Library of Congress likes retro games
There’s some new rules in town: the Library of Congress, based on recommendations from the Register of Copyrights, has decided that there are six new cases where circumventing the DMCA is OK for certain purposes.
One of them is for old games.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Also on the list:
- Cracking A/V works in a school library, when you want to make a compilation for teaching purposes
- Hacking software that requires a dongle, when said dongles are no longer commercially available
- Hacking eBooks if the book isn’t available in a format that allows read-aloud or “specialized formats”
- Hacking firmware in a phone in order to lawfully connect to a phone network
- Hacking DRMed music CDs that may compromise your computer’s security, for thepurpose of fixing the security problem
Edit: since a few folks seem to be under a misapprehension…
This does not affect copyright, only the DMCA. The DMCA says (among other things) you cannot try to break or go around copy protection. Part of the reason people didn’t like it is because there are many reasons why you might need to. Therefore exemptions to this restriction are granted for these purposes, case by case. The six elements above are new exemptions.
The exemption is for archival purposes, in this case, so it’s not about making all the old games free or anything. There was already an exemption for making backup copies for yourself (e.g., pulling a ROM to run an emulator, if you own the original ROM). This is why all the ROM sites say “we won’t tell you where the ROMs you need are — you have to own the original.”
The copyright itself on the old games is on a 70+ year term. So you have a while to wait before it’s legal to just snarf up ROMs off the Net.
The “old format rule” seems to imply that abandonware PC games remain illegal as the PC is clearly not obsolete; however, there does seem to be an implication that some ROMs are now legal. The loophole for IP tyrants is to provide “obsolete hardware” in limited production; although, that might prove more expensive.
You forgot a link. =P
Did some digging and found this: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/index.html Goes into effect next Monday.
Awesome. Thanks for the info.
Yehuda
“as the PC is clearly not obsolete”
Maybe. Though it probably makes any games that were distributed on 5 1/2 inch disks fair game.
(The “that require the original media” bit makes me pause to consider how few games I have from the floppy disk period where the media is still readable. Though that argument wouldn’t fly, no doubt.)
I think this one takes care of the PC side of things quite clearly, unless the second-hand market is taken into account.
Happy Turkey Day!
So I can download Super Mario and stuff for free off the internet onto my computer?
And they want to charge me $5 per NES game with my brand new Wii. Never thought I’d say this, but…
THANKS GOVERNMENT!
The exemption is only good for libraries and archives – it doesn’t apply to your regular man on the street, I’m afraid. I helped author the original DMCA exemption (which was granted 3 years ago) with the Internet Archive in the hopes that it would help libraries make good archives of games, but many ‘dark archiving’ and redistribution problems remain, so it’s a bit rough.
Er… I thought that was about circumventing the DMCA, *not* violating the copyright. Copying supermario brothers is still illegal if you don’t own a legal copy of the ROM. What is now explicitly legal is taking your legal ROM and copying it into an emulator.
As for PCs, if the game has a floppy disk-in-drive copy protection, it would seem now legitimate to hack it to eliminate that protection as floppy disks are largely obsolete. I wonder what it implies about the CD-in-drive games, however.
Raph:
‘There was already an exemption for making backup copies for yourself (e.g., pulling a ROM to run an emulator, if you own the original ROM). This is why all the ROM sites say “we won’t tell you where the ROMs you need are — you have to own the original.”’
Actually, there’s no such thing, as far as I’m aware – I don’t believe that is currently legal, though some people have tried to argue as such.
You know, I think you’re right. I believe it’s actually that you have the right to make a backup copy of something for your own use under old, pre-DMCA rules… like, backing up a videotape, or copying your own cassette. I guess with DMCA, I guess that went away if there is copy protection to break — so no backup of DVDs since you would have to DeCSS it.
Emphasis added. The language is poor enough to be interpreted as “where circumvention is accomplished for either preservation or archival reproduction”. The intent may have been “where circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation, or archival reproduction, of published digital works by a library or archive.” But that’s not what is written.
This new DMCA provision seems to alter copyright law by providing yet another exception to the rule.