The US Copyright Office has rejected a request by the Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The exemption would have allowed libraries and archives to provide remote access to out-of-print video games for research purposes. The VGHF has been working with the Software Preservation Network since 2021 to push for this exemption.
They argue that current anti-circumvention rules in the DMCA prevent institutions from breaking copy protection on games to make them accessible to researchers. In its decision, the Copyright Office cited comments from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The ESA argued that the VGHF did not have clear requirements for identifying users or their reasons for accessing games.
Copyright Office denial impacts VGHF efforts
Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the US Copyright Office, stated that proponents of video game preservation “have not met their burden of showing that reproducing works to allow for multiple simultaneous use in the computer program class is likely to be fair.” She also said the VGHF’s stance on emulation was “inconsistent and incomplete.
The VGHF claims the ESA told them it would never support remote game access for research under any conditions. This is similar to a 2018 initiative to preserve abandoned online games.
The VGHF criticized the game industry’s position, saying it “forces researchers to explore extra-legal methods to access the vast majority of out-of-print video games that are otherwise unavailable.
Despite the setback, the VGHF says it will continue advocating for greater access and legal allowances for video game preservation. It plans to work with the game industry to increase awareness of these issues. Last July, the VGHF released a study highlighting the growing difficulty of preserving video games.
This underscores the importance of their campaign for legal changes.
April Isaacs is a news contributor for DevX.com She is long-term, self-proclaimed nerd. She loves all things tech and computers and still has her first Dreamcast system. It is lovingly named Joni, after Joni Mitchell.
