Abandonware Should Be Public Domain
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- Why are companies still allowed an iron grip around products and IPs they've obviously left in the dust?
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➤ CHAPTERS
0:00 Context
4:43 Abandonware: How Much and Why
8:17 Copyright Terms and Public Domain
14:15 Piracy and Availability
19:19 What's The Solution?
➤MUSIC CREDITS
Sezherad:
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#copyright #abandonware #retrogaming - Ігри
"you're stealing money from us by downloading a game we don't sell"
~AAA game studios
I think these studios want us to ONLY be buying what there charts say will sell cause they are scared of living in a world where sale's cant be perfectly predicted for their investors.
@@Left4Cake they're like "ah yes, according to statistics these game will sell better than the other ones" meanwhile the other ones aren't even available 💀
that's what we call a self-fulfilling prophecy
Na its more like:
1) "You steal our future money when we want to re-release it ourself to bring back fan trust after a terrible release"
2)"You steal out profits by having people play this old game that if we still were to sell it couldn't justify it for the same price as the new one nor does it have the all new microtransactions meaning we make net less money"
3)"No you can't have it otherwise will people be able to compare it to our current releases and expect higher quality"
4)"NO our marketing team said it will look bad if your IP is still asociated with 20+ year old graphics"
5)"NO our CEO personally hates this game and so doesn't want others to have access to it"
My point is there are reasons WHY they do it many related to overall profits for them that gamers often just don't want to see because it makes it obvious how the corporations do not give a shit about there fan base outside of how to best milk them for all the money that they are worth.
@@rynobehnke8289 that might be their deluded view on it, i mean it does sound like AAA logic, but if that is indeed what they believe then they're more out of touch than they already seem..
like at that point it's literally that Simpsons meme "am i so out of touch? no it's the players who are wrong"
@@12DAMDO I mean most people making these decisions are executives that don't know anything about there communities outside of the graphics provided by there marketing division.
And so some extent do these tactics even work just see how much hype Nintendo manged to pull out of nowhere by finally graphically updating Mario RPG and Paper Mario 2.
Or how Nintendo could use the Launch of the N64 expansion to make there online service even more expensive.
All the more reason to kill the older consoles online store so that they now have to swap to the new one buy all the new more profitable games there while waiting for more retro games that may never come.
Tax write-offs of completed movies should be illegal if they are not already. It is the government rewarding reckless behavior and pushing the cost of such rewards onto its citizens.
Let's generalise it: anything that can be copyrighted is ineligible for a tax write-off until it becomes public domain. Make them choose between copyright or tax-break.
They are not releasing it aka. making profit with it => meaning => no money, aka. no taxes.
Your idea makes it so they wont take the risk in the first place in your area/country => meaning => no money, aka. no taxes.
How the fuck is it a reward? It's a loss. Losses are always tax write-offs. You aren't being "rewarded" at all. Learn how taxes work.
@@kevinsedwards Oh ok. Do it then.
@@kevinsedwards Yap Yap Yap. If it's so easy then do it and get rich.
What kills me is these companies intentionally sit on IPs for decades and do nothing with them, then have the nerve to whine about fans archiving the roms or even doing remake projects of their own.
Or even worse, when they return to the IP after so long they forgot what it was about and some of the core people behind it are no longer available to return, and the IP is irreparably stained.
Can really hurt the original image if they come back ages later and its like "Hey, remember what you loved about the original? Well good luck finding it here, because this is secretly a reboot of some kind which leaves all your questions unanswered and the characters you loved are now stupid shells of what they once were."
If you paid for for the copy of the game they have no say how you use your copy
Exodus project allowed me to play my Ultima 7 part 1 and 2 in windows. Bought the software on clearance at what would become Gamestop
Got a bunch of Nintendo,SNES,Genises catrages I own but my phone is the most convent place to play those ROMs
They can't bitch about anything I paid for and physically own being used with emulators for convience
@@TheMultiversalDipThe Yu Yu Hakusho Live Action is a great example. By episode 4ish, Hiei and Kurama are already fighting Bui and Karasu. EPISODE 4!!! (They were respectively each protagonists’ season 2/3ish end villain that they had spent FOREVER training and preparing to fight)
I just KNOW that when the numbers come saying that the Yu Yu Hakusho Live Action was a bust, the creator is going to whine again, saying “SeE sEe!!!! I tOlD yOu aLL tHaT nO oNe WaNtEd A sEqUeL!!!” Even though this whole stupid show is NOT what anyone wanted at all.
