MPAA doesn't want you to preserve games Even for Museums and Archives Because It's "Hacking"

I think the real reason the MPAA is doing this is largely due to Abandonware and Emulators. Bare in mind that the same two individuals also wanted the DMCA to protect people who want to stream movies and Jailbreak phones.

Specifically something that has happened over the past decade is companies have been criticized for re-releasing their games digitally when there are already recreations and emulators people use. Essentially making re-releasing an older game not as financially viable and they then have to compete with the fan communities. I know Nintendo especially really hates emulation for this reason because they constantly re-release their older games.

With regard to Abandonware there's a lot of debate toward the legality of it. Especially in the instances where those companies are still around but are just sitting on an IP they couldn't care less about.

It's unlikely this is targeted toward Source Ports because source codes are distributed under the GPL which is a copyleft license. And that specifically allows you to edit or "hack" a game to your liking and subsequently fork it. As long as you distribute your source along with the revision you made.

Really I do not expect the MPAA specifically to shut down any specific projects. For one it's up to the specific copy write holders if they want to do anything (and over the years a lot of fan projects to recreate older games have been shut down. The most recent being the guys who own Eve Online shut down the project to recreate Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines on Unity.) All the MPAA does is it lobbies politicians in the US for the film and music industries. They just dislike the idea of someone trying to preserve an older video game after the publisher ceases support. Which I can imagine publishers also don't enjoy much either. I can also imagine the anti circumvention clause is something a lot of other companies like Microsoft would want to keep in the DMCA as well.

It's interesting to see where this'll go in the next few years. I for one would like to see proper legislation passed to allow individuals to rewrite code and preserve older video games and I'm certain it'll happen at some point. Only time will tell.
 
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I do think it is sad that emulation in a way has hurt ports to newer systems, and re-releases

but on the other hand i think a game that has been abandoned should deserve protection
if someone loves a game, or if it has some sort of importance, it should be saved.
also i just realized yes it would be hacking the game to make an old game run on a newer system
or a new kind of system entirely.
 
The only way I can imagine video game recreations to be more accepted by publishers is if people used a very strict licensing agreement like the GPL or something similar. There would have to be a new system put in place that specifically says "You need to own the game in order to play this hacked version" and "we cannot charge for it" I know Nintendo has gone as far as to renew old patents on some of their technologies specifically because people have been selling emulators for their systems on Android.

This is specifically because a lot of C&Ds to fan projects I've noticed didn't properly advertise that they were simply porting the game to a new system and not redistributing it. I know the Vampire the Masquerade port project was very much a case of this where the letter read more like they thought they were just porting the game and redistributing it for free.

I know MAME got away with a lot of this by stating flat out while their program can play a lot of old arcade games, it is designed strictly for arcade machine enthusiasts and being able to play games with it is a "natural consequence" They don't offer support to run games or show you where you can find them.
 
Cuddlebug said:
It's interesting to see where this'll go in the next few years. I for one would like to see proper legislation passed to allow individuals to rewrite code and preserve older video games and I'm certain it'll happen at some point. Only time will tell.
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Whether or not the MPAA/ESA/etc. actually go after any individual cases, there's always a chilling effect when you have an ambiguous law that arguably criminalizes an activity. You will get individuals, often anonymous, who will basically just ignore these. However, organized projects like archives or museums of this stuff can't exist in a legal environment like that. You can't collect donations for a 501(c)(3) to do something and then tell your executive board or donors "hey this is arguably a felony but give me money anyway."

The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA may be less known than the more popularly known ones by which your YouTube video gets taken down on just the say-so of someone claiming to be rights owner, but they're a lot more dangerous. For example, they have criminal provisions, and the language concerning the few exceptions to anti-circumvention are both narrow and inscrutable. It is really impossible without court interpretation even to know whether your activity is legal or now a crime.

I personally think it is highly likely these provisions will be interpreted by courts to allow basically the same fair use exceptions as already apply to libraries, archives and the like and that these activities are already protected, at least when done by organizations that are traditionally protected. But hey, I've been saying that since this nasty piece of legislation was passed in 1998, nearly 20 years ago. These provisions are yet to be clarified in any meaningful or useful way that would quell the objections the kinds of people who operate charitable organizations have.

