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.”

  • Dark ArcEnglish
    7•25 days 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.

    • @[email protected]English
      14•25 days 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).

      Libraries rent out ebooks too, also easily stripped of DRM and copied if someone wants to so that. But that is seemingly not an issue.

      • @BazoogleEnglish
        10•25 days ago

        As someone who may or may not have stripped DRM from library books, they certainly never seemed to care about that. And it was never even to share, but rather to store for myself so I could read it at my own pace. And the worst part… I read it for RECREATIONAL USE

        • @AeonFelisEnglish
          5•25 days ago

          You wouldn’t download a book?

          • @LavenderDay3544English
            3•24 days ago

            I hate when they say, “You wouldn’t download a car”.

            Yes, I fucking would!

        • @[email protected]English
          4•25 days ago

          it was never even to share, but rather to store for myself so I could read it at my own pace. And the worst part… I read it for RECREATIONAL USE

          You disgust me…what a sick and exploitive attitude.

      • ✺roguetrick✺English
        4•25 days ago

        What he’s saying is not beyond what Congress has previously laid down though. First sale doctrine should let you do whatever you want, but they actually banned renting phonographs because they thought people were recording them on tape. We’re lucky they didn’t outlaw movie rentals too back in the day. Whole copyright regime needs to die in a fire.

      • Encrypt-KeeperEnglish
        3•25 days ago

        Stop it man you’re just going to give them ideas