@FrarmerFrank Yeah Piracy is okay in certain situations, such as for Abandonware, where the company either can't or won't support the continued accessibility of a product, but even then many companies will still try and ruin your life over this despite the clear intent to never support the product again.
Especially with the US having a 95 years wait between release and public domain, so if say a 5-10 year old was playing it in their childhood and loving it, but it becomes abandoned, meaning they will be on their deathbed or in their grave by the time they might be able to play it again, and that is if it's even usable on the modern hardware, and even that is reliant on someone remembering the game enough to put it online for people to access.
almost like they expect you to be their slaves
This is why I built multiple 200TB drives, spending near 10K USD. I saved nearly EVERY game out there from the first system all the way to the newest Xbox. Near 100,000 different games I've archived from all over the world. About 5K Steam games downloaded as well.
Thousands of movies, TV shows and much more. I spent hundreds of hours going through the internet looking in the deepest places for information and files that are basically non-existent. Extremely rare video games from countries such as Russia.
I believe these games, movies, music and other content are works of art and much of it will NEVER be seen by the majority of the people and that to me is kind of sad. It's honestly crazy how many companies do not archive their old software and content; we have already lost so much that have never reached the public eye. Nintendo had many projects scrapped that the public do not know of, at least 3 consoles I know of that very few know about.
Also, 26K are the games that are known, there are many more missing from that website just because they were so scarce and not known to the public.
What are the 3 consoles that Nintendo scrapped that not many people know about? Also, if a Steam game gets removed entirely, do Valve still let you download old versions?
@@penguinsushi8442
Sony+Playstation combo which a little more know about but still not much.
Scrapped Nintendo DS between the DSi and 3DS and another console that was shown to investors before the Switch was released but was eventually scrapped as well. I guess you could say these were prototypes, but they really were not.
As for Steam, it depends on the game. Of course, anything with online service usually will not work. Single player games will still work if they are removed.
For specific versions, you can't really find or download those.
WTF, HOARDER MUCH...anyway, moving along. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
@@stevem1097
No not hoarder, more of an archivist.
I believe too much of our data is lost, both digitally and physically.
I do Archaeology as my main job and travel around digging and collecting, so that plays into it.
My collection is a Digital Library that can be used for many purposes. I don't just have video games, I have TONS of content.
That is honestly rather impressive.
It is rather frustrating that our entire copyright system is based around the needs of a single company. I fully understand why Disney wanted to keep their copyright on Mickey, seeing as it is their company mascot and still raking in loads of cash, but the solution would have been to create a law that includes exemptions for IP that is still actively generating revenue for the company, or something along those lines. This blanket approach of giving everything almost a century of exclusivity is just not granular enough given the wide berth of circumstances that can surround an IP.
What are human rights compared to the holy interest of a company?
The sooner Disney falls, the better for us.
I don't understand though. Intellectual property is not a natural right the way physical property is. What I mean by that is that there is a natural sense of ownership over a good which you possess, have made or paid for, and which is only useful to you if you possess it exclusively. If I pick an apple, that apple only has value if I exclusively eat it or have the ability to allow others to eat it.
Intellectual property isn't the same way. If I sing a song, if someone else sings it, my ability to sing the song has not been diminished. Copyright was invented (relatively recently, I might add) as a way to reward and incentivize the creation of new creative works. Since that time, companies have troed to insisted that intellectual works are "property" the way physical goods are, and as such the scope of copyright has increased massively. But has that actually *helped*? Has it promoted the creation of new works? Has it protected small creators? Has it allowed art to advance? I would argue no, and one of the main culprits is how companies can sit on and exploit previously popular works and characters as infinitum.
So screw Disney. Mickey Mouse should be part of the public domain. It's their fault they never developed another mascot.
Mickey Mouse is finally about to enter the public domain.
I dont understand companies because companies are never your friend.
1:45 yeah it should be like "okay, you want a tax writeoff? then publish the final work into the public domain to ensure you can't LATER make money off this thing you got a writeoff for." totally fair.
