US Copyright Office Shoots Down Video Game Preservation Effort

As a long-time gamer who’s seen my fair share of pixelated past, I can’t help but feel a twinge of nostalgia-induced sadness when I hear about the plight of our forgotten game classics. The US Copyright Office‘s decision to keep the existing DMCA rules unaltered feels like a punch in the gaming timeline, a blow that threatens to erase the games we grew up with from the annals of history.

The US Copyright Office has decided not to change the current DMCA rules, which means video games won’t be preserved in national repositories and archives as originally hoped by the Video Game History Foundation during their three-year campaign. This foundation fought hard to find a way for endangered games to be preserved from being lost forever.

Earlier, it was disclosed that approximately 87% of games launched prior to 2010 have become nearly unreachable due to advancements in technology, shifts in consumer preferences, alterations in retail operations, and just the passage of time.

Remember Them

Many game enthusiasts enjoy revisiting old favorites – that’s probably why some games are successful when they are remade or when new versions incorporate aspects from earlier releases.

Fortnite OG, I’m looking at you.

As a passionate enthusiast, I can’t help but delve into the captivating realm of authentic nostalgia – the retro gaming world. This is a vast landscape teeming with consoles, games, and accessories from bygone eras, unfortunately, slipping away due to a glaring absence of systematic preservation measures. Unlike books, movies, music, and other media safeguarded under DMCA laws, video games have yet to find their rightful place.

As a gamer, I recently came across some information that suggested my favorite game preservation group, VGHF, had their petition denied. This decision, according to what was shared in a recent report by the US Copyright Office and supported by comments made by the Entertainment Software Association, appears to have been due to reasons related to their submission not aligning with the current policies and guidelines regarding copyright exemptions for video games.

… did not propose a clear requirement to know who the users are or why they want to access a game.

Earlier, the ESA said:

Allowing extensive, unsupervised remote play of archived games on a broad scale could potentially threaten the significant gaming market.

The Video Game History Foundation continues its mission, yet the current guidelines are mainly clear-cut. Ideally, a digital archive of preserved games would be available for public use, accessible via emulation systems. However, it’s challenging to monitor who accesses these games, when, and more importantly, where they are being accessed from.

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