The Foundation for the History of Video Games will continue fighting for researchers to access old games

The Foundation for the History of Video Games (VGHF) has moved its disappointment in response to the decision of the United States Copyright Office to not granting a new exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), with which they intended to allow libraries to bypass digital blocks on video games for academics and researchers, although they have stated that they will continue “advocating for a greater access and legal permissions for the preservation of video games.”

According to the US Copyright Law DMCA in Section 1201, in order to protect the authorship of video games, currently the Libraries and archives cannot give remote access to copies of the games they have storednot even so that researchers in the sector can access them remotely to continue their research projects.

This supposes a problem for old or rare gamessince they are not available on the market or are difficult to acquire, which makes the work of research and preservation of these titles difficult.

In this framework, the VGHF has been supporting the Software Preservation Network petition for three years (SPN), which proposed an amendment to the DMCA that would allow libraries to bypass digital locks of video games so that academics and researchers can study them.

Specifically, this request aims to help preserve rare video games by supporting the work of researchersallowing libraries and archives to remotely share digital access to out-of-print video games in their collections.

However, the United States Copyright Office spoke out last Friday on the matter, when he announced the refusal to grant a new exemption to the DMCA. Therefore, the block is maintained for verified researchers, who will not be able to access old video games through libraries and archives.

Faced with this, the VGHF has expressed its disappointment and has shared that “unfortunately” the pressure efforts of rights holder groups “continue to slow progress”, as reflected in a statement on its website. One of these groups is the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) who, during the hearing with the US Copyright Office, stated that ““I would never support remote access to games for research purposes.”

During said hearing, it was also put on the table that although there have been measures to “deter recreational uses of video games“, it is considered that these requirements “are not specific enough to conclude that they would prevent harm to the market“, as stated in the document containing the final decision of the United States Copyright Office.

As a result, VGHF has warned that this refusal forces researchers and academics to look for other “extralegal” methods to access the vast majority of discontinued video games since, otherwise, they would not be able to access them.

THE VGHF WILL CONTINUE FIGHTING TO PRESERVE VIDEO GAMES

Despite all this, the VGHF has stated that They are not “finished fighting” and that will continue advocating for greater access as well as legal permissionsfor promote the preservation of video games. In addition, they will also continue to work with members of the industry to “increase internal awareness of these issues.”

“Our combined efforts with SPN have increased significant public awareness of these issues,” has sentenced the VGHF, while ensuring that “they have already had an impact” on the entire industry of video games and preservation communities.

Along the way, the foundation has encouraged other members of the video game sectorwho are also disappointed with the Copyright Office’s final decision, to work and pressure their leaders to “gain greater support to the work of libraries and archives within their industrial groups.