Good point. I wonder if there actually are enforceable (and enforced) limits to what they can do with that stuff in the future.
Probably not though; remember the banking crisis of 2008? We were in such a rush to give them bailouts that we didn't even take the time to write up some terms and conditions for how that money should be used. There was this one bank (can't remember which one; it was 15 years ago) that received the bailout, and then promptly renovated the CEO's office for a couple million dollars. How on earth does one even spend that kind of money on a single office?
If the public is paying for it via tax write-off, it needs to BELONG to the public.
honestly true. it's so weird to me that isn't the case. @@Kaylakaze
Bruh, they get tax writeoffs when they lose court cases and have to pay out 100s of millions as a settlement. They should get nothing and be grateful that they had the opportunity to create something in the first place.
It's like The Producers, except they don't even have to actually give the play a chance, they can just take all the funding and then get a tax write-off on top of it.
some games specially from the 2000's are abandoned because they dont want to pay for the copyright of the music on it 😅
Easy solution to this honestly, the music can easily be remade or just removed from the files.
They have actually done that on a number of games. Crazy Taxi for instance which a lot of people complain about because they long for the original soundtrack. I don't care for Offspring so I was cool about it.
Negotiating the rights to these things can be a nightmare.
The same is true for any game based on a movie license, or sports games with real player names. You can't remove Star Trek from a Star Trek game. Making a game public domain would mean that each and every part of it is public domain. It may work for Robin Hood games as long as Kevin Costner isn't portrayed.
@@drifter402 yeah it's why there's a lot of lost media at this point because the soundtrack licensing didn't allow for redistribution only the original broadcast. It's something anime fans of my age and older in particular get annoyed about a lot because stuff we enjoyed when younger cannot legally be secured anymore, it's also been a problem for other entertainment media, hell I had a chat with Rhi Pratchett and one of the devs of the Discworld games years ago and they didn't even have a clue who owns the rights to the games though Rhi is part of the management team of her dad's works, because yeah rights can be sold and when companies go down often their properties are snapped up, ie Activision own most of the Sierra (and their subsidiaries like Dynamix) catalogue rights though they've done sweet FA with them in decades.
Reminder that WoW Classic only exists because modders outperformed Blizzard,got lured out of anonymity and threatened with a lawsuit.
fuck blizzard.
wow. fucking bastards
Explain the lured out part? They were sent emails they were public on their forums
They were invited to Bliz HQ to discuss cooperation on making retail vanilla. Since then the Nost devs could no longer hide in the anonymity of the internet and therefore could be sued. The only thing Blizz could achieve before this was prompting Nosta to switch ISPs,i.e. nothing meaningful. Because of this the original lead stepped down and the community continued on a new server with a new name @@everythingpony
I don't feel very sorry for Blizzard. The later expansions became easier to appeal to new players. This had a negative side effect of alienating the veterans. The big change was Cataclysm. My uncle actually quit the game during that expansion. Personally I stayed on. I challenged myself by playing a wider variety of classes and specs. The private vanilla server is treated like illegal piracy. However it thinks of it as more of a legit competitor. The competition keeps the big companies on their toes. Then they won't get lazy and make new content crappy.
Blizzard and Classic WoW "You don't really want it" and "We will sue everyone who does" was perfect cover of the topic issue.
One more reason why publishers want to keep their older IPs out of the public domain even though they don't actively use or sell them anymore:
They fear it will compete with their new releases. When people have free and easy (legal) access to thousands of great old games they might not buy new ones.
This^ people are turning on the new slop already and creativity and talent are dead or dying but because younger generations lack the frame of reference to know just how good things used to and ougth to be they buy up the slop anyway.
That's why old Angry Birds was taken down, people wanted to buy an ad free good game instead of playing their microtransaction filled new games and it was "hurting sales" or whatever.
then why don’t they just sell the games again
@@klinxium8627 In a lot of cases they lost the source code so they'd have to essentially make it again from scratch and memory and it's been long enough that the original talent who made the classics probably aren't still with the company.
Porting is harder than it sounds depending on the game to some older games just do not play well with modern hardware a few are essentially in danger of becoming lost media due to this plus aforementioned source code being lost, not every game has this problem and not every instance of the problem is that severe but it's a factor.
