This is why I say, with not a single drop of irony, that piracy is a public service.
Piracy isn't piracy when it's no longer sold.
Copyright laws desperately need to be updated to account for scenarios like these. Although, to many people piracy is undesirable, I take no issue with anyone using this method to acquire content that is otherwise unavailable.
Yep. A lot of streaming services recently have been taking shows and films off the service and burry them as a tax write off. In my world if they write it off they should have to put it in public domain. If they can still sue people who copy it then it obviously has value to the rights owner still.
The regulatory and legal system is mostly reactionary. Eventually someone will be sued or sue one of the services about it and it will be settled and become precedent. Which way is hard to say, but I can definitely see your argument being persuasive.
100%
Unfortunately I'm not expecting those laws to ever change for the better.
The only times I allow it myself are in this case (zero legal availability) and for unofficial/fan translations of games not available in your home region/language. Nobody would be getting your money anyway, no theft of compensation/profits there. If any games do become available, though, then we should support them. The more we put our money where our mouth is for a return to market for these games, the more incentive there is for companies to bring more of them back.
I'm also ok with pirating anything that now sells for more than original retail value due to scarcity. Looking at you, $1k SNES cartridges...
This may be hot take, but I think games are art and are part of our cultural legacy, and making steps that stops us from enjoying us from that legacy should be considered a crime, especially when they put at risk art disappearing forever.
I would start with simple rules:
As a result, I would expect all companies to either invest in backward compatibility on unprecedented level, or more likely start porting their games to PC (because they will keep being produced), even if that meant selling copies to be used with emulators. When there is money on the table, or perspective of losing money, corporations are really quick to find solutions.
Emulators are not illegal, where did you get that from?
There are legal problems when creating emulators, sure people work hard to avoid them, but I don't think they should have to do that in those cases, so I specifically wrote "all emulators" should be legal. For example, Dolphin to work requires cryptographic keys that technically belong to Nintendo, so they may be sued for providing them. Some emulators require you to find bios on your own because they can't legally provide them, and their emulator doesn't work without it.
This isn't necessarily always true. PCSX2, the main PS2 emulator, for example needs a BIOS file that can only be obtained from an actual PS2 (or "illegally"). I'm not sure why that emulator requires it when others don't. The closest thing to an explanation I could find online just said "legal issues", but didn't go into details. That makes me suspect that there was pushback from Sony about the emulator. So if such emulation laws were to be written they absolutely should protect in stone the right to create and use emulators. If a company can find a loophole to block you, they will.
The closest thing to an explanation I could find online just said “legal issues”, but didn’t go into details.
I don't think that makes sense, or at least it doesn't properly qualify the problem. BIOS is a set of baked-in software routines that mediate certain operations between software and hardware. In theory it could be reverse-enginereed and thus emulated just like the rest of the hardware is. In fact, many of the more simple systems (like 8 or 16-bit consoles) have their BIOS emulated. But for more advanced or poorer documented systems, there are, in my view, two problems with that:
We need a use-it-or-lose-it clause for all copyrights. If the rights holder is not making a good faith effort to sell copies, they should forfeit their copyright entirely and the work in question goes straight to the public domain. 5 years is generous, I'd make the grace period 6 months.
This is how you get Fantastic Four (1994)
Emulators are not illegal. ROMs are illegal if you didn’t rip it yourself. If you did rip it yourself it’s a gray area. See https://youtu.be/yj9Gk84jRiE
I think that these rules are unnecessarily over-complicating the problem. IMO, the best solution would be to amend copyright legislation to include a similar clause to the one found in the 'fair dealing' exemption of many Commonwealth countries - i.e "Can the work or adaptation be obtained within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price?" If not, copying the game is not an infringing act.
This strikes me as weird and unnecessarily convoluted. IMO the best solution would be to limit corporate held copyrights to 10 years after first publication or 15 years after creation, whichever is sooner, and limit individually held copyrights to the life of the creator. After that's up, the work becomes public domain, and people can freely post it without repercussions, meaning the masses will handle archival and distribution essentially without prompting. Simple, with very few loopholes as far as I can see.
