aren’t safe either!
Even worse. I’ve checked out digital eBooks and digital audiobooks from my local library. And I listened to those audiobooks for FUN. The AUDACITY!
Audacity is what I used to record those audiobooks so I could listen at my own pace, btw.
Bought judges belong against a wall, so that we can pick them last in dodgeball.
I think they might need to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
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.
I really feel like the source code needs to be released after 25 years. We need to be able to protect older games.
There’s often no in any way complete source code after 25 years.
Media degrade, get forgotten hell knows where, get occasionally destroyed.
All things that can be prevented in the future if you start today.
I’ve been saying that we need to have a law on the books to require any online components of a game be required to have the source to those features be released upon closure of the online service. I would be fine with them then being except from any security liability for anyone who gets hacked by use of that software and even retaining ownership of the IP, so no one could sell access to the service, but being able to stand up fan-run servers for old Xbox-live games or dead MMOs more easily would be really great. I’m locked out of so many PlayStation trophies simply because online servers have been down for ages now.
archive.org is the modern proposal of a library, and yeah, look what’s happened to them
Land of the Free, everybody
This is my favorite phrase to point out how fucked up it is we don’t get to decide these changes for ourselves. Started with ‘Oversimplified’ on YT pointing out that the ‘land of the free’ willingly gave up their rights to consuming alcohol in the prohibition
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.
They’re trashing our rights!
Hack the planet!
Trashing!
This isn’t even targeting pirates it’s targeting legitimate users. If anything, this will create more pirates.
Guess I don’t understand, are they saying places Like Vintage Stock that sells old games illegal? Or are they talking about digital backups of these games. Regardless fuck them and the copyright office. This makes me want to pirate more not less.
I answered your question on another thread of the same topic, but I’ll answer it here too for anyone else who has the same question: The law is just about digital backups. Vintage stores are still legal, and if anything this would boost sales at a vintage stores. If the game you’d like to play is unavailable at a vintage store or on eBay (or wherever else) then it will be entirely inaccessible for you to play legally.
luckily there’s more details to read when you click the link.
The problem with these fundamental rulings is that they’re largely trying to fit square objects through round holes. When a simple ruling is made to essentially say “to current law, no”, the law itself ultimately becomes meaningless, because older games couldn’t be easier to pirate. Most of them are smaller than a TikTok video, and are so cheap/easy to host that you’ll never stop them from being shared. Hell, emulation has come so far that you can effectively emulate these games on a browser, on multiple devices, even devices that don’t natively support gaming.
The smart thing to do would be to say that maybe the legal framework that embodies retro gaming needs to be researched and heavily considered. It’s a hard task that’ll require many lawyers, many fights, and lots of lobbying to ensure the word of law is worth something. Sadly, it’s easier to say “lol no” and to essentially just promote piracy.
It sounds like the problem is not with the feds but with the DMCA. It needs to be overturned.
“Sounds like the problem is federal law pushed by Congressmen paid for by corporate lobbyists, not the federal government.”
Aka. regulatory capture
Judging by the responses in here, it sounds like gamers need to quit and find something else to do
The dmca is a federal law, it is the feds.
I’m glad I keep backup copies of anything that might be important later on, like the 40 gig MAME Rom library.
OK, I’ll download them then.
I could lend out my old computer with old games installed to somebody else to use, right?
What if instead i lend my hard drive, is it still the same thing? Or what if I lend out my remote access screen sharing password to my old PC. Still the same?
Maybe the legal workaround is to game the system here a bit - forget downloading executables which feels a lot like pirating and just lend access to a system that is legally running the original license.
Not a lawyer but I believe in the US this would be legal as you are granting the use of the original license and not duplicating any content for simultaneous use by others.
What I would like to see is a gentlemans agreement of sorts where companies agree not to come after people for playing pirate, emulated or archival copies of games that are decades old and not for sale in any format anymore. I guess this is somewhat encompassed in the framework of “Abandonware”.
Oh yeah? ~reaches for feathered Tricorn~
You don’t say? ~shifts buckaneer coat across shoulders~
No, you don’t mean that? ~straps on pistol/saber belt~
Why would you say such a thing ya daft cunt ? ~quote by nearby African Grey Parrot~
Does this mean my library isn’t allowed to have games you can check out anymore? It’s been doing that (and other things that aren’t books) for at least a decade now with donated items.
This is more about the online one you can do with books and movies, they wanted to expand it to retro games and ESA fought tooth and nail to deny it.
