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DMCA Exemption Campaign Would Let Fans Run Abandoned Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-break-what-people-pay-for dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Games that rely on remote servers became the norm many years ago, and as those games age, it's becoming more and more common for the publisher to shut them down when they're no longer popular. This is a huge problem for the remaining fans of the games, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids the kind of hacks and DRM circumvention required for the players to host their own servers. Fortunately, the EFF and law student Kendra Albert are on the case. They've asked the Copyright Office for an exemption in the case of players who want to keep abandoned games alive. It's another important step in efforts to whittle away at overreaching copyright laws.

7 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Don't do it by penguinoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Better idea: let people get really pissed at our current state of intellectual property laws. Preferably before the next Micky Mouse Shall Never Enter the Public Domain Copyright Extension Act.

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  2. Counter-productive by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't legitimize the DMCA further by asking for "exceptions", the argument should be that things like remote servers and always-connected DRM are illegal violations of a consumer's property rights.

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    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    1. Re:Counter-productive by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm a little confused by your argument. Copy "rights" are entirely invented by copyright law. DMCA is also copyright law. Consumers have no innate "right" to intellectual "property", just as producers have no innate right - only virtual rights granted by law. I'm not thrilled with the DMCA, but I do recognize that it's not really any different than letting people stake a claim on an idea/recording/etc for 90+ years.

      I think this is a very pragmatic move which improves our situation.

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  3. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the alternative is said abandoned house is left to become a massive health/fire hazard because no one is legally allowed to touch it and the rightful owners refuse either maintain it, tear it down or sell it, sure. Go ahead and live in that abandoned house.

  4. Re:Great by Headw1nd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The reason you can't live in an abandoned house is that it deprives the current owners the right to use the land that it is placed on, which in the example would be the servers the game was hosted on. No one is asking that the servers be handed over. If you could copy the house onto a different plot of land, and live in it while depriving the owner of nothing, then you certainly would be allowed to.

  5. Gamers are stupid by ahbond · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If they simply refuse to purchase a game that requires this sort of remote server authentication, then the industry will cease this sort of behavior. "Caveat emptor", let the buyer beware. Cheers, -AB

  6. Re:Great by Zordak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now only if they'd let me live in this here abandoned house. Perrect!

    That's a poor analogy. This isn't a request for a blanket copyright exemption for abandonware. This is a request for a DMCA exception that lets people who already legally own a copy of a game to continue playing it by circumventing DRM and running their own servers.

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