Or limit copyright terms to ~20 years and repeal Section 1201 (together with 512 for good measure). That would cover far more than just old games.
This kind of thing (and e-waste in general) is why I think we need radical laws about unsupported hardware in general.
If an electronic device (phone, laptop, etc) stops receiving software support, the most recently available firmware should be made freely available under public domain.
Apple is obviously the worst offender, but it's just horrible when you have really great hardware that's 100% worthless just because the software is unsupported and proprietary.
The number of iPads, smart home products, and other devices that become e-waste every year is unsustainable. If companies were forced to release the code for free when they stopped supporting devices, maybe they would support them longer. Or at least bother innovating for a change.
This is only going to get worse with modern games. Always online to servers that won't exist. Digital only copies you won't be able to download.
Not only should the firmware be made available, I think if you are taking servers offline you should be required to release the source code.
I can still play my N64 and PS3 games with physical copies, but many on PS4 are basically unplayable without the day one patch at least
Ubisoft has made it clear, "Well, if you want to play Assasins Creed, or Farcry, we expect you to play the new ones".
Well, in both cases, the new ones are ass and I want to play the old ones, that I paid for.
As others have said on here, once the product is no longer supported, I feel the rights to that software should pass to the community.
I write code for a living, and when I'm done, the client owns that software. I hand over all the source code as part of close out. If they want me to maintain it, fine. If the want to go with someone else, its theirs to do with as they please.
This kind of thing (and e-waste in general) is why I think we need radical laws about unsupported hardware in general.
Agreed. Out of market for over a 10 years? The game is made public and preserved in a government library that is available to the public as a service.
Jesus that’s depressing. Thank god for the Internet or wonder how much of that 87% would already be lost forever.
Copyright as it is today is one of humanity's worst mistake.
You can actually blame Disney for much of this.
Well, humanity did make a HUGE amount of mistakes worse than current copyright, to be honest. That one’s an abomination, but we’re generally really good at ruining stuff.
that's why the "ahoy mateys" system exists
This is why emulation is important.
Most classic everything is no longer available. This is a function of time and the general human desire to make new stuff. Otherwise antiques wouldn't really be special.
If we want our stuff more permanent, this will be a change from the past that we need to specifically enact. Otherwise it's just people being subtly out-of-touch with how time will eventually destroy not just them, but their works too. Only the influences it left behind echo into the future, for as long as our art does anyway.
This is a new trend thanks to so many products requiring web services to function. Back in the day the only thing that made products inaccessible was the fact they were not produced.
Nowadays a lot of stuff is just a useless brick purely because an unnecessary web endpoint has been shut down. Especially video games.
I would say it's not new per se, just a new mechanism for an old phenomenon.
If that one problem were solved, it would improve the situation, but not perfectly remedy it. This just makes it more noticeable, it reeks pretty badly of planned obsolescence.
But it isn't the inevitable ravages of time that take away digital media. It is easier to preserve than anything before, and there's no lack of interest to do it. The real obstacle are laws that put corporate profits above public interest and demand that we expect an untenable amount of time such that old media just completely decays. Often old digital media only gets preserved in direct defiance to the law.
It really concerns me how this mindset has been spreading, where games and media get wiped away due to companies ceasing services with no interest in preservation, then people start to wax poetically about the inevitability as if this is Ozymandias' statue from the poem. Not even Ozymandias himself is truly lost to time. No, a decade is nothing in terms of cultural loss, that's not whats wiping out those works. What is responsible for it is a business strategy of disposability enabled by laws with no regards for our culture.
The difference here is that the data exists still and can be played via emulators still. However, it violates copyright laws to do so. It has nothing to do with “time destroying all works” (at least not yet)
He who does not pirate software steals from himself
Ah, classic Confucius.
Now do TV
I regularly donate to the Internet Archive but after reading this decided it was time to do it again!
The secret is crime
I love the sneaky Pac-Man graph.
I wonder what proportion of the average user's rom library is from the 87%
now that's a real problem
Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
If you see these please report them.