this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Companys should only be able to maintain copyright as long as the product still works as originally sold. When companies stop supporting those products, they should be compelled to open source the server code, so that the community can take it over. This should be something enforced by either the library of Congress, or copyright law itself...
In my opinion they should also be giving refunds to everyone who bought the game and now can't play it.
If you can't keep an online service running, then you shouldn't be selling games with an online service. If the community can take it over, that's awesome. But they might not and customers shouldn't have to rely on that.
Online features, like the Brotherhood multiplayer, or those annoying older ads to use the mobile app while playing. The game itself can still be played.
While my first thought was agreeing with you, I had a think and I disagree.
I brought game xyz to enjoy it, not to keep it forever. Ubisoft isn't going to take back that feeling of the first leap of faith, the time spent exploring the Caribbean, my sadness at watching ezio lose his family, find out that he never got to understand why or the sadness of not giving Leonardo DaVinci a hug by pushing the wrong button.... or my constant desire to look at every building and think how to climb it. I get to keep that. Its like going to buy a good meal - I don't want it forever and don't expect a refund if I go to pick it up again after 10 years.
Saying that, I would expect games to remain playable locally and not disappear completely if I can't connect to the internet. Put out a patch so it doesn't need to connect and let it go.
Even better- keep one server up and make a classic store. There are soo many games i played as a teen i would love to share with my kids, and possibly grandkids in 10-15 years.
If you can't keep it forever, you didn't buy it - as in take ownership of it - you just rented it.
No, I brought it to consume it - it gave me enjoyment and filled its job.
I don't get to keep every piece of food I buy and keep eating it over and over, like how I never get to explore games for the first time. I don't get a refund on a game once I finish it because I no longer get that initial wave of excitement and wonder.
These games have been out for 10 years - if you didn't get the value out of it in that time you never were going to.
games aren't food, they don't expire or disappear when you eat them, they aren't even subject to physical degradation they're files. As long as somebody has a copy of the files they can exist.
A company should have no fucking business removing the ability to play something that I legally own from me. I bought the game I get to use it for as long and as many times as I want. Don't want to keep running the server infrastructure forever? Fine, give me the tools to host the game's server myself. Don't want to do that? Ok, don't make a game that requires it. Don't wanna do that either? Then don't sell games.
Even if it were just 10 people wanting it, it costs the company absolutely nothing to allow them to keep playing their game on a server they host (at no expense for the company).
I regularly play games older than 10 years. Heck, I even sometimes play games as old as 30 years. Who are you to tell me how long I should enjoy a game for?
You bring up a good argument. We can't compel creators to maintain their creations.
But looking at the philosophy behind both patents, and copyright, the theory is by allowing artists and creators to monetize their labor, we enrich all of society by creating more value over the long term. But if the creations are ephemeral and disappear, society's not actually benefiting.
It's a bit of a stretch, but imagine if literature disappeared after 15 years, so that nobody could read a text once it's old enough. We would have lost their creativity of the ages, mathematical, philosophical, engineering, historical treatise. We would have a massive gap in the knowledge of the world.
DRM, and online only platforms, are only going to become more common, so we have to examine what's the benefit of giving people exclusive rights to creations from a society's perspective... And I would say the exclusive rice are in exchange for the creation benefiting humanity after a period of time.
I do love when people submit opposition views without the sc-reeeeeee-ming match this place comes with.
My arguement back is that in this case the content creator didn't/wasnt focused on entertainment, not long term advancement of society. Knowledge gained from development, society reaction and the change in society values and tastes should remain and be passed down - but we don't need to keep every magazine, vine/tok/tweet/video game. Books pass knowledge and it would be horrible to lose them after 15 years but entertainment doest carry the same value to progress.
I see what you're saying, but I'm on the fence, even for entertainment. All of Shakespeare's works, are a form of entertainment, a base form of entertainment for the rabble even. But they've proven through an accident of history to have huge impacts today.
DRM platforms for scholastic texts for research publications for conference panels exist in abundance, and are only going to become more popular.
I think a reasonable split would be saying that you lose copyright when the original content is no longer active. A book is forever active, so the copyright exists for however long the law currently stipulates - 70 years?
For DRM content, including forced online games, I'm not saying the original creator needs to maintain anything, but if they don't, the copyright should be on an accelerated expiration schedule.
I might be mullified, if electronic creators, have to file the source, the build objects, for electronic things, with a independent library. To follow the normal copyright expiration. That way it would break out of the shell of whatever the DRM enclave is after the 70 years or whatever.
If we examine the mission of the British library, they often talk about they don't know what's going to be critically important in the future, so they have to preserve everything. And I think that's a reasonable position.