There's also an element of arrogance with the new blood already resenting their predecessors as is that would get worse if they had to work on legacy ports, so there's an ego issue there.
Lastly there's the social engineering aspect, if people can easily play the classics and realize just how bad things have gotten it's a lot harder to sell the new slop to them. A bit wordy but that covers most if not all the reasons why they don't just sell the old games as far as I'm aware
@@GodOfOrphansthis ^
If the modern U.S. government had it's way the entire concept of public domain media would be canned.
you'd be surprised to find out the US has been very difficult with it too, but that's mostly because Disney has held cultural significance for so long.. and i'm not joking when i say, Mickey Mouse has passed his expiration date multiple times, but every single time he does, the laws change just to extend the patent.. other than that Japan needs to learn how to chill too because idk what Nintendo and Sony are thinking, but it's ridiculous..
Netherlands is pretty chill with it tho, and has a bit of a piracy culture lol
@@12DAMDO On Japan: EXACTLY! Their copyright laws are kinda ridiculous!
Unless the person wanting a piece of media to be public domain has a spare half billion or so to pay them. Then they will be all about it.
They wouldn't do that. It would just lead to mass hacking and people leaking or stealing the content. There's too many things for the government to just simply keep track of what's being stolen.
Yep and in the US a company can lose its IP if it does not "defend it" properly.
You're generous with that 30 flat year law, but I must confess, I'm at the point where I just want the original unmodified law. 14 years with the ability to apply for a 14 year extension. If someone can't bother to remember to renew their copyright another 14 years, then they must not have been making too much in the first 14, and we all get to play around with the property all that much sooner.
Just as an example of what free access to an idea brings, look at A Christmas Carol. We have, yes, been flooded with adaptations and parodies over the years, and a lot of them are bad, but a lot of them are good too and wouldn't exist without that IP being in the public domain. Just in the past couple weeks someone was daring enough to make a SEQUEL to A Christmas Carol in the form of a frickin' Metroidvania. The gall, and the beauty of it! And, we can thank the public domain for it even being a product that can exist.
Wait, a Christmas Carol Metroidvania?! Damn
give 1 example of copyright ever being good for a good person, I don't think it should exist at all. I paid for Undertale despite it being laughably easy to get for free, same as for songs I like, if you're concerned about money, but if you don't think Halo 69 is worth money you can still play it as a laugh.
@@stm7810 Personally I think that the main reason it should still be a thing at all is to give peoples' new creations some time to breathe before people start using the characters and world and stuff in their own projects
That said there's still probably not *much* of a reason to keep it around, and if so then really I'd say just ten years flat, no extensions
@@captainkawaii666 but that has never helped or really been available for small creators, the simple fact that UA-cam is 30% react channels blatantly reuploading shows this, let alone the DRM free nature of Itch io or the success of people who intentionally choose to be public domain.
@@stm7810 Fair
Original version of "Command & Conquer" was made freeware in 2007, first "Red Alert" in 2008 and "Tiberian Sun" in 2010.
It's easy to blame Disney for lobbying for copyright extension. But for anybody who doesn't know, it was actually Sonny Bono who started the whole thing. He was originally fighting for indefinite copyright, which would have meant owning copyright forever. All Disney did was lobby for it.
So it was _copyright pro bono_ ?
*drum riff*
Could you elaborate more?
He misjudged things. Just couldn't see the forest from the trees
@@gnitsafhah
@@angeleocorrodead It's officially called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and you can find tons of information about it in the online congress library. He died 9 months before the bill became a law, but he was one of a small group of congress who lobbied for the idea previously. The original version of the bill, written by Bono, called for the copyright holder's estate to retain copyright on all properties indefinitely so long as the current owner filed for renewal. This all came about because corporations had previously successfully lobbied for copyright extensions, and Bono was trying to find a way to streamline the process to eliminate some of the unnecessary bureaucracy.
The bigger issue is that companies can commit this kind of tax fraud without any consequence. If I had a factory that made widgets and then immediately sent those widgets to a landfill, I shouldn't be able to write that on my taxes as "lost revenue." This is a grift and it won't stop unless we actually enforce the laws in regard to tax evasion.
