The U.S. Copyright Office denied an exemption from the DMCA to allow gaming historians to access out-of-print games they can’t legally get.

“Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Friday. Feds declared that you or any researcher has no right to access old games under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.”

  • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    27 days ago

    Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand.

    And what exactly is stopping me from scanning library books and uploading them online? Are you going to ban libraries too?

    Actually, let’s not give them ideas.