This is why I say, with not a single drop of irony, that piracy is a public service.
Piracy isn’t piracy when it’s no longer sold.
Copyright laws desperately need to be updated to account for scenarios like these. Although, to many people piracy is undesirable, I take no issue with anyone using this method to acquire content that is otherwise unavailable.
Yep. A lot of streaming services recently have been taking shows and films off the service and burry them as a tax write off. In my world if they write it off they should have to put it in public domain. If they can still sue people who copy it then it obviously has value to the rights owner still.
The regulatory and legal system is mostly reactionary. Eventually someone will be sued or sue one of the services about it and it will be settled and become precedent. Which way is hard to say, but I can definitely see your argument being persuasive.
The problem is essentially how do you define ownership? Is there a right to not make something the copyright holder owns publicly available?
I think in the cases of abandonware or more recently the moves by media companies to delist certain media for tax benefits, there’s a good argument to be made over forfeiting the copyright, so it’s now public domain and fair game. But I also think for something like the Star Wars Holiday Special, where the creator/copyright holder (not sure about that status post-Disney acquisition) genuinely hates it and does not want it available to the public, the owner should be allowed to restrict access to it.
How do you get tax benefits for that? Sounds pretty shady.
But I also think for something like the Star Wars Holiday Special, where the creator/copyright holder (not sure about that status post-Disney acquisition) genuinely hates it and does not want it available to the public, the owner should be allowed to restrict access to it.
Personally I disagree on that too. If something has been made public once it should stay public, unless it contains actively harmful information or something.
100%
The only times I allow it myself are in this case (zero legal availability) and for unofficial/fan translations of games not available in your home region/language. Nobody would be getting your money anyway, no theft of compensation/profits there. If any games do become available, though, then we should support them. The more we put our money where our mouth is for a return to market for these games, the more incentive there is for companies to bring more of them back.
Unfortunately I’m not expecting those laws to ever change for the better.
and they won’t as long as lobbying is legal and legislators are all in the pockets of big companies
This may be hot take, but I think games are art and are part of our cultural legacy, and making steps that stops us from enjoying us from that legacy should be considered a crime, especially when they put at risk art disappearing forever.
I would start with simple rules:
- 5 years after last new copies of the game stops being sold, pirating it stops becoming a crime
- 10 years after platform (console?) stop being produced, if there is no official emulator available, all emulators of that platform become legal
- intentionally trying to stop people from buying a game without breaking above rules (for example, selling one copy for price of 9999$) is a crime
As a result, I would expect all companies to either invest in backward compatibility on unprecedented level, or more likely start porting their games to PC (because they will keep being produced), even if that meant selling copies to be used with emulators. When there is money on the table, or perspective of losing money, corporations are really quick to find solutions.
This strikes me as weird and unnecessarily convoluted. IMO the best solution would be to limit corporate held copyrights to 10 years after first publication or 15 years after creation, whichever is sooner, and limit individually held copyrights to the life of the creator. After that’s up, the work becomes public domain, and people can freely post it without repercussions, meaning the masses will handle archival and distribution essentially without prompting. Simple, with very few loopholes as far as I can see.
We need a use-it-or-lose-it clause for all copyrights. If the rights holder is not making a good faith effort to sell copies, they should forfeit their copyright entirely and the work in question goes straight to the public domain. 5 years is generous, I’d make the grace period 6 months.
This is how you get Fantastic Four (1994)
Emulators are not illegal. ROMs are illegal if you didn’t rip it yourself. If you did rip it yourself it’s a gray area. See https://youtu.be/yj9Gk84jRiE
Emulators are not illegal, where did you get that from?
This isn’t necessarily always true. PCSX2, the main PS2 emulator, for example needs a BIOS file that can only be obtained from an actual PS2 (or “illegally”). I’m not sure why that emulator requires it when others don’t. The closest thing to an explanation I could find online just said “legal issues”, but didn’t go into details. That makes me suspect that there was pushback from Sony about the emulator. So if such emulation laws were to be written they absolutely should protect in stone the right to create and use emulators. If a company can find a loophole to block you, they will.
It’s required because a lot of the functionality of the PS2 is in the embedded software, the BIOS.
The problem is not the emulator itself, it’s the BIOS which is copyrighted. The emulator is not illegal, but bundling the BIOS with it would be.
There are legal problems when creating emulators, sure people work hard to avoid them, but I don’t think they should have to do that in those cases, so I specifically wrote “all emulators” should be legal. For example, Dolphin to work requires cryptographic keys that technically belong to Nintendo, so they may be sued for providing them. Some emulators require you to find bios on your own because they can’t legally provide them, and their emulator doesn’t work without it.
