scottmitting

TODAY The reason for celebration isn't that we've reached our end-goal here, but that the EFF is fighting for the actual end goal and the library of congress is taking it seriously, and importantly the LoC has shot down most of BSA's counter-arguments. The relevant reading material is under section 8. Proposed Class 23: Abandoned Software – Video Games Requiring Server Communication (starting on page 51) You're right about today. Unfortunately subsection (iii) (A) defines "Complete Games" as those that have no content hosted on remote servers, so you're still totally screwed on MMOs if you want to use any of their content. Reading this (and I read the whole thing this morning http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/fedreg-publicinspectionFR.pdf) creating new content would be a serious grey area, but that's besides the point. It's 100% unfeasible.. you might as well create a new game. I'm frankly surprised any powers that be care about gamers. The justifications before the adopted exemption indicate to me that the LoC agrees that abandonware MMOs are completely unfair to the consumer, but seems to believe it doesn't have the power to change that portion under current legislation, as explained in section I. TOMORROW - WHAT TO DO I don't think Ross is being draconian at all here, and I think the comparison to child labor is very accurate, though clearly forced labor was a more life-destorying problem. It does seem unlikely and probably undesirable to have a requirement for partial refunds to all customers when an MMO is taken offline, but it does seem only fair to have strict rules about such events. I totally disagree with the assertion that the market can fix this problem. That's what makes the child labor comparison apt here. A fair solution to all parties would be to require game publishers to somehow let someone else take over the responsibility of running the server, either by opening the server end (not necessarily releasing the code or unencrypted assets) or by handing over control to a third-party to run at no additional cost to the end user. If they cannot provide for this hand off, the source code and all assets must be released to all people who purchased the product, with exceptions for privacy of end user data stored on servers. Privacy of end user data shall not include any intellectual property, to protect IP the operator of servers much ensure that some party is keeping the server only. Penalties for not doing so is a full refund of 3x the purchase price to all consumers. Lobbying the EFF for such legislation would be the next step here.

Immediately thought of Ross's rants on the subject when I saw this article. Apparently abandonware and specifically the circumstance where a server-connection is required and the server goes down is covered. US Copyright law of course doesn't affect everywhere directly, and doesn't make the work any easier to do, but at least the work can come out from the shadows with some legal cover. http://consumerist.com/2015/10/27/copyright-office-rules-yes-security-researchers-may-hack-cars-and-a-couple-other-things-for-science/ I think I have a good analogy. I mean you can get pot in New Mexico, but you're going to have a more consistent product going to Colorado, and more specifically if your neighbor doesn't like what you're doing, he's got no means to make stormtroopers appear at your house without falsifying a police report.

OMG - That would be a brilliant concept for a new work of art... one that destroys itself after a set amount of time as a protest for planned obsolescence. Be a pretty risky piece, since you're likely to upset whoever paid for it, if it's displayed in a manner to really make it a true piece of protest art.

I sincerely hope you're predicting a dystopian future, rather the describing something real. THAT shit is scary!