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"
market harm
Fucking die.
Maybe if your citizens weren't struggling for food, more people could buy shitty AAA games.
These pieces of shits have taken huge Ls for decades by virtue of emulators and ROMs existing. Fuck these ghouls, pirate everything and pirate forever.
Just pirate everything you can and call for a complete reform of copyright (or abolishment of copyright if you want to be actually cool). You'll never get anywhere with arguments about preservation and shit, why would a government that doesn't care about preserving the planet care about preserving some shitty videogames
Always pirate if you can. Fuck them.
In the early 1900s, movie companies would regularly destroy all film reels they could reach after a feature had run its course in theaters.
That's why the early age of motion pictures has so many gaps of completely lost movies. And that's intentional because
at the time didn't want anything old to exist if new things could get churned out instead.That, and they were incredibly careless with the new technology. Fires burned quite a few of them because they weren’t properly or carefully stored.
Most of Monty Python's original work at the BBC was simply taped over to cut costs. The only reason any of it survived is because one of them hoarded a bunch of it in their attic.
What if someone enjoys reading something preserved in the Library of Congress? Better shut it down just to be safe
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.
Damn, can't check out Leisure Suit Larry or Beat-em and Eat-em from my local library anymore because of "woke."
But they could make them again, perhaps as a collection of games on a bespoke console. It's like unexploited land that they're enforcing their borders around. It's just one more facet of digital enclosure.
But they could make them again, perhaps as a collection of games on a bespoke console.
Sure. It could be like Nintendo's usual overpriced mini consoles that are sold to scalpers first on purpose and have laughably small libraries with Ice Climbers as a mandatory inclusion.
It's not even that they want to make a profit off of old games. What they want is players to spend all their time in the new slop and if they can spend time playing retro games instead that would be a loss. Of course that's not realistic because treat addict g@mers and retro passionates aren't really overlapping but the suits don't know that they think there is one unique video games market
Not to mention all the remakes game companies are churning out. I don't think people would be as eager to buy them if the originals are accessible.
They can pry my Peggle from my cold, dead, hands!
Art under capitalism is so fucking sad.
Is medicinal use still accepted?
Chrono Trigger Chronic
Piracy is a practical and moral imperative.
"This fails the needs of citizens in favor of a weak sauce argument from the industry, and it's really disappointing"
I wonder why the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie would side with capital over the proletariat?
death to all IP lawyers. modern games are all fortnite clone over-the-shoulder battle royale microtransaction games, even single player games have microtransactions and locked over-the-right-shoulder cameras. every time i see a new game i have to temper my excitement until i see gameplay footage to check if it has that godawful fortnite locked-to-the-right-shoulder camera perspective, which they almost always do. all 3rd person games should either have centered cameras or the ability to switch which side the camera is on so i can aim around cover to the left sometimes instead of always moving right or having the disadvantage against those who can.
i hate modern gaming, i'm going to go play Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri (the Terran Hegemony did nothing wrong)
Over two hundred years before the beginning of the game, Earth is subsumed by a world government called the Hegemony, whose "Publicanism" philosophy PC Zone summarized as "communism without the economic restrictions". The Hegemony annexes colonies throughout the Solar System, but the inhabitants of Jupiter's moons reach an agreement that allows them to relocate to Alpha Centauri, where they settle on the Earth-like NewHope and the frozen Thatcher planets.
so the villain is super communism and the protagonists are a bunch of space neoliberals that named their planets after fucking Margaret Thatcher?
holy shit the
in US sci-fi lmaoooSERIOUSLY! i read the lore entries in-game and almost every single thing they mentioned about the Hegemony was incredibly based despite being presented as some unspeakable orwellian evil lmao. like way more lines saying stuff like 'hegemony citizens all get healthcare and food and housing' than the bad stuff like 'they are ruled by a class of orphan oligarchs'.
How is anyone a fucking fan of
You know what doesn't have the over the right shoulder view? Peggle
Publishers are terrified, just TERRIFIED, someone might enjoy some media without them receiving THEIR FAIR CUT!
I’m actually stunned. “Market harm” is a stupid term and it’s being used for games that aren’t even being sold anymore. Games that most kids or adults aren’t going out of their way to find. Anyone else want to play 8-bit Bug’s Life?
If that game doesn't have always-online mandates with a subscription and battle passes and obnoxious microtransaction pressures and a "live service" model that may end and take the damn thing away at any time, give me the 8-bit one.
Yeah man but tell me more about how women are ruining video games.
Very similar to last year's ruling against the Internet Archive's Open Library:
But Koetl wrote that any “alleged benefits” from the Internet Archive’s library “cannot outweigh the market harm to the publishers,” declares that “there is nothing transformative about [Internet Archive’s] copying and unauthorized lending,” and that copying these books doesn’t provide “criticism, commentary, or information about them.” He notes that the Google Books use was found “transformative” because it created a searchable database instead of simply publishing copies of books on the internet.
