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guess what publishers, your videogames are going to be preserved if you allow it or not.
I suppose you could have allowed it to happen to garner some goodwill from the community, but you have instead chosen to shit on that goodwill.
guess we’ll just do whatever we’ve been doing for the last 25 years and continue to “archive” your “property” that’s been abandoned.
What I don’t get is that they’re not sizing the opportunity to do this on their own terms and maybe make some cash off it. Idiots.
Cool. Guess I’ll leave you and them in the past.
All the best games are cool about providing software resources to players, mod abilities, self-hosting, so on. It’s kind of like the Steam license thing. I love Steam but there’s no way I’m starting Helldivers 2 or Destiny 2 up in ten years to play nostalgia. But Shattered Pixel Dungeon? Deep Rock Galactic? Valheim? Minecraft. I’ll still be rocking those.
More proof that if they were a new idea, libraries would be fought tooth and nail by book publishers
Could you imagine trying to get there to be libraries today if the concept was new? “We can’t possibly just let people read for free! What, do you think literacy is a right? It’s a privilege!”
Same for firefighters.
“PAY people to sit around in case a fire breaks out?? That almost never happens! Also, ignore everything else they do. It’s everyone’s responsibility to keep fires out of their homes. We’ll sell them a new one if something happens, though. And their neighbors. And THEIR neighbors. Also, literally buy a fireplace from us, please.”
see: the internet archive
k I guess everyone will continue to dump roms and make emulators.
preserved games might be used for entertainment
Umm, yeah, that’s what a lot of preserved media is used for. You think publishers are losing their shit over people enjoying Shakespeare?
Big Book hates him!
I subscribe to a lot of YouTube channels that have silent films and films from the 1930s and 40s. Also I have a lot of movies from the 70s to 90s on my drive (and some more recent, too). I don’t always watch the more recent stuff.
It is ironic, too. Because when VHS first came out, it didn’t take long for film studios to start to release tons upon tons of their old classics (that were often shown on TV anyway) on tape and frequently capitalized on people’s desire for owning and watching older media. Sure people got the new stuff (for both rental and ownership) like there was no tomorrow, but if you were in the 80s and wanted to watch 40s stuff (which was like the 80s for people living in the 80s… feeling old yet?) you wouldn’t have had that hard of a time finding the classics.
This is what really baffles me about the industry. They could be making some real decent cash off of this old IP if they just made it accessible and put a tiny bit of effort into it. Imagine all the old games the switch already runs. Imagine it running EVERYTHING! ugh. Dummies!
games being used for recreational purposes? the horror
Damn right that old video games would be used for entertainment. I have old books, which predate me by decades, that I still read. I watch old movies on DVD’s. I see no reason why games should be any different.
I’m lucky that ever since I’ve been a gamer, I had a PC. Hardware is thus not a problem, and in my case, so is emulation, via VirtualBox. I kept the install disks and license keys (if applicable) for all operating systems I’ve used, so now I have several virtual images I spin up when I want to play a certain game. And I’m finding that I’m still spending most of my time with the older titles…
This will not help anyone who’d like to play their old favorite from the NES or Dreamcast era. And it’s too late to advise only buying games that are platform independent. So kerp up the good fight. In the past you purchased games to own, not a “limited license”. You are entitled to kerp using your entertainment product as you see fit.
I read an old book, and it didn’t need batteries, nor had it microtransactions, nor advertisements, nor did it need updates. Worst of all, I got it for free at my local library. The terror!
Trump: “lol, you mean you used to.”
Ha! I used to do that, too. They also had video tapes at mine, and audio. You could do all sorts of things there. It was publically funded, as it should.
I always enjoyed the ads in some youth books, like the “one chapter teaser” of the next adventure in the local translation of “Famous Five” by Blyton
Yeah, but those X-Ray Specs worked about as well as anything bought from an Ad thase days
We never had that kind of ads in our books, they came in catalogues I sadly never got to order from even if the "make your own radio"kit with crystal always looked awesome
Those radio kits with the crystals actually worked, I remember building one with my pa. I forget the principle behind them
Sounds like I should try to find a kit before they go all DAB
What’s the fucking point of preservation then?
Yeah because I go to the library and complain and scowl the whole time I’m reading. Occasionally I make sure to belt out “I’m not enjoying this! I only do it for preservation reasons!” bunch of greedy fucks.
Just use it for llm training and it’ll be OK!
And this is why I sail the seven seas and have zero reservations about doing so.
Do you seed, though?
Seed your mum
Yep.
Toproms collection. If you can hold it, give us a hand.
I’m sitting on the RetroAchievements collection over here. It is my single most seeded torrent, by leaps and bounds. I went with RA, because it means I can throw any of them at RetroArch and the RetroAchievements integration will work without having to fiddle with game versions. It also has a surprising number of ROM hacks and homebrew.
