Skip to main content

U.S. Copyright Office considering exemption for abandoned online games

The U.S. Copyright Office is considering a rule change that would loosen the restrictions governing emulations and reproductions of abandoned online games.

The argument is based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996, which is a law meant to curtail the theft and piracy of intellectual properties such as video games and other software. Currently, the U.S. Copyright Office grants an exception to various museums, archives, and libraries regarding abandoned games that are no longer publicly available. New exemptions to the DMCA are considered every three years by the U.S. Copyright Office.

Recommended Videos

Last year, several organizations, including the non-profit Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment, filed a request that the U.S. Copyright Office broaden its exceptions to include online games that have been shut down by their publishers. These would include MMORPGs such as Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes. Both of those game still have passionate fanbases, but they are no longer playable due to the fact that the servers shut down several years ago.

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment is requesting that exemptions be extended to online games.

“Although the Current Exemption does not cover it, preservation of online video games is now critical,” the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment wrote. “Online games have become ubiquitous and are only growing in popularity. For example, an estimated fifty-three percent of gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week, and spend, on average, six hours a week playing with others online.”

Arguments regarding this exemption expansion were made during the previous review period, but the Copyright Office argued that many multiplayer games survived via local multiplayer. However, the vast majority of MMO games require a connection to a server and were never built with any form of local multiplayer in mind.

For these reasons, the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment is asking the U.S. Copyright Office to allow archivists to operate servers for these abandoned games so that players may experience them as the developers intended.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents major players in the video game industry such as Electronic Arts, Nintendo, and others, has come out in opposition to this request. The ESA argues that extending the DMCA exemptions to online games would be a step too far.

“The proponents characterize these as ‘slight modifications’ to the existing exemption,” the ESA wrote. “However they are nothing of the sort. The proponents request permission to engage in forms of circumvention that will enable the complete recreation of a hosted video game-service environment and make the video game available for play by a public audience.”

The ESA further argues that allowing the hosting of servers would allow gamers to fully play these games for free, which could be seen as a form of competition with their existing titles. The ESA notes that the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment charges an admission fee, which it argues amounts to a commercial enterprise, even if the Museum is a non-profit.

The U.S. Copyright Office has yet to make a decision but will review all relevant comments before doing so.

Eric Brackett
Former Digital Trends Contributor
As more layoffs hit the game industry, ZeniMax Online Studios votes to unionize
A mage looking over morrowind in Elder scrolls online.

The gaming industry has faced a tidal wave of difficulties this year, the most pressing of which involved the layoffs of thousands of workers from various positions and multiple companies. Microsoft alone made up 2,000 of the layoffs in January alone. The suffering of the workers in the industry was acknowledged during The Game Awards 2024, but while awards were being passed out, 461 members of ZeniMax Online Studios voted to unionize.

Microsoft has recognized the union, marking a major win for workers' rights, according to a press release from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Union. “By coming together and forming a union, we’re able to take a powerful step forward in ensuring a better future for ourselves and for our families, to create protections against layoffs and workplace exploitation, and to provide additional layers of support for workers beyond what [Family and Medical Leave Act] and workplace policies already provide,” said senior motion graphics artist and ZOS United-CWA member Alyssa Gobelle. “At ZeniMax, unions belong here.”

Read more
Trade group says EV tax incentive helps U.S. industry compete versus China
ev group support tax incentive 201 seer credit eligibility

The Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), a trade group with members including the likes of Tesla, Waymo, Rivian, and Uber, is coming out in support of tax incentives for both the production and sale of electric vehicles (EVs).

Domestic manufacturers of EVs and their components, such as batteries, have received tax incentives that have driven job opportunities in states like Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, and Georgia, the group says.

Read more
Don’t sleep on Infinity Nikki. It could be 2024’s biggest video game
girl with pink hair and cat mascot pointing to sky

If you thought you knew every major game coming for the rest of 2024, think again. On Wednesday night, Infold Games announced that Infinity Nikki will launch on December 5 for PlayStation 5, PC, and mobile. If you’ve never heard of it before, you’re about to in a very big way.

The upcoming free-to-play game is the fifth entry in the mega-popular Nikki series. It takes what was once a mobile dress-up gacha game and turns it into a full open-world console game with shades of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild peppered in. At first glance, you may be tempted to write it off as niche, but that would be a tactical error. Infinity Nikki will launch at the perfect time, landing in the cross section of multiple trends that have defined 2024. If all goes well for Infold Games, it could smash records. If you’re still a little confused as to why, here are all of the reasons that Infinity Nikki could be a sensation.
The Nikki series is enormous
Infinity Nikki - Release Date Trailer | PS5 Games

Read more