5 ms·

I don't see where they outline the difference between games and books. This makes no sense at all. I can see where they would draw a line with proprietary IPs l

by proc0 2y ago

I don't see where they outline the difference between games and books. This makes no sense at all. I can see where they would draw a line with proprietary IPs like old Nintendo games, but there's probably hundreds of thousands of games that have no owner. I'm tired of video games being treated as something that they're not. They're not services and they're not just for entertainment. It's an art form and they become part of the broader culture, not to mention their full potential as an interactive medium has only barely started to be explored.

guerrilla 2y ago
> I don't see where they outline the difference between games and books. The difference is in who's money and how much is behind the law at the relevant points in time.
- proc0 2y ago
  Sure, I was just wondering their reasoning behind it. Surely it can't be blatantly about making money, but maybe it is.
  - guerrilla 2y ago
    I don't know but I think it's not just about the old games that aren't produced anymore. I think it could be about protecting profit in other areas. They may want to control the Overton window so that it doesn't become thinkable that the same thing could happen to other video games or media. If a library is able to buy a video game and loan it out for free online, then that could become a problem for some models. Is it possible to loan movies and TV series online in libraries now? If you have the resources, then a maximalist IP agenda would be the most rational, to extract as many rights as possible because it creates wider moat for attackers to cross. You keep them busy fighting things that don't matter to you, so they stay far away from your core business interests.
    - realusername 2y ago
      > If you have the resources, then a maximalist IP agenda would be the most rational, to extract as many rights as possible because it creates wider moat for attackers to cross. That's the answer, the IP conglomerates aren't arguing in good faith, they just want to defend their moat as much as possible and push the debate outside of rethinking media consumption in the digital age. Those IP conglomerates have nothing to gain from any legislation change, they basically already have all the rights they could possibly have and want to keep their position. If that means throwing away some old games under the bus, they are happy with that.
    - Y_Y 2y ago
      > is it possible to loan movies and TV series online in libraries now? Absolutely. In fact it's unusually popular. In undergrad I remember the only people reading physics books were physics students, but it wasn't only film/media studies etc checking out DVDs. I'm just about old enough that unlimited streaming wasn't ubiquitous, so people would go to the video stations in the library and bingewatch there. edit: despite my anecdote, this service is available online too, see for example the service, Overdrive, which is popular with municipal libraries.
      - chgs 2y ago
        This isn’t about checking out physical books, dvds or games cartridges.
SkySkimmer 2y ago
If there's no owner what stops the games from being distributed? Shouldn't it mean there's noone who can sue the distributor?
- proc0 2y ago
  I guess no one would stop someone from distributing, but presumably there isn't a huge market for these games and therefore no incentive. I was thinking it had more to do with preventing competition or something like that.
- serial_dev 2y ago
  Suspecting nobody will sue you is not good enough for a distributor, I assume. It also means nobody is there to give you permission to something that is clearly not yours, which sounds risky. And still, someone with the rights might show up at any point. And as others mentioned, I’m not even sure if the market is big enough.
- techjamie 2y ago
  Most abandonware isn't really that cut and dry. During the NES/DOS days you might have seen companies fold and their IP become owned by no one. But even then, in many cases, the IP ended up being sold, and over the years ping-pongs around new owners. Many times those new owners aren't really concerned with some 30 year old game from an IP they may not even remember having being distributed, but the fact they still could at a moment's notice is a possible threat. But yeah, if there truly is no existing owner, it's basically free game (literally).
chrisshroba 2y ago
> not to mention their full potential as an interactive medium has only barely started to be explored. Any examples come to mind? I’d love to try (or at least read about) some games like this!
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago
  I'm hesitant to spoil anything, but Disco Elysium immediately came to mind for me.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    Disco Elysium is more of a revival of the point and click adventure medium than it is an exploration of new territory, but art it undoubtedly is.
- graynk 2y ago
  All pretty famous, but: Outer Wilds, Stanley Parable, Return of the Obra Dinn, Undertale
  - riffruff24 2y ago
    Paper's Please as well. Blows my mind that what look like a mundane puzzle game can evoke such a strong feelings in me. And that was the beta build of the game, barely any storyline just from the mechanics and design alone.
- bitwize 2y ago
  If you haven't played Rez/Rez Infinite yet, you owe it to yourself to. The game is 22 years old and it's still leagues ahead of most games in terms of what a game can do, what it can express. Rez is... difficult to describe but a start might be, it's Polybius (legendary arcade game) if it were developed by raver hippies. Its purpose seems to be inducing an altered mental state of "flow" and the joy that comes therewith. Rez has the property of being so good that other developers (expectedly) made games that try to do what Rez did, missed the mark completely, and still ended up with really cool games. Thumper, Aaero, and Sayonara Wild Hearts come to mind, as does Jeff Minter's take on Polybius.
StewardMcOy 2y ago
The article is missing a lot of context. The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has gone into this in great detail on their podcast, and slightly less detail on their blog. In summary: Every three years, the US Copyright Office considers petitions for exemptions to the DMCA. The big famous example that everyone talks about is in 2015, teachers won the right to bypass DVD copy protection to preserve teaching materials. This exemption had been rejected at least twice previously, but they finally won approval in 2015. Every three years though, it's a fight. Previous exemptions can also be withdrawn during these proceedings if the Copyright Office or the Librarian of Congress believes that the exemptions are not working as planned and are harming the market. For a long time now, folks like the Internet Archive have been petitioning to legally allow digital lending of all kinds of content, including video games. This is far from the first time this exemption has been considered. However, these proceedings include testimony and discussion, and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) always sends lobbyists to oppose the exemptions. In the past, one of their main arguments that worked was that those who wanted to allow digital lending were customers and enthusiasts who wanted to open their own digital arcades. There was no serious scholarship behind it. They also were able to imply that video games weren't culturally important like books or movies because they were purely entertainment, and therefore not worth studying or preserving. And this argument worked because indeed, the Registrar of Copyrights saw video games as lesser cultural artifacts. That's one of the reasons why organizations like the VGHF became so important to the fight. By proving that there is an academic community and non-profits engaged in treating video games as seriously as they deserve. Because of that the ESA shifted its argument completely to the economic harms to the retro game market. To counteract that argument, the VGHF performed a study last year showed that 87% of video games are no longer commercially available, so there's there's no market to ruin if those 87% were allowed to lend. They even proposed a lot of safeguards to limit the number of copies lent and DRM schemes to prevent borrowers from dumping the ROMs (which are out there anyway). The ESA countered that those games would still be competing with retro games that are still being sold on the market, and that the protections weren't good enough. DRM can be cracked, and they don't trust the people who want to lend the games to not introduce side-channels to get around the restrictions. In their argument, only the rights holders can properly protect their games, and only with help from the DMCA. It's worth noting that the Registrar of Copyright is famously even more strict than rights holders at these arguments sometimes. In 2012, they denied the request for teachers to break DVD encryption, even though lobbyists for the motion picture industry said they would accept it. And so that's what this news is about. Despite the lobbying and the studies, they sided with the ECA, seemingly taking their arguments all at face value. I should also note that publishers do often go after libraries for lending books. It's often said in these circles that if lending books through a library weren't already common when the DMCA was enacted, we'd have to fight just as hard every 3 years to get exemptions for what libraries have always done, and we still probably wouldn't get everything.

