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Game Industry Pushes Back Against Efforts To Restore Gameplay Servers (arstechnica.com)
Kyle Orland reports via Ars Technica: A group of video game preservationists wants the legal right to replicate "abandoned" servers in order to re-enable defunct online multiplayer gameplay for study. The game industry says those efforts would hurt their business, allow the theft of their copyrighted content, and essentially let researchers "blur the line between preservation and play." Both sides are arguing their case to the U.S. Copyright Office right now, submitting lengthy comments on the subject as part of the Copyright Register's triennial review of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Analyzing the arguments on both sides shows how passionate both industry and academia are about the issue, and how mistrust and misunderstanding seem to have infected the debate.
Didn't Turbine explicitly say they'd be happy to let players run their own servers when Asheron's Call went down for good, but them WB lawyered up and acted like the assclowns they really are?
This no longer applies to just games. A lot of enterprise software won't work once they turn off the servers due to a change in business model, or a breaking software change.
This is an interactive medium. If it's not playable, it's not fucking preserved! That's not blurry at all!
Im going to post this anon because Im about to talk about work lol
I tried pointing this out to the bosses as they moved to office 365 in the cloud. I pointed out that if Microsoft goes under or the servers go down, we will not be able to work. I pointed out that Microsoft only guarantees a 99% up time and that is not acceptable as we currently run a 99.999% up time.
They tell me I dont understand that the world is changing and we have to move forward.
I asked what happens in 15 or 20 years when all that is antiquated and the servers are off? Im told that will never happen as we will upgrade to stay current. I point to the servers I run that were made in 1994 and we can not upgrade because federal regulations require a specific process for documenting and gaining approval for the underlying format changes. I point out that someone decided that spending multiple millions of dollars to upgrade archival data that did not have an ROI was not a smart financial move. I then ask what makes them think this will be any different. Im told "It Microsoft, that's whats different. Now stop being such a pessimist."
I am so glad I am retiring in a few years. I would hate to see the state of IT in 20 years when all this shit falls apart.
Historic evidence actually suggests the opposite. You only have to look at how far EA and Ubisoft went to avoid paying steam and went their own way with their own platform. This will be no different if microsoft tries to lock down windows to the windows 10 store only. if ea and ubisoft refuse to pay money to valve they sure as hell are not going to pay money to microsoft either and if running your own platform is worth paying a 30% fee to somebody else per game then so is porting your games to linux too which you only have to do once. Linux has vulkan and more than decent graphics drivers. The thing holding linux back now is that it doesnt have enough big companies behind it and these companies dont have a reason to switch because theyre making the same sale at $0 extra cost. However, if microsoft tightens their grip these companies like adobe, autodesk, sap, magix, ea, ubisoft, blizzard and demands money from them, make no mistake they will jump ship and they will take their customers with them. People use their computers for the programs. Most of them wouldnt give two hoots about the operating system its running on.
Riiiight...you never hear of GameCopyWorld? Takes less than 15 seconds to crack any Steam game, Steam is to DRM what "pick the pictures with cars in them" is to security, its a joke designed to give someone a bit of security theater, nothing more. In fact if you go download a pirated game in 2018? Its almost always the Steam version because its so easy to crack.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So it seems only fair that a cultural work is free for all if the author chooses to no longer sell it.
There needs to be a "shut up and take my money" clause in copyright law. If a company refuses to accept a reasonable amount of money for a discontinued product - and will no longer sell it in any form, they should lose some aspects of their copyright protection just like an undefended trademark.