Earlier this year, following a petition brewing for three years, the US Copyright Office reached a decision that has left many in the gaming world disappointed. Today, they declared that they would not be introducing a new exception to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for the sake of video game preservation. This exemption, championed by the Software Preservation Network and supported by The Video Game History Foundation, aimed to permit libraries to offer remote access to out-of-print video games, especially for academic research. The proposal was bolstered by an in-depth study from the Video Game History Foundation, highlighting that a mere 13% of games released in the US before 2010 are still available in any form. Interestingly, even some businesses in the reissue market backed the petition, arguing that it wouldn’t harm their sales but might actually spark renewed interest in classic games.
Yet, organizations like the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) opposed the exemption, contending that it could hurt the profitability of re-releasing old games—an argument that some, like Limited Run Games and Antstream Arcade, disagreed with. The ESA also suggested that the study’s findings, which pointed to 87% of games being unavailable, was a result of deliberate business decisions and market timing. However, the study actually found that complex licensing and rights issues, endemic to the video game industry, were the main culprits for this unavailability and are not easily resolved.
It’s intriguing to note that such restrictions aren’t present for other media types, including non-gaming software, although the specifics of what defines a video game in this scenario remain vague.
For those interested in the details, you can dive into the full statement from the Video Game History Foundation about this decision [here].