by proc0 2y ago

guerrilla 2y ago

> I don't see where they outline the difference between games and books. The difference is in who's money and how much is behind the law at the relevant points in time.

proc0 2y ago
Sure, I was just wondering their reasoning behind it. Surely it can't be blatantly about making money, but maybe it is.
- guerrilla 2y ago
  I don't know but I think it's not just about the old games that aren't produced anymore. I think it could be about protecting profit in other areas. They may want to control the Overton window so that it doesn't become thinkable that the same thing could happen to other video games or media. If a library is able to buy a video game and loan it out for free online, then that could become a problem for some models. Is it possible to loan movies and TV series online in libraries now? If you have the resources, then a maximalist IP agenda would be the most rational, to extract as many rights as possible because it creates wider moat for attackers to cross. You keep them busy fighting things that don't matter to you, so they stay far away from your core business interests.
  - realusername 2y ago
    > If you have the resources, then a maximalist IP agenda would be the most rational, to extract as many rights as possible because it creates wider moat for attackers to cross. That's the answer, the IP conglomerates aren't arguing in good faith, they just want to defend their moat as much as possible and push the debate outside of rethinking media consumption in the digital age. Those IP conglomerates have nothing to gain from any legislation change, they basically already have all the rights they could possibly have and want to keep their position. If that means throwing away some old games under the bus, they are happy with that.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    > is it possible to loan movies and TV series online in libraries now? Absolutely. In fact it's unusually popular. In undergrad I remember the only people reading physics books were physics students, but it wasn't only film/media studies etc checking out DVDs. I'm just about old enough that unlimited streaming wasn't ubiquitous, so people would go to the video stations in the library and bingewatch there. edit: despite my anecdote, this service is available online too, see for example the service, Overdrive, which is popular with municipal libraries.
    - chgs 2y ago
      This isn’t about checking out physical books, dvds or games cartridges.