Ain't gonna happen when that same government takes bribes, sorry, Lobby money. Gonna take physical pushback, and no one has the balls for that, so suffer.
All expenses are tax deductable
If you legitimately think this is how tax deductions work please hire someone to do your taxes.
This isn't tax fraud, but your comment really puts on display the intelligence that goes into this argument as a whole.
@@DavidArcher_ I think that people genuinely believe a tax deduction is a tax return or something.
it’s like when a grocery store gets mad at their employees for “stealing” food that they’re about to throw out. they can’t make any money off of it regardless, and whether the employee takes it or not it doesn’t change anything on their end, but they still get mad. it’s stupid.
This is seriously such a solid idea. There is so many things that are completely not being used YET no one is allowed to utilize it if they are motivated to. Video games are greatly effected by this. Animation studios and voice actors have completely lost their jobs. I just wish these projects would be available to others who would be passionate about it. There is a huge amount of people out there who are dying to get certain things back. Like an array of sports games selections, wacky sports games, extreme sports games, arcade/sim sports games. Hack and slash games, MMA/boxing games, Batman games, the list goes on so long i could never list it. We can all feel it tho. Especially those of us who grew up in the 90's.
I was arguing that MS should give away the Windows 7 source if they're so hot to ditch it. Let the users maintain it.
Parts of the source are still used in modern Windows. That doesn't make sense.
legally that wouldnt work considering many aspects of that version is still used for windows 10 and 11. if you want open source windows without other versions incorporating aspects, you are going to have to go all the way back to windows 2.0. thats doesnt even count window 3.1 (pre-windows 95) cus windows still uses aspects of that in its legacy coding for backwards compatibility use.
@@dustinherk8124 something people often overlook is that it may not even be possible to open source something like Windows - because it certainly uses libraries and 3rd party code that even MS doesn't have the rights to open source. It was never designed to be open sourced. I doubt they could just upload the code and not have some legal exposure.
Well this could be a nightmare unless all of Windows would become open source.
Windows relies on "Security by obfuscation" and even Windows 11 still has parts of it that were originally written for Windows 95 that were ported to Windows NT and still remain there to this day.
So any open sourcing of previous windows versions comes with the risk of revealing a ton of possible exploits to hackers more so than Microsoft own developer can all patch up without breaking all backwards compatibility.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be cool just that its kind of understandable why Microsoft rather not release it.
ultimately if you want opensource, learn linux. there are 100's of different versions out there. some easy to use, almost like windows, some extremely difficult. its not a common operating system, so few actually look for exploits. BUT the versions that are far more user friendly do have a higher risk to exploits.
Not only that, but if you think about it, this tax loophole basically amounts to state-sponsored money laundering. It uses taxpayer funds to reimburse megacorporations and encourage the practice of creating jobs and fueling labour. The spent funds could have come from any other source while the reimbursement comes up clean. Magic
Money laundering is simply moving around YOUR OWN MONEY which the government demands a slice, which is theft. The government doesn't have a right to know how you got your money and the government itself cannot account for the trillions it loses every year. This is money that belongs to other people being used to bribe/lobby, which are multiple crimes.
Do you even understand what a tax write off is? Government don't pay you its just that you don't pay the government on your profit.
that's written less than clearly
As a Gamer, and Musician, I can tell you that this affects the Music Industry as well, and to an extent, this can be said to both industries as Video Games use Music, a lot of them were delisted and/or cannot be re-released because of this Copyright grip ! such a shame reality...
Great video as always 👍
We lost literally hundreds of thousands, honestly maybe into the millions of music pieces from gaming alone. Yeah, some websites archive this and you can see there how many Soundtracks and Gamerips are not listened to anymore.
And then it gets dicey AF owing to different releases of particular tracks that the original is in the PD but not the recordings currently around. So complex and annoying to navigate as a result.
I really don't have a lot of respect for musicians these days for this reason, they're so greedy and would prefer to lose money on lawyers suing game companies out of spite than not being paid for something they were ALREADY PAID FOR
@@polocatfan musicians hardly get paid in the first place, would you rather someone use your artwork or music or writing or whatever without your permission outside of contract terms?
