Can an Online Library of Classic Video Games Ever be Legal?
Freeman writes:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/can-an-online-library-of-classic-video-games-ever-be-legal/
For years now, video game preservationists, librarians, and historians have been arguing for a DMCA exemption that would allow them to legally share emulated versions of their physical game collections with researchers remotely over the Internet. But those preservationists continue to face pushback from industry trade groups, who worry that an exemption would open a legal loophole for "online arcades" that could give members of the public free, legal, and widespread access to copyrighted classic games.
This long-running argument was joined once again earlier this month during livestreamed testimony in front of the Copyright Office, which is considering new DMCA rules as part of its regular triennial process. During that testimony, representatives for the Software Preservation Network and the Library Copyright Alliance defended their proposal for a system of "individualized human review" to help ensure that temporary remote game access would be granted "primarily for the purposes of private study, scholarship, teaching, or research."
[...] Salvador also made reference to last year's VGHF study that found a whopping 87 percent of games ever released are out of print, making it difficult for researchers to get access to huge swathes of video game history without institutional help. And the games of most interest to researchers are less likely to have had modern re-releases, since they tend to be the "more primitive" early games with "less popular appeal," Salvador said.
The Copyright Office is expected to rule on the preservation community's proposed exemption later this year. But for the moment, there is some frustration that the industry has not been at all receptive to the significant compromises the preservation community feels it has made on these potential concerns.
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