Better link, since the original has expired.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-copyright-office-considering-exemption-001455822.html
The ESA may argue that. But that would spoil their rental cash cow. These old games aren't a threat. They're old, people paid for them, they still have value to the people who poured in the cost of the original game box and at least 8 years of rental subs in some cases. 'Some' still want to play them. Morally, and in my version of 'fair use,' you get to play it Unreal Tourney style. Ie. Solo, over lan, P2Peer. None of those involve large servers threatening their rent a crowd, in-app shop model. Sure, corporations might not think that's fair. The ESA might argue against it. Why would they not? Control freakery. In the same breath, they're making vast more money than games companies made in the 80s? And it's still not enough. 'Not allowed.'
Remember when people made a game and you could play it when YOU wanted to? Now we're being herded into a 0 and 1's, rental, non-ownership model that you can't play when the corporation decides.
Not only are Corporations our friends but they also know what's good for us when they decided to cancel a game. Cancelling COH was a bad choice for CoH customers. Maybe not for NC. But at least put it on skeleton servers so the 80-100k of players can still play it. But no, we'll get herded into the Korean model of plastic games that suck. Just say 'no' folks. The power of the wallet. Backfired for them. They have one less customer. Fair enough, Korean market is their focus. So why buy CoH in the first place? It's not your focus, right? The mentality is that those 80-100k of customers can be herded onto one of your other games that sucks. It doesn't have value to keep it alive (but value to keep it dead and not sell it to anyone else...) to the corporation.
Gaming companies can decided whether their is progress in an online game's subs base. Fair enough. I don't play Boulderdash for the C64 any longer. But it's nice to have access to it 'have a play' and remember the good times. I don't see that as threatening any modern gaming business model. Rebalancing something entering into public domain should be addressed. But in the current corporate climate, it's hard to see it happening. When 'enough' is never enough.
Corporations killing IP by cancelling games and sitting on the corpse is wrong. 8 bit old C64 cassette games or CoH online games should be preserved for private or museum purposes. Do games corporations ever give back to the community? Old online games so they can be studied on coursed, college projects, freeware when a specific game has been profited from in its original carnation as much as it could have been. Rather than gating access through IP 'death' then arises the issue of heritage, what you payed for, time invested. EULA fair use says you only have rental rights until we kill the game. When something is shiny and new and there's no threat of it being canned consumers may sign up for that rough treatment. But what if the game is canned after 6 months, 2 years, 8 years? 'Tough' is the answer. You knew what you were signing up for. You treat people in that '0' hour model of treatment where you basically have limited or no rights...the corporations will be the first to moan when profits are down at shareholder meetings. Maybe it's a push to the future where you don't 'own' anything (but, surprise, the corporations do?)
Private use is fair use. I'm not making millions of copies. I'm not selling it. Sure, NC own and control the direct of the IP. That's up to them.
That's the fair case balanced case that we should have but don't. As we move to digital only, corporations will decided when to host, what version you can have access to, if you have access, how many copies you can have as a back up, whether you can 'share' your 'vinyl' record with a friend. That you can't fast forward past the copyright notice on DVDs (yes, we know stealing is wrong...) and forced to watch an anti piracy ad after the credits role up. (Can't press button function at this time...'not allowed...') It's the little things.
People can argue about the law all they want when billion dollar companies are lobbying US Gov' for extended Copyrights. When the law is unfair, then the law is an ass. It's just that individual voters don't have the government access lobbyists have? Before you know it, you only have the rights the corporation says you have. And that's it in a nutshell. Corporate control. Right down to the brass tack. (Would you trust a corporation controlling access to the air you breath? Or the water you drink? Or the food you eat? *oh wait...)
The consumer has to fight this.
Azrael.
