“Most of the world’s video games from close to 50 years of history are effectively, legally dead. A Video Games History Foundation study found you can’t buy nearly 90% of games from before 2010. Preservationists have been looking for ways to allow people to legally access gaming history, but the U.S. Copyright Office dealt them a heavy blow Friday. Feds declared that you or any researcher has no right to access old games under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.”
I really feel like the source code needs to be released after 25 years. We need to be able to protect older games.
There’s often no in any way complete source code after 25 years.
Media degrade, get forgotten hell knows where, get occasionally destroyed.
I’ve been saying that we need to have a law on the books to require any online components of a game be required to have the source to those features be released upon closure of the online service. I would be fine with them then being except from any security liability for anyone who gets hacked by use of that software and even retaining ownership of the IP, so no one could sell access to the service, but being able to stand up fan-run servers for old Xbox-live games or dead MMOs more easily would be really great. I’m locked out of so many PlayStation trophies simply because online servers have been down for ages now.