Also for out-of-print media.
Mask off
But if the customers can--what did you call it? "share?"--these games then how will we sell this 40 year old ROM for $70???
can't have shit in this country not even NES ROMs
I wanna strike down these publishers
"um but someone might play them"
That's the point?
Piracy is justified. Steal, steal, steal some more; then copy it and give it to all your friends.
I watched the public hearings for the proposed rule changes back when they were held in April and the smug-ass industry lawyers were fucking infuriating:
https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2024/hearings.html (if the highlight link doesn't work, the relevant videos are under Proposed Class 6)
Transcripts available here
edit: Probably the most absurd argument that stuck with me was during the second part of the hearing on non-game preservation. The people in favor of the new rule were talking about preserving ancient word processor software and allowing it to be accessed remotely so that people could access primary documents in their original form, and the software/IP lawyers seriously argued that remotely accessing 20+ year old word processing software would represent potential market harm. Here's a lightly edited transcript (mostly just taking out the moderator passing the baton), emphasis mine, with the representative's positions before their statements for clarity:
Transcript
STEVEN R. ENGLUND, Jenner & Block LLP, on behalf of Entertainment Software Association
MR. ENGLUND: So just briefly, I think "teaching" clearly does have to be viewed as an expansion relative to private use, and whether it is a fair use depends on context, as is always the case in a fair use determination. The example that I was thinking about while preparing for this hearing was what about a preserved word processor program. Is this exemption something that would allow providing access to a class to use a preserved word processor program an emulator for purposes of writing papers for class? I don’t know. But I think, once you include "teaching," you need to think through those kinds of scenarios.
[...]
JONATHAN BAND, Library Copyright Alliance
MR. BAND: Well, we’re happy to talk about the scope of teaching uses if you want. I mean, there’s no question that, you know, you can make all kinds of classroom uses. And, I mean, the reserve situation described, I mean, you know, certainly, that there are sometimes physical reserves, but you also can make, you know, multiples copies, not just one copy. And so, you know, certainly, that was true when I was a student and it’s certainly true now that multiple copies are available and then even far more for classroom uses and that’s routine.
And, again, what we’re talking about, remember, this is all in the context of preserved works, and even if we were dealing with the situation that Mr. Englund was talking about, you know, if it’s access to a preserved word processing program, you know, sure.
Look, we can construct any kind of ridiculous scenario we want, but do you really think that anyone is going to be trying to avoid, you know, licensing a word processing program in 2024? I mean, we all have word processing programs on, you know, our computers and our phones. I mean, you know, this is kind of the farfetched scenarios that we’re talking about here. It’s not realistic. People want to use this exemption for preservation and then making access to those preservation copies for research purposes, for learning purposes. You know, it’s not going to harm the market, and everyone here knows that.
[...]
ROBERT ROTSTEIN, MSK LLP, on behalf of Joint Creators and Copyright Owners
MR. ROTSTEIN: Yes. Just responses. Yes, there might be multiple copies back in the day even in reserve, but if there are five multiple copies, only five users can take advantage of them at a time with books on reserve, and that is the model and that model with teaching has been abandoned essentially.
And I think there can be harm to the market. One of the examples that the proponents use is Final Draft 7. If you look on eBay, actually, you can buy Final Draft 7 and there are comments saying it’s not useless, but the people who wanted to buy it apparently tried to use it in order to write screenplays. And if you do that, you know, you’re not buying Final Draft 13, which is harm to the market. It’s harm to a derivative work.
So, yes, there can be market harm because these older versions of software often do have, if they could be circumvented, have utility for the purpose, you know, for which they were initially created.
[...]
KENDRA ALBERT, Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic, on behalf of Library Copyright Alliance and Software Preservation Network
MX. ALBERT: [...]
I also think it’s worth noting that none of the opponents here actually represent the rights holders of these word processing companies, right? The Business Software Association has not opposed this exemption. They have not sort of shown up and suggested that there will be any market harm, and they are the folks who produce the software in function here unless I’m unaware of CSS, ESA, DPCCA, AACS, RIAA, or MPA getting into new business models. On the Final Draft 7 point, you know, my understanding is that Final Draft 7 is no longer available from the primary purchaser -- or from the company which was originally making it. That’s why we use it as an example.
I think that I, you know, in some ways turn this back a little bit to the conversation about sort of the benefits and barriers of emulation, which is to say that the experience of sort of using these kinds of tools with remote access provided by preservation institutions is useful for folks who are sort of seeking to understand the historical experience or access particular software-dependent materials that rely on an older version. It is not a particularly good -- it is not a particular competition for the existing versions of the work, which is, I believe, why there are no rights holders that represent those organizations here to oppose this exemption.
edit²: as disheartening an outcome as this was, one thing I did take away from the hearing was that there are some incredibly smart, passionate, and dedicated people working against all odds to try to get these rule changes enacted. So much respect for the people who believe we can have a better world and going up to bat against industries worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
