Back in April, I wrote about a hearing that took place between representatives Video Game History Foundation , the Rhizome project , and the Software Preservation Network , in which they argued the case for a DMCA exemption that would allow researchers to remotely access out-of-print games in libraries and archives. Representatives from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the AACS were in opposition, with ESA legal representative Steve Englund at one point fretting about some sort of hellish "online arcade that (he’d) been warning about for the last several proceedings". Last Friday, as per a statement released by the VGHF and spotted by PC Gamer , the US Copyright Office officially denied the exemption.
*Checks our editorial policy on commenting on such matters *. Tossers! Ah well - the VGHF aren’t too fazed, at least. "While we are disappointed by the Copyright Office’s decision, we have no regrets about going through this process," write the VGHF.
"Over the last three years, working on the petition has helped us generate important research, notably our Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States report, which proved that around 87 percent of video games released in the United States before 2010 remain out of print." "The game industry’s absolutist position—which the ESA’s own members have declined to go on the record to support —forces researchers to explore extra-legal methods to access the vast majority of out-of-print video ga.