The regular music industry suffers too. I love oldies music. However it is really hard to find that music except for the big hits. My favorite example of obscure music is John Denver music from the eighties and nineties. The seventies stuff is more famous and easier to find. I think a lot of the obscure music from oldies should be public domain. UA-cam has that stuff for free. I think that is amazing.
I remember Atlus shutting down an SMT Imagine private server. Discontinued Online MMOs are even harder to play or experience again. It's not the same when getting an offline version, especially when these games are designed to have multiple players in mind. Unlike Atlus, Ragnarok online has private servers and the original owners doesn't seem to mind.
RO's server software kept getting leaked (beta player here) and people wound up developing their own versions that would work with the client with minimal modification, a good thing since the official global servers got shutdown years ago. Given their legal troubles due to financial mismanagement previously I think part of why we got so lucky was they were more concerned about their legal issues than players and then just let it go. Thankfully some other MMOs and other online games like Starsiege: Tribes the devs released everything to the community to preserve.
Atlus are particular arseholes at times about their rights, Persona 5 they initially asked we just not spoil the final chapter fine cool I can live with that, then the release had everything after the prologue locked so we couldn't stream it from console.
I heard that as well from Ross Scott´s *Dead Game News* Shame on ATLUS for doing that, in a perfect World they would praise and thank the Community for doing such a awesome service. But in this wierd world they decided to even file a Lawsuit against the Community reviving/preserving their "deadgame"🙄
It was shut down because the asshat running it claimed copyright and allegedly accepted donations. It would never have been on Atlus' radar otherwise.
Theres custom community servers for Imagine iirc
I'm glad I can find Imagine elsewhere, otherwise, I would never have known it existed in the first place
The fact that declaring something a "Tax write-off" can get the government to give you money for it is an absolutely terrible concept, and shouldn't be a thing.
I disagree. There are genuine things that should be tax write-offs. Say your company has a road built so you can ship things faster, and you let anyone use that road for free. That should count towards your taxes. You did a public survice.
@@MeepChangeling That's a physical object... or construction. You did perform a service to the city, so, okay, this is fair, you're basically selling the road to the government.
I meant something that nobody benefits from. Like, you make a movie, TV Show, or computer game, and choose not to release it. Why should the government pay you for that?
There's just too many examples of that happening recently. Especially when a thing is actually released, making money, then declared as a tax writeoff.
Lets take Final Space as an example. 3 seasons were released, then Sony declared it a tax write off. It was deleted from steaming services, and basically locked in a vault, just so Sony can get a payout from the government. Why is this a thing?
That’s not how tax write offs work. It’s not the government ‘giving’ you money, it a reduction in how much of your money they can take in taxes.
The mentioning of Nintendo Power just made me remember my giant collection of Tips and Tricks Magazines, I had as a kid/mid-teens stopped getting them around maybe 2005/2006.
Gave them to my Aunt and Uncle to recycle one year cause I had no more room. We ended up finding out they still ended up in a giant landfill cause the recycling program their city had was a scam all those years they were paying for.
Knowing what I know now, should have keep, scanned them and uploaded to an archive somewhere.
I think the original 1790 principle sounds fair enough for games, 14 years + 14 more if you apply for an extension. Probably reasonably fair for other things too, honestly.
I think we should forget the extension and just make it 28 years. That's enough time for you to have a kid and for them to graduate medical school. If you can't figure out how to turn a profit from an idea in just shy of 3 decades, you quite simply do not deserve exclusive rights to the idea.
Just creates an opportunity for a slippery slope. It's not that fair when the big money can just beg for "one more extension please" in perpetuity until they get what they want.
Repeat after me: "Copyright is not for the small guy"
@@fus132I think it was only good for one extension.
I think there's some missed complexity here. We shouldn't underestimate how companies could use short terms like this to their advantage. Imagine publishers mass refusing to publish books from authors, and keeping the copies submitted handy until the copyright runs out. They could then publish lots of books without paying a cent to the original author. There would definitely need to be ways to protect individual creators to prevent them from being abused in that way by large companies.
@@fus132 I mean that is more of an issue with how the law in general works if trail cost wouldn't have to be payed by anyone until the trial concludes and the loser has to pay it all for example would corporations stall tactics suddenly become seriously dangerous as losing could mean a ton of money lost while it won't really get into the finances of the suing party as they don't have to pay till a final judgment has fallen.