SkySkimmer 2y ago

If there's no owner what stops the games from being distributed? Shouldn't it mean there's noone who can sue the distributor?

proc0 2y ago
I guess no one would stop someone from distributing, but presumably there isn't a huge market for these games and therefore no incentive. I was thinking it had more to do with preventing competition or something like that.
serial_dev 2y ago
Suspecting nobody will sue you is not good enough for a distributor, I assume. It also means nobody is there to give you permission to something that is clearly not yours, which sounds risky. And still, someone with the rights might show up at any point. And as others mentioned, I’m not even sure if the market is big enough.
techjamie 2y ago
Most abandonware isn't really that cut and dry. During the NES/DOS days you might have seen companies fold and their IP become owned by no one. But even then, in many cases, the IP ended up being sold, and over the years ping-pongs around new owners. Many times those new owners aren't really concerned with some 30 year old game from an IP they may not even remember having being distributed, but the fact they still could at a moment's notice is a possible threat. But yeah, if there truly is no existing owner, it's basically free game (literally).

chrisshroba 2y ago

> not to mention their full potential as an interactive medium has only barely started to be explored. Any examples come to mind? I’d love to try (or at least read about) some games like this!

fallingsquirrel 2y ago
I'm hesitant to spoil anything, but Disco Elysium immediately came to mind for me.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  Disco Elysium is more of a revival of the point and click adventure medium than it is an exploration of new territory, but art it undoubtedly is.
graynk 2y ago
All pretty famous, but: Outer Wilds, Stanley Parable, Return of the Obra Dinn, Undertale
- riffruff24 2y ago
  Paper's Please as well. Blows my mind that what look like a mundane puzzle game can evoke such a strong feelings in me. And that was the beta build of the game, barely any storyline just from the mechanics and design alone.
bitwize 2y ago
If you haven't played Rez/Rez Infinite yet, you owe it to yourself to. The game is 22 years old and it's still leagues ahead of most games in terms of what a game can do, what it can express. Rez is... difficult to describe but a start might be, it's Polybius (legendary arcade game) if it were developed by raver hippies. Its purpose seems to be inducing an altered mental state of "flow" and the joy that comes therewith. Rez has the property of being so good that other developers (expectedly) made games that try to do what Rez did, missed the mark completely, and still ended up with really cool games. Thumper, Aaero, and Sayonara Wild Hearts come to mind, as does Jeff Minter's take on Polybius.

StewardMcOy 2y ago

The article is missing a lot of context. The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has gone into this in great detail on their podcast, and slightly less detail on their blog. In summary: Every three years, the US Copyright Office considers petitions for exemptions to the DMCA. The big famous example that everyone talks about is in 2015, teachers won the right to bypass DVD copy protection to preserve teaching materials. This exemption had been rejected at least twice previously, but they finally won approval in 2015. Every three years though, it's a fight. Previous exemptions can also be withdrawn during these proceedings if the Copyright Office or the Librarian of Congress believes that the exemptions are not working as planned and are harming the market. For a long time now, folks like the Internet Archive have been petitioning to legally allow digital lending of all kinds of content, including video games. This is far from the first time this exemption has been considered. However, these proceedings include testimony and discussion, and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) always sends lobbyists to oppose the exemptions. In the past, one of their main arguments that worked was that those who wanted to allow digital lending were customers and enthusiasts who wanted to open their own digital arcades. There was no serious scholarship behind it. They also were able to imply that video games weren't culturally important like books or movies because they were purely entertainment, and therefore not worth studying or preserving. And this argument worked because indeed, the Registrar of Copyrights saw video games as lesser cultural artifacts. That's one of the reasons why organizations like the VGHF became so important to the fight. By proving that there is an academic community and non-profits engaged in treating video games as seriously as they deserve. Because of that the ESA shifted its argument completely to the economic harms to the retro game market. To counteract that argument, the VGHF performed a study last year showed that 87% of video games are no longer commercially available, so there's there's no market to ruin if those 87% were allowed to lend. They even proposed a lot of safeguards to limit the number of copies lent and DRM schemes to prevent borrowers from dumping the ROMs (which are out there anyway). The ESA countered that those games would still be competing with retro games that are still being sold on the market, and that the protections weren't good enough. DRM can be cracked, and they don't trust the people who want to lend the games to not introduce side-channels to get around the restrictions. In their argument, only the rights holders can properly protect their games, and only with help from the DMCA. It's worth noting that the Registrar of Copyright is famously even more strict than rights holders at these arguments sometimes. In 2012, they denied the request for teachers to break DVD encryption, even though lobbyists for the motion picture industry said they would accept it. And so that's what this news is about. Despite the lobbying and the studies, they sided with the ECA, seemingly taking their arguments all at face value. I should also note that publishers do often go after libraries for lending books. It's often said in these circles that if lending books through a library weren't already common when the DMCA was enacted, we'd have to fight just as hard every 3 years to get exemptions for what libraries have always done, and we still probably wouldn't get everything.