These electronic-only styles of museum or archive, which often create and provide copies of things and which actually do circumvent rights-management, have a tougher case to make.

So basically this kind of stuff will only be done by two kinds of people. People who don't give a flying fuck, who are just going to ignore the law. This isn't going to give you organized preservation of stuff.

On its good side, it is going to give you preservation of pretty much everything anyone wants to preserve from most platforms. I can find MAME ROMs of pretty much anything I can think of, or at least almost everything, in less than a minute. The number of things I haven't been able to find when I had a fit of nostalgia is pretty small.

The other kind of preservers, though, is the people who operate through foundations and 501(c)(3)s and the like, who are going to have to do the best they can to establish organizations that credibly act like real museums and archives, two kinds of entities protected by existing copyright law. They're going to have to have legal counsel on retainer before they even think of operating. Then they'll have to operate defensibly and very carefully. This kind of stuff costs, and that means small players will basically be priced out of doing stuff like this.
 
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ZehnBoat said:
I do think it is sad that emulation in a way has hurt ports to newer systems, and re-releases

but on the other hand i think a game that has been abandoned should deserve protection
if someone loves a game, or if it has some sort of importance, it should be saved.
also i just realized yes it would be hacking the game to make an old game run on a newer system
or a new kind of system entirely.
Click to expand...

I think they can overcome this problem. First, emulators aren't necessarily the friendliest way to run games. IP owners can package the games to make them easy and convenient, such as how GOG.com have done so. They can also add value to the titles, by including addition content. Look at the Game of the Year editions of modern titles, where they re-release it with expansions and other bits already included.

Games might not seem like cultural heritage, but they are. Look at the Roman poet Lucretius. Most of his work and what we know about his life is lost to history. That so much work survives owes a lot to the right person at the right time, in the right place, deciding to preserve a copy. It's difficult to know at the time what will be culturally important for the future, and to use the law the deny people the ability to preserve games risks depriving future generations of this heritage. Look at the BBC's destruction of early Doctor Who episodes, because they didn't think there was a reason to keep them. Fortunately a lot of the content could be recreated from tapes found elsewhere, and in some cases from people who'd recorded the shows on VHS.

We really need to rethink how we approach copyright. It should go back to its original intention, which was to grant a limited monopoly to the creators. There should be provision for the works to enter the public domain, and be free of technological measures to prevent this from happening. And copyright needs to be way shorter than the modern monster we have. I can't recall who originally made this point, but if the intention of copyright is encourage creative works, then how exactly is allowing copyright of life (of the creator) plus 70 years encouraging them to create new works. Dead people have a pretty poor track record for creativity.
 
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PantsOfDesire said:
I think they can overcome this problem. First, emulators aren't necessarily the friendliest way to run games. IP owners can package the games to make them easy and convenient, such as how GOG.com have done so. They can also add value to the titles, by including addition content. Look at the Game of the Year editions of modern titles, where they re-release it with expansions and other bits already included.
Click to expand...

The problem is that GoG uses emulators and fan based code all of the time

GoG uses Dosbox on many of their games. Dosbox is an emulator of the Dos operating system that has been in development for over 10 years. Many games such as Blood will not run at all on modern operating systems without an emulator like Dosbox. GoG got into a ton of controversy recently because it was revealed on some of their games they use no-cd cracks made by computer piracy organizations and simply erased the lines of code that would generate the specific pirate's signature.

There are also numerous other examples of developers using fan based resources to sell their games. The best example I can think of at the moment is I Have No Mouth and I must scream was re-released on Steam using ScummVM. ScummVM is an engine recreation of Lucasart's Scumm engine that has had numerous other point and click engines ported to it. Without ScummVM and the dedication of the fans that ported IHNM&IMS's engine to it, you would be forced to emulate the game using Dosbox today. With ScummVM you can run it natively on your hardware at your native resolution.

