Entertainment Software Association says abandonware is illegal.

[johnhoftb]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/...se-its-hacking

The Entertainment Software Association wants to prevent the preservation of old games because it believes the process of restoring them is illegal 'hacking'.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions (Section 1201) prevents users, including communities, museums, archives and researchers, to legally modify games to keep them playable after publishers shut down the servers.

EFF staff attorney Mitch Stoltz says Section 1201 presents serious issues for academics, museums like Oakland, California’s Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment and non-profit organisation the Internet Archive.

Last year, the Internet Archive launched the Historical Software Collection, a collection of classic console and computer games and software. The organization recently added nearly 2,400 MS-DOS games to its growing library of classic titles, including Bust-A-Move, Commander Keen, and Metal Gear, along with 900 classic, coin-operated arcade games late last year.

“Thanks to server shutdowns, and legal uncertainty created by Section 1201, their objects of study and preservation may be reduced to the digital equivalent of crumbling papyrus in as little as a year,” Stoltz wrote. “That’s why an exemption from the Copyright Office is needed.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking the Copyright Office to give academics, museums, and archivists an exemption from Section 1201 and some legal protection to preserve older video games and keep them playable.

However, according to the EFF, the ESA, MPAA and RIAA have contacted the Copyright Office to oppose the exemption, saying it will send a message that “hacking—an activity closely associated with piracy in the minds of the marketplace—is lawful” and undermines “the fundamental copyright principles on which our copyright laws are based.”

The ESA also proposes to reject research bodies from exemption, essentially barring them from modifying consoles as tools for research. The ESA suggest that researchers should use cloud computing to conduct their research, rather than hacked PlayStation consoles.

[Vargur]

DMCA can RIP in peace for all I care.

[Dezerte]

Hopefully this can prompt some kind of re-evaluation of the copyright-laws.

[zealo]

A sign of how badly copyright laws needs some form of rework, abandonware is essentially software were the original rights holders either are defunct or haven't been actively using them for several decades, with a common theme being that its no longer available for commercial access anywhere.

[Snarftastic]

A sign of how badly copyright laws needs some form of rework, abandonware is essentially software were the original rights holders either are defunct or haven't been actively using them for several decades, with a common theme being that its no longer available for commercial access anywhere.

Definitely this +1.

Ugh to this whole thing.

[Katchii]

I don't understand how it can be pirating if the company isn't supporting and therefore not trying to make a profit from the game anymore. That's like me charging someone for theft because they took something from my trashcan on trash day.

Copyright on software should not be the same as copyrights for everything else due to how quickly software becomes obsolete. 95-120 years for a software copyright is retarded.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions (Section 1201) prevents users, including communities, museums, archives and researchers, to legally modify games to keep them playable after publishers shut down the servers.

But why? What problem does this solve? Who is this protecting? Wouldn't keeping a good game alive do more good than harm to the publisher? Why wouldn't the publisher want people to do this, and then ask for royalties or something since the software is still copyrighted?

A sign of how badly copyright laws needs some form of rework, abandonware is essentially software were the original rights holders either are defunct or haven't been actively using them for several decades, with a common theme being that its no longer available for commercial access anywhere.

Agreed.

[Mahourai]

Is this news? Did people really think that abandonware was actually legal? That's like those old ass ROM sites that told you to delete the file in 24 hours.

[SlippyCheeze]

I don't understand how it can be pirating if the company isn't supporting and therefore not trying to make a profit from the game anymore. That's like me charging someone for theft because they took something from my trashcan on trash day.

Simple: because there have been two schools of thought on copyright since the debates back in the 1700s -- the "natural right" party, and the "social good" party.

The later want around a twenty year term for all copyrights, and then they end, no matter what, because they believe that society benefits most from the works being available to everyone to do with whatever they want -- and so create more things, like Disney did on all that old content.

The former believe that there is a natural right to profit from your work, and that the appropriate term of copyright is "forever", in the sense that not only do you hold the sole right to your work during your life, but you can pass that as part of your inheritance to your children. They believe that the creator has the right to profit from it forever, and to control it. (Usually not very separably, though very occasionally you run into someone who at least claims the later is why they believe this.)

In politics the later group are winning. Corporations vigorously back this, of course, because they can continue to profit from things. This is why copyright gets extended by twenty years in the USA every time Mickey Mouse is about to come into the public domain...

Edited to add: technically, it is illegal to take something from your trashcan on trash day, JSYK. Good luck getting it prosecuted, of course.

[Ninotchka]

I suspect a whole lot of companies are realizing that there is potential gold in them thar hills.

Abandonware may be too primitive to work on today's desktops and consoles, but a lot of it could potentially be updated as smartphone/tablet apps. They're probalby afraid that if they don't defend their copyright, someone could port their ancient stuff to the iPhone and they won't get anything from it.
I can see both sides of the argument. From a player perspective, I can think of tons of old games I would love to play again on mobile platforms. But I also want to support content creators, and if I'm getting new enjoyment out of something published long ago I want to know that the people who made it are being taken care of.

Then again, the rights-holders for many of the old games often aren't the people who actually
sweated and bled into the code. It's a hard topic to know where I stand.