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.”

  • ogeist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    2 months 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.

    • ArgentRaven@lemmy.worldEnglish
      30·
      2 months ago

      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?

        • ArgentRaven@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          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.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            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.