There are also instances where the fan community enabled re-releases that would not exist otherwise. The best example is the game Strife. Strife's source code was lost over a decade ago when it's developer went out of business (and the fan community even tracked down former developers and they confirmed it). This one fan recreated much of Strife's code using the Doom engine as a base and it allowed it to be run on modern Doom source ports. This later lead to the Strife Veteran Edition on Steam which uses that fan's recreated code (and he also helped develop it).

In many, many instances the fan community is the only reason you can play a lot of older games today. This is a big reason why developers like John Carmack released the source codes to their games.
 
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dcisp said:
I remember when they stopped movie piracy. I'm sure this will work just as effectively.
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This isn't piracy. It's recoding games so they function properly on modern systems or add enhancements to it. Infact in almost all instances recreating a game requires the game to actually function (ScummVM requires you put game files into it inorder to function)

This is much easier to stop. For one with software piracy all you need to do is crack the copy protection. Which takes much less time (and people do it often in private groups or in their spare time). And they usually distribute it on pirate sites like The Pirate Bay which often get raided.

However recreating parts of a game takes much more time and is usually done out in the open on sites like Github. I mentioned ScummVM which has been in development for 13 years. For this you need active participation from others and you need to advertise it so that people will actually use it. This allows the publisher to simply send you a court order for you to stop. And very few people are willing to risk being sent to court over copywrite infringement or participate in a project that risks doing so. Especially since many also want to get jobs based on their code projects (and many have. Such as the original designer of ScummVM being hired by Spotify).
 
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Cuddlebug said:
I think the real reason the MPAA is doing this is largely due to Abandonware and Emulators. Bare in mind that the same two individuals also wanted the DMCA to protect people who want to stream movies and Jailbreak phones.

Specifically something that has happened over the past decade is companies have been criticized for re-releasing their games digitally when there are already recreations and emulators people use. Essentially making re-releasing an older game not as financially viable and they then have to compete with the fan communities. I know Nintendo especially really hates emulation for this reason because they constantly re-release their older games.

With regard to Abandonware there's a lot of debate toward the legality of it. Especially in the instances where those companies are still around but are just sitting on an IP they couldn't care less about.

It's unlikely this is targeted toward Source Ports because source codes are distributed under the GPL which is a copyleft license. And that specifically allows you to edit or "hack" a game to your liking and subsequently fork it. As long as you distribute your source along with the revision you made.

Really I do not expect the MPAA specifically to shut down any specific projects. For one it's up to the specific copy write holders if they want to do anything (and over the years a lot of fan projects to recreate older games have been shut down. The most recent being the guys who own Eve Online shut down the project to recreate Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines on Unity.) All the MPAA does is it lobbies politicians in the US for the film and music industries. They just dislike the idea of someone trying to preserve an older video game after the publisher ceases support. Which I can imagine publishers also don't enjoy much either. I can also imagine the anti circumvention clause is something a lot of other companies like Microsoft would want to keep in the DMCA as well.

It's interesting to see where this'll go in the next few years. I for one would like to see proper legislation passed to allow individuals to rewrite code and preserve older video games and I'm certain it'll happen at some point. Only time will tell.
Click to expand...
IMO, there should a "put up or shut up" kind of rule in place. Have it available for purchase in working form, or lose copyright protection. This is especially true for things like MMOs, where when the servers are gone, the game is gone. Fans should be able to set up and run their own servers, or be able to reverse engineer it into single player once it's abandoned. Insanely restrictive copyright laws that create these lose-lose situations is one of my pet peeves.
 
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StallChaser said:
IMO, there should a "put up or shut up" kind of rule in place. Have it available for purchase in working form, or lose copyright protection. This is especially true for things like MMOs, where when the servers are gone, the game is gone. Fans should be able to set up and run their own servers, or be able to reverse engineer it into single player once it's abandoned. Insanely restrictive copyright laws that create these lose-lose situations is one of my pet peeves.
Click to expand...

This. Or some copyright equivalent of adverse possession, i.e. you sit on your rights while something is being used long enough, you lose it. I'm sure corporations would somehow find a way to use it to steal content from private individuals, though, so maybe make it work simply to dump something into the public domain.
 
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