Podcast Ideas MEGATHREAD

I’m hoping there’s a lot more to come about the ownership and preservation of media. Could you imagine how quickly people would find work arounds if modern cars were unowned even after you finished paying them off?

Owning a game is more like owning a book or movie. You own, essentially, a token of access to a narrative. Even a digital book is only available so long as the platform providing access is maintained, and physical media not being properly maintained doesn't entitle you to new methods of access.

Add on top of that the unique legal situation surrounding ownership of code and owning a game is something you could realize was never possible.

In fact, we never have owned a game. As much as you've never owned your browser or any software you didn't write yourself outside of IT work hours or a much as you've never owned the story telling of a book or movie. Buying a game never entitled you to that game being functional and accessible to you into perpetuity, even if we didn't realize it while we were young.

I'm all for game preservation efforts, but "try again next time, here's what you could do better" isn't a shattering set back in my opinion

Dielan Yeah, the books and movies side really makes it make sense they should be in libraries.

Sadly it's the whole "code ownership" thing that adds a whacky extra layer.

Not sure how well libraries would be allowed to redistribute DOS or winrar… that second one is obviously a joke, but do you think Microsoft isn't making libraries pay for every Office suite on their computers? Don't forget that there wasn't an issue with keeping an originally produced and sold copy of the game for such use, but with making new copies.

That said, I do look forward to the day they do get it straight. I'm just not upset about it not being there yet. Guess I'm still in the camp that thinks change takes time.

While I want to compare it to a car because I think it fits— I don’t own the rights to specs of course. But it is mine to do with as I please (within the confines of the law). Likewise, as a book or movie. Within the confines of the medium I have it in, I should be allowed to do with it whatever I please, barring illegal activities.

If I want to donate these things to a library, it should be allowed. If I take my Super Nintendo and the games I have for it, and bring it to a library, they should have the legal ability to loan it out. I can get fishing rods, instruments, sound and video equipment, but video games are somehow the line in the sand.

SkoomaDealer
Maybe I need to look at it again, but I thought it read that the issue in question was not the ability for a library to have consoles and games in their collection, but the ability for a school/library to make copies of a game for the same use.

Like, no one's stopping people from putting up a console and letting people play from it. That's what arcade boxes have been since the dawn of commercial video games.

The issue is when organizations want to make copies of a game so it can be maintained and used by more people. The goal of going before the committee was to get a DMCA exception that would allow organizations to make those copies for research purposes. Companies argued that the groups coming together hadn't provided a suitable method to ensure those copies were going to be used legally and the government agreed.

So this isn't a matter of donating a car to a library so someone could drive it. This is a matter of letting libraries make those exact same cars.

Dielan looks like the weird belief Concord might resurface has been firmly squashed.

SkoomaDealer

Sadly, we're in a nostalgia boom. The Switch is an emulator for several old consoles, some of which aren't even Nintendo's. Games are getting rereleased, remade, and rebooted constantly and there is a real concern for a company that this could affect that market.

And to what standard specifically are we going to tell companies to give up their ability to put their IPs and previous products onto this old games market? Like, it would be wonderful if we could arrange some system for that for the sake of games preservation, but it's really contentious territory with how valuable those rights are.

I speak from a lot of personal experience on that. I play two different private servers for mmos that shut down over a decade ago. Only one of them operates in a way that is entirely legal and they certainly couldn't start out that way. There's a lot of issues currently in the way of preserving games and not all of them are there unreasonably.

Dielan They do, but the fact that the market for them exists creates an issue for these preservation efforts.

HelsEch that’s also sidestepping the actual argument being made. It’s specifically about preserving out of market (no way to purchase from 1st or 3rd party sellers) software and video games. Rarely do companies rerelease games in those prior states, even collections usually make some changes. I didn’t follow the entirety of it, but I don’t think they’re asking for mmo servers to still function past sunset.

Idk to what extent things would really plague the market, but it certainly wouldn’t inhibit the properties from having remasters or remakes or anything.

It also speaks to the quality of major releases if people want to play older games more than new releases, but that’s not what’s being talked about right now.