Ay, elaborate a bit because I see a lot of unofficial RA collections and the official one on archive.org doesn’t list a magnet or torrent file.
Are they seriously just hosting their most current archive in one place?
deleted by creator
Nah I hit and run like a bastard
This makes you no different to a gold hoarding dragon.
⚔️ 🐉 ⚔️
Sailing bastard
Patent law is 20 years. Copyright should be no different.
copyright should also expire when something goes out of print or, if its hardware locked, when the hardware is no longer available.
I’ve been collecting abandonware since 2000. I lost good chunk of my collection due to a harddrive crash some years ago, but I recovered it and expanded upon it. My logic has been the same. It isn’t about wanting to play it (I don’t play the majority of the games I download) it is entirely about perserving them. Maybe one day I’ll make my collection a torrent for all to share.
US copyright was originally for 14 years, with the option to extend it for another 14 years. It kept getting extended over the years. I think it’s life of the author plus 70 years now.
Isn’t that Disney’s fault (and their government lapdogs) with their efforts to hang on to Mickey Mouse as long as they can?
It’s the fault of a political system that allows private companies to lobby for oppressive laws.
Yes
The current iteration is, yes, which was created in the 90s. Copyright lawyers sneeringly called it the ‘Mickey Mouse Act’ due to just how involved they were in writing it.
But before that in the 1970s there was another major rewrite that gave them the original extension. Without that law in the 70s Mickey and Minnie Mouse would have entered full public domain in… 1984!
Can you imagine a world where the most recognized cartoon characters have been in public domain for over 40 years? If that law didn’t it, the entire original Disney cast (Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald Duck, Goofy, et al) would have been public domain, and ditto for Warner Bros characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and others. They all would have entered public domain in the 80s to the first half of the 2000s.
Comic book superheroes like Spiderman would have entered public domain in 2016! Can you imagine what the cinematic and comic landscape would be if anyone can publish their take on the majority of superhero comics?
Can you imagine a world where the most recognized cartoon characters have been in public domain for over 40 years?
To be clear, only the original versions would have been in public domain for over 40 years. Every time they change something about the character, it creates a new copyright for the new version.
Basically, Steamboat Willie Pete (released in 1928) would have been in the public domain decades ago, but Kingdom Hearts 2 Pete (released in late 2005/early 2006) would have only recently entered the public domain a few years ago.
There are even conspiracy theories that this is why Disney has been so focused on creating awful live action remakes of all of their old works; It resets the copyright timer on the new versions. Disney has historically used copyright as a cudgel to bully smaller content creators, because they took all of the old fairy tales (which were in the public domain) and slapped copyrights on them with their movies.
The conspiracy theory is that the awful live action remakes are simply a way to maintain copyright claims over those original fairy tales. They don’t care if the movies are successful; They just want to prevent anyone in the foreseeable future from ever making a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty/etc film based on the same fairy tales. Because even if a smaller content creator’s work is only based on the original fairy tale, Disney’s army of lawyers can claim that it is based on the Disney version. And the smaller content creators (who can’t afford a long drawn-out legal battle) will be bullied in court and forced to concede.
Copyright should belong to the lifetime of the person who is creator or 20 years from the original creation if transfered or created by a non-person entity.
Nah, even an artist should lose monopoly after 20 years. What is their incentive to make new stuff otherwise?
Their incentive is… making art is fun and a passion. Holding copyrignt allows artists to earn a living while freely pursuing their passion. Artists already struggle to get paid well for their work… and you want to strip away their rights to their work? Do you also pay your artists in impressions?
An artist isnt stripped of anything, they can still work on an old IP. Fans will likely follow if they’re actually good. They just would lose the ability to stop anyone else from profiting off it. I happen to be a content creator and aspiring writer myself, and have every intention on placing my works in the creative commons
What good is preserving old cultural products if you can’t use them the way they were intended? Oh yeah, we’ve got that old record of a book/piece of music/movie in our archive. No, nobody can access it, it’s not fair for people selling newer ones!
Why do we still teach children the classics? Can’t you see that’s hurting profits?
The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of art to enrich society. Making money for copyright holders is a means to an end, not the end itself.
We need a new copyright law that shifts media to public domain if the copyright holder no longer makes it available.
Copyright and patent law is a social contract and a very fundamental one.
United States Constitution has some pretty cool ideas in it. Freedom of speech? That the government cannot punish you for expressing an idea? That was added as an afterthought. Freedom of religion? That congress shall make no law establishing a religion, making our society secular and preventing the government from punishing those who do not conform? Afterthought. The right to a trial by jury of peers, the right to not be compelled to testify against yourself, the right to be secure in your person and property? Afterthoughts. All of that, all of the things we call the Bill Of Rights, were added on the basis of “Wait we should probably have this.”
