UK Games Trade Body Criticized Over Backups

Posted by simoniker on Friday September 5, 2003 @08:46AM from the andrew-orlowski-of-games-journalism dept.

Thanks to NTK for their article about a gamer taking the UK games trade body to task over their anti-backup FAQs. According to the piece, "Rogue gamer Stuart Campbell [is] tackling [UK-based] games-biz body ELSPA, this time over the informatively incorrect FAQ on their website. 'Am I legally entitled to make a backup of my original software?' you ask; they used to unequivocally answer: 'No'." But Stuart found evidence allegedly allowing "a lawful user of a copy of a computer program to make any back-up copy of it" in a 1988 UK law, and whether definitely true or not, ELSPA have "...now modified the wording to warn against backing up the 'film and sound' copyrights which they believe games inevitably contain." Campbell was previously involved in the Fairplay campaigns against cheating slot machines and overpriced videogames.

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First they need to change the faq name. by easychord · 2003-09-05 10:09 · Score: 0, Troll

Piracy is a bullshit term used by organisations like ELSPA to make copywrite violation sound more important than it really is.

Its important to the capitalists who want as many people as possible to spend more money they have, but not that important to normal people.