If you bundle cryptographic keys, bios or other copyrighted content then yes obviously it’s illegal.
It’s not illegal to implement an emulator.
This kind of thing (and e-waste in general) is why I think we need radical laws about unsupported hardware in general.
If an electronic device (phone, laptop, etc) stops receiving software support, the most recently available firmware should be made freely available under public domain.
Apple is obviously the worst offender, but it’s just horrible when you have really great hardware that’s 100% worthless just because the software is unsupported and proprietary.
The number of iPads, smart home products, and other devices that become e-waste every year is unsustainable. If companies were forced to release the code for free when they stopped supporting devices, maybe they would support them longer. Or at least bother innovating for a change.
This is only going to get worse with modern games. Always online to servers that won’t exist. Digital only copies you won’t be able to download.
Not only should the firmware be made available, I think if you are taking servers offline you should be required to release the source code.
I can still play my N64 and PS3 games with physical copies, but many on PS4 are basically unplayable without the day one patch at least
Ubisoft has made it clear, “Well, if you want to play Assasins Creed, or Farcry, we expect you to play the new ones”.
Well, in both cases, the new ones are ass and I want to play the old ones, that I paid for.
As others have said on here, once the product is no longer supported, I feel the rights to that software should pass to the community.
I write code for a living, and when I’m done, the client owns that software. I hand over all the source code as part of close out. If they want me to maintain it, fine. If the want to go with someone else, its theirs to do with as they please.
Apple is obviously the worst offender, but it’s just horrible when you have really great hardware that’s 100% worthless just because the software is unsupported and proprietary.
How so? Because they produce hardware that one would actually like to use after firmware updates cease? They provide updates the longest and are evidently not worthless, as they have higher resale values than Android devices the same age.
None of that matters. Open hardware from 2003 still works because of course it still works. Apple is artificially bricking hardware for profit.
What is Apple bricking and in which way is it worse than any other android OEM that provides updates for shorter?
Apple stops updating devices and their phones are locked down and their macs are only really supported by proprietary software eventually losing functionality artificially.
Yes other companies are immoral and anti consumer. At least some Android devices let you install custom software making them easily outlive locked down ones.
Every intel Mac lets you install Linux too. M1 is well on its way.
As for phones: Apple provides updates longer than any android manufacturer. In android phones you too have non unlocked bootloaders as well as proprietary firmware blobs without which operating the phone is near impossible.
So I see no Dimension in which Apple is the worst.
You keep playing this comparison game…
The iPhone is full of anti consumer patterns, it simply is, and no external factors excuse this.
Of course I am comparing. Op stated Apple is the worst offender which only has meaning in comparison.
not necessarily manufacturers but the open source community can support 10 year old phones with new security updates like the LG G2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 LTE. https://doc.e.foundation/devices
On IPhones there is not really such a community because apple aggressively screws people for profit and will stay to do so in the future because that works.
Other companies copied Apples design choices like unmovable batteries because that works. And some fans argue “but not replace batteries are more water proof” and such but the phones only got more fragile.And its not like they are the best in customer service, i mean they only offered repairs for design flaws when a lot of people sued them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=801s&pp=ygUUbG91aXMgcm9zc21hbm4gYXBwbGU%3D (25 minute video by Louis Rossmann about apples repeated design failures)
And for the M1, i looked into it, nice that they don’t lock the boot-loader without jailbreak. But they don’t help with the OS, that again is the open source community.
And you are right: Apple is not the worst, Nestlé is the worst but a completely different topic.
I know that the products of apple are very user friendly and everything can like work together. The software is brilliantly comfortable so that a users don’t want to use everything else, because how comfortable it is. For me it is a trap by a greedy mega cooperation.
Copyright as it is today is one of humanity’s worst mistake.
You can actually blame Disney for much of this.
Well, humanity did make a HUGE amount of mistakes worse than current copyright, to be honest. That one’s an abomination, but we’re generally really good at ruining stuff.
Most classic everything is no longer available. This is a function of time and the general human desire to make new stuff. Otherwise antiques wouldn’t really be special.
If we want our stuff more permanent, this will be a change from the past that we need to specifically enact. Otherwise it’s just people being subtly out-of-touch with how time will eventually destroy not just them, but their works too. Only the influences it left behind echo into the future, for as long as our art does anyway.
This is why emulation is important.