The basis of intellectual property law isn’t in an amendment, it’s too important. It’s in the main body of the constitution. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 Intellectual property:
To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respecive Writings and Discoveries.
We The People grant creators for a time exclusive right of way over their creations to monetize and profit from them as incentive for doing the work of creation so that we may have the creations, after which the creation becomes the heritage of all mankind forever so that other creators in the future may build upon it. Americans tend to view our first amendment right to freedom of speech, broadly defined by our supreme court to include symbolic speech to include overt actions such as burning a flag, as near absolute. Even the allegedly liberal allegedly enlightened democracies in Europe will outlaw ideas; America will not. Copyright and patent law is one of the very few where we will limit speech or the press, for it is one of the few laws that came before the first amendment. You may not be free to print an idea if it currently belongs to someone else.
Without that incentive, the ability to personally profit form the works you create, you get the Soviet Union, which invented…Tetris. Whose inventor didn’t earn a single kopek from his invention until he became an American citizen. Without the expiration date for copyrights or patents you get…Disney. Who gobbles up creative works without the intention of letting go with the apparent goal of monopolizing the very idea of storytelling itself, hoarding wealth in perpetuity and simply buying any competition.
For a society to properly function it is important for patents and copyrights to be temporary in nature; they must exist and yet they must within a lifetime cease to exist. Lack of either condition is an intolerable rot. Copyright terms being the lifetime of the author plus seventy years is a rot the United States probably has not survived. I think we’re soon to find out.
My only critique is you seem to downplay Tetris like it isnt one of the greatest games ever developed. You are right in that Pajitnov had to straight up move to have any right to reward from it. Also the Soviet Union had to collapse
Tetris is a cool game, sure, but my point is the Soviet Union had a short list of hit video games. Name 5 other famous Soviet video games. Not a major exporter of cultural works.
While you’re right, its a really poor way to phrase that. Compare to something like, “In 69 years, the Soviets only managed to make Tetris, and even then the creator didnt see a cent until he emigrated to America”.
Could also mention how they failed to keep up with American computing
That is an excellent write up! Well done OP!
In an ideal society sure, we don’t live in an ideal society
Then whats the purpose of existence if not to strive for a more ideal society?
Profit for a ever dwindling number of individuals. /$
I think your comment is the most succinct summary in and of itself. It exists like a perfect quote from Greek philosophy. I was purely pointing out the broken issue of copyright as it exists.
The point of existence is to struggle for better existence in some schools of thought as you’ve summarized.
In others, it’s to realize that by struggling through cycles of existence you are not aware of the trap of existence, like Zen Buddhism.
In traditional Abrahamic schools of thought it’s to honor God enough and follow your creed that you get rewarded after you die.
I think the way I feel about existence is more Nihilist. Something like https://youtu.be/E_qvy82U4RE
I was where you were, a nothing matters, what’s the point nihilist. But I learned that I had skills and talents that could help people. Ended up going to law school and now I helping folks.
I believe every person can put their pants on in the morning and go out and make their local community just a little bit better. People get caught up in macro morals but just giving your neighbor a plate of Thanksgiving goods goes such a long way.
Oh hey don’t get me wrong. I switched my job from an ad agency to an emergency management SaaS company that was crucial during COVID to ensure vaccines went out to people when they should have and continues to have beneficial applications. I took a big pay cut, but the work is far more fulfilling.
I’m by no means saying we should treat our lives as if nothing matters, and I apologize that it came off that way. I think moreso my message was that there’s no great creed or so we can look to for guidance. Wake up every day, do your best to help others, then sign off of the toxicity that is most social media and do your best to treat yourself and those you care about with love. Go to sleep, and rinse and repeat.
But just don’t expect some magic eureka moment of where it gets easier. We’re all just struggling, and unfortunately I don’t think the forces we struggle against like greed will ever go away.
Cheers, thanks for the discourse, and I hope you find yourself with increasing happiness as the days flow by
You too!
Damn, I enjoyed reading this wholesome conversation.
Yea, I always liken nihilism to being an asshole, because you reap the rewards, however small or large, of peoples’ labour who didn’t think that way. The least you can do is pay it forward, so it’s more an obligation then anything else.
Sure you can buy this - for just $1000000 you can watch this movie on Amazon.
Technically it’s available.
This is why the word “reasonable” comes up in a lot of laws. “What counts as reasonable?” You ask? This is what judges are for; to examine the circumstances and make a judgement call.
Of course they’ll be used for “recreational purposes”. How do they think museums are supposed to work?
Educational purposes? But yeah the difference is thin in my opinion
