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posted by martyb on Sunday April 12 2015, @12:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the you-pays-your-money--you-takes-your-chances dept.

Ars Technica has an interesting tidbit today about one of our more hotly discussed topics here... whether or not "abandonware" should continue to receive copyright protection — Entertainment Publishers fight to block third-party revival of “abandoned” game servers

This article concerns the trade industry response to a brief filed by the EFF last November.

A major game industry trade group is fighting back against a proposed DMCA exemption that seeks to give gamers the right to modify games with abandoned online servers in order to restore online gameplay and functionality. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), with support (.pdf) from the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, argues that the proposed exemption would amount to "enabling—and indeed encouraging—the play of pirated games and the unlawful reproduction and distribution of infringing content."

[...] The US Copyright Office will be holding public hearings [PDF] on the proposed DMCA exemptions May 19 through 21 in Washington DC and Los Angeles. The final round of written comments on the rule will be closed on May 1.

My own thoughts on this is likely our payment systems are just as unworkable as copyright law. Mechanisms are now in place to take our money, give us something, then abandon it, yet prohibit us from using it. Maybe its high time we consider a "Millennium Digital Currency Act" for payments so when the vendors want to abandon the service, the money transfers back to to the buyer, and the copyrights transfer back to the seller.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Justin Case on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:11AM

    by Justin Case (4239) on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:11AM (#169171) Journal

    I'm a fan of a movie with a small cult following, maybe only 500 people, but passionate in our interest. In addition to the movie itself (which you can still buy) there's a "making of" video which is no longer for sale at any price. We talk to each other; we've been watching markets worldwide for several years. Not one copy has come up for sale anywhere.

    Moreover, one of us already has a copy. But there's no way for the rest of us to obtain it... legally.

    Rights holders argue that unauthorized copying cuts into their revenue. What revenue? You're refusing to sell it at any price.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:17AM (#169175)

    Rights holders argue that unauthorized copying cuts into their revenue. What revenue? You're refusing to sell it at any price.

    You're not thinking big enough. Don't offer to buy a copy, offer to buy the rights. And if that doesn't work, buy the rights holder. Anything less and you're just a cheapskate.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:21AM

      by Justin Case (4239) on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:21AM (#169176) Journal

      > offer to buy the rights. And if that doesn't work, buy the rights holder.

      Make this offer to whom exactly? Do you know someplace where I can look up the current rights holder of an abandoned film?

      (Hint: the rights holder, whoever that might be, is not offering it for sale. Anywhere. Ever.)

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:25AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:25AM (#169178)

        Have you checked with the copyright office, where copyrights are registered, so you can find out? If you're too lazy to do it yourself, have you hired a lawyer to research it for you? How much do you really care, really?

        • (Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:34AM

          by Justin Case (4239) on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:34AM (#169183) Journal

          > Have you checked with the copyright office

          That would (I think) reveal the original author, which I already know. What I don't know is who they sold and resold the rights to over the years.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:42AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:42AM (#169187)

            Why don't you ask them? Legwork doesn't just happen in detective films, you know. It works in real life too.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:53AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:53AM (#169196)

              This is an epic case of someone moaning that "Shut up and take my money" not being good enough. Why should the customers have to do the work?

              • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @02:25AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @02:25AM (#169204)

                Why should librarians have to buy old books and pay for buildings in which to store them? That's like, work, man.

              • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday April 12 2015, @07:45AM

                by maxwell demon (1608) on Sunday April 12 2015, @07:45AM (#169275) Journal

                Because they are the ones who get the benefit?

                --
                The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @08:13PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @08:13PM (#169394)

            This dude cuts to the heart of the matter, money.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWP88WKVBKs [youtube.com]

            To get a movie made *and* released there are hundreds of 'owners'. The distributors will not even release a movie if there isnt a cut in it for them (ie ownership). Many people are asking these companies to take time to make 10 bucks. When in that same time they could make 200k. It is a classic trade off of opportunity cost.

            We get very wrapped up in this stuff because it is very cool an awesome. But the other end of this it is a business. Look at the movie Payback with Mel Gibson. They literally rewrote the whole third act because the director had made a very good movie but it was a very bleak movie. But it would have been a financial failure (even the director and producers acknowledges this).

            No one wants to repeat what happened with the GIF thing. Where it went for years extending and changing things then one 'owner' went full on greedy. So we wait :(

            • (Score: 1) by anubi on Monday April 13 2015, @03:29AM

              by anubi (2828) on Monday April 13 2015, @03:29AM (#169532) Journal

              That "GIF thing" should have made us all ( Especially Law-Makers!!!) aware of the ramifications of bad law.

              --
              "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:21AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:21AM (#169177)

      Have you considered that they may be the bad ones here for locking down culture and abusing copyright law in ways it was never intended to be used? The only reason copyright law exists is to benefit society; it's right in the constitution. It is not so publishers or companies can make money; that is just a means to an end. Stopping people from using their own property to do something with data stored on their own equipment because of copyrights that are essentially abandonware is insane. These companies are destroying culture.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:39AM (#169185)

        Have you considered buying the companies and changing their culture-destroying policies from the inside? Where's the Kickstarter campaign to start United Gamers Inc and buy back our cultural heritage from the big bad publishers? Have you considered paying money for anything ever?

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:44AM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:44AM (#169189) Journal

          Paying money for the game ought to be enough.

          You aren't distributing IP under this exemption, you are distributing a patch and operating new servers.

          The game dev's IP is safe, so why waste money purchasing the game dev and its unnecessary IP under your stupid, impractical advice?

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:47AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:47AM (#169193)

            1. Buy game dev
            2. Sell abandoned games for cheap
            3. Find out gamers are freeloaders
            4. Bankruptcy

            Have fun!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:47AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:47AM (#169191)

          Have you considered buying the companies and changing their culture-destroying policies from the inside?

          Have you considered that maintaining an unjust monopoly by using government thugs to enforce it is, in fact, not legitimate, and we shouldn't have to be rich to have rights?

          Have you considered paying money for anything ever?

          Nice non sequitur, Mr. Shill. You've posted quite a few comments here.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:35AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday April 12 2015, @01:35AM (#169184) Journal

      You already have everything you need to continue playing these games:

      1. The game
      2. The ability to patch it and restore functionality

      Missing: The explicit legal protection to do so. If the U.S. Librarian of Congress grants this exemption under limited circumstances, what exactly is the nightmare scenario for game publishers? If they abandon the game, it gets exempt for modding. There's no obligation to provide the source code or make distributing the game legal.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2015, @06:23AM (#169260)

    Let me guess.. Flesh and Blood?