• TheseusNow@lemmy.zip
        7·
        2 days ago

        Came here to say this. Me and my wife were playing games from DOS and win95/98 days thanks to the internet archive recently. It really felt like digging up memories.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      5·
      2 days ago

      In a way a lot of us end up becoming amateur librarians. When the big megaservers get hit with something nasty, or they decide to purge it all for AI datasets or something. (Idk it’s a stupid timeline anything is possible lol)

      I like to think our fellow amateur archivists who started collecting such things for personal reasons will be a force for preserving meaningful artifacts of human experience.

  • MithranArkanere@lemmy.world
    32·
    2 days ago

    It’s conservation. Archeology is digging up what was once lost.
    So finding a lost video game is archeology. Keeping it safe is conservation.
    Ensuring games can’t be lost in the first place and that they continue to work in the future is preservation.

    All needed, but different things.

    • TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.club
      6·
      2 days ago

      My hot take is all abandonware media should legally become file-share friendly after a certain amount of time being out of print, say 15 or 20 years. The original rights holder still maintains copyright, but if they are no longer publishing that work, and therefore no longer making sales, anyone can fileshare it for free in its original form. If the owner then republishes it, it stops being file share friendly. But there have to be caveats, like Nintendo can’t publish 2 copies of an old game every 15 years for like $500 a copy and say it’s still published. It has to be sold at a reasonable price.

      • MithranArkanere@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 hours ago

        I would go even further, for any media.

        The moment a company ends access to a piece of media, it should almost automatically become public domain. With just a reasonable window of time to bring it back once inaccessible, just in case there are things like downtime, blackouts, or restructuring of services.

        Disney decides they will no longer let you rent the original Snow White for a local movie theater in your city, or take it out from their streaming services, or creates an alternate edited version with any significant alteration other than a disclaimer or warning at the start but removes access to the original, and no one else has the rights on lease that gives that access instead, boom, public domain. You no longer have to wait until 2032 to make an exploitative low-budget horror movie version of it.

        If they make a remaster of a game, they must keep access to the original. Sell only the remaster; the original becomes public domain for use, not the IP, within reason.
        Any associated proprietary technologies, like a physics engine, get a limited lease of use with no cost for the original as it was, excepting modifications to allow it to run on other devices and newer devices.
        So it wouldn’t be all of it becomes public domain, but it becomes something usable and maintainable by the public domain.
        Remove access to the game and all versions and remasters, and the IP of that game goes fully public domain.

      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
        7·
        2 days ago

        I mean, copyright was supposed to be limited to 20 years, same as patents. I don’t think we would need anything else if we went back to that. There is no reason for copyright to last about a century like it does now.

        • TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.club
          1·
          13 hours ago

          I think lifetime of original creator is fine. I wrote my first manga in 2010 (it’s crap but still), I don’t think that it should stop being mine in 4 years.

          I heard that lifetime + 80 was to stop someone murdering a popular author and, assuming they got away with it, then publishing that work for their own profit. But I don’t know if that’s true.

          • MithranArkanere@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 hours ago

            That is solved with different degrees of copyright. If done right, the author’s works will never stop being theirs, but people will be able to make fanfiction without fear of a bloodthirsty copyright lawyer biting at their necks. They’d just have to clearly indicate it’s fanfic, and the original author could get a cut of any earnings past a threshold.

            Create a great work that inspires another great work; both authors benefit.

        • Poojabber@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 day ago

          Then how would Disney make money if they didnt continue being able to sell 70 year old movies at full price??? Stop being such a greedy asshole Dreamlsnd!!! Disney needs to make a reasonable income, and public domain was always a silly idea.

  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
    87·
    2 days ago

    Also, ripping your local libraries dvd collection for personal use is called archiving and depending where you live completely legal.

    • wurstgulasch3000@feddit.org
      17·
      2 days ago

      Where I live the library card costs 5-10 € per year and they carry blu rays, video games and e books. Needless to say I’ve now renewed this card for the 15th year in a row

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      5·
      2 days ago

      Yeah that “depending” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there lol.

      Also big depending: At least try not to make it TOO obvious that’s what you’re doing. Most library people are cool, (Source: know library people) but it’s kinda obvious when we see someone racking up the hold shelf with like 30-40 DVDs and CDs a week. LMAO

      Unfortunately the mega media interests do occasionally try to pressure libraries to enforce copyright violations or whatever. (Like telling you you can’t photocopy textbook pages or something)

      I personally try to just archive things I own, primarily, or things that are special and important to me, but that’s also because I have maybe 4TB to work with and hardware is insane again.

      But there’s a point when it starts to look like compulsory hoarding lol. It’s kinda an open secret/ gray area, and a few people being stupid will likely catch attention. (Look what happened to archive.org fending off broadsides from the publishing industry.)

      • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
        3·
        2 days ago

        I know its not everywhere but where i live its 100% legal and protected under fair use as long as i don’t distribute outside my household.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 day ago

    Realistically, I don’t think anyone would come after you anyway. It is de facto legal. I’d say in the name of pragmatism, we don’t really need a legal framework around it.

      • BanMe@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 day ago

        I was just coming here to say Nintendo. They did eventually pull some titles back into rotation with vintage gaming devices and versions for modern equipment, but plenty of games have never been touched again, and they still insist it’s illegal to ROM them. Fuck that I am doing my usual Crystalis playthrough every couple years like always…

  • Sonicdemon86@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    2 days ago

    Most here are just talking about one form of media, why not include video games like “Black and White” made by Lion Head Studios and not sold anywhere, but can only be found on archive sites for dead games. Edit: if you want to find these abandon games the site that I use is My Abandonware

  • Pacrat173@lemmy.ml
    20·
    2 days ago

    I finally got around to hosting a JellyFinn server and there’s a number of useful programs you can use to get your movies off DVD and Blu ray. MakeMKV and HandBrake my beloved programs

    • The Picard Maneuver@piefed.worldOPEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      I’ve been using Handbrake to rip DVDs but haven’t started using MakeMKV yet. I do have a number of blu-rays that Handbrake can’t seem to process on its own.

      • paultimate14@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 days ago

        I can vouch for MakeMKV as well.

        I had so much frustration trying to rip Blu-Rays other ways. Did the free trial and got my whole library ripped pretty cleanly and easily. Eventually decided to buy the software so I wouldn’t have to keep looking up and entering the trial key. There’s not much higher of a commendation I can give than to say that I decided to give them $60 I didn’t have to because it was good.

  • LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 days ago

    I love being the only seeder for something only for the fact I can share it. The problem is, more people should be seeding it as well to preserve history.

  • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    2 days ago

    Song of the South. Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear, etc.

    A Disney movie that Disney doesn’t want anyone to remember because of the inherent racism. Using stories that originated during slavery, but setting the movie after the war to try to take the curse off.

    It’s damn near impossible to get in the U.S., but easy to access via the high seas, and Disney uncharacteristically won’t go after you for it, because they don’t want to draw attention to it.

    It incorporated some innovative techniques for blending live action with animation and has some value in terms of history of cinema. I don’t think it should disappear completely, but I do think it’s important to view it critically.

    Personally, I found that apart from the racism, a lot of the writing and acting in the live action sequences was so absolutely terrible it was painful to watch.