The overall problem is that lobbying is allowed period. Force all politicians and there families to be glase houses to the public financially and forbid them from taking money from corporations and suddenly would corruption drop a lot as anyone could clearly see and sue a politician when it happens.
I generally agree with the sentiment that when a company has functionally abandoned a piece of media, it should become public domain on the spot. I think an apt name for software that has become functionally abandoned and as such gets immediately entered into the public domain would be "preservationware", because the very purpose of it being entered into the public domain is to preserve it, rather than letting a business that's no longer profiting off it be the fun police regarding media they apparently only care about in the sense of hoarding access to it despite no longer making money off it. If they want to be able to issue takedowns, they should at the bare minimum be required to re-release the software in a functional state on modern hardware so as to still have financial stakes in the product. Otherwise, if they're not going to sell it, they can't tell others not to preserve and enjoy it.
As someone who can been into collecting many things, I can say with confidence that every "market" of any collectible item I have ever seen has been full of overpriced rip-off listings. Collectors realllyyy get abused by the whole "market price is whatever people are 'willing' to pay" idea.
Very well put together, and I couldn't agree more.
Particularly with the "Just sell me the actual ROM" piece.
I've said this for almost 2 decades at this point.
Just sell me the ROM, and STFU about it, do you guys want my money or NOT?!
I thought this was capitalism FFS.
I have the original cartridge, I have the re-release, the remaster, the remake, the remaster of the remake... tf makes them think I wouldn't buy the ROM?
Probably more than once lol
The problem with that is, if they sell you the ROM, you can emulate it forever. But if they sell you the DRM-encumbered port to the new system, they can sell you another port a couple of years down the line when the next gen console comes out.
It is Capitalism. The short of it is if you don't own the Rom they can sell you the game on each new console or create streaming services which will, unless you're blessed with massive free time, end up costing more then paying for the thing you want specifically. This is more akin to what people call "Late Stage Capitalism" because while in early stages it may work for us as a whole mid-late stages start to naturally corrupt because making money comes above all else.
You can see this in how quality of products have slowly decreased, even Nintendo once know for their near unbreakable consoles now have extensive Joycon Drift being a major issue same with most companies due to using cheaper materials and not having a wide dead zone to sell more controllers.
You pay more, get less, companies earn more, and continue to raise game prices and such despite having more players and selling more digital copies needing less physical production and costs. If you need absolute proof, look at Call of Duty a 70$ game filled to the brim with 1,000s of 20$ Macrotransactions just to look nice.
@@EvenTheDogAgrees Everyone is terrible at backing up data. Resales would be inevitable. Especially if it's convenient. Be so easy to pay a few bucks to download a copy from an online source than archive things and transfer on SD cards and other outdated formats.
turns out capitalism isnt about giving people what they want, it is about making money, and microtrasanctions make more money than selling old games without dlc and paid cosmetics
a single horse cosmetic from wow made more money than starcraft II, and only needed one week of work to make, that is probably why the future expansions of starcraft II focused on heroes so they could sell skins for the heroes, they even changed the terms of service of the world editor so they could profit from user generated content, because they let dota run away
@@EvenTheDogAgreesThe thing about this is, just because you can, doesn't mean you would. I have Kingdom Hearts 2 on PS2. I could've just downloaded Final Mix and called it a day. But then 2.5 HD Remix for PS3 was a thing and... yes of course I bought it. You might be thinking, that's it now right? Well no. Then 1.5 HD and 2.5 HD came for PS4. I could've just played the PS3 version of it, but no. I even bought the PS4 verison of the games, because I reaaaally felt like it. And because of it, I even wanted to gift the "The Story So Far" version, which to my nephew. But he rather got a Switch for his birthday and bought him a Switch game instead. So yes, I even have TWO PS4 copies of Kingdom Hearts now lol. You really think that's the end now? Haha no, I even bought it on Epic Store on top of it some months ago.
What I'm saying is, that there will *always* be people who would buy the game like 5 times, if it's really that damn good. They could sell you the rom of Metal Gear Solid and still be like "Look guys, if you don't have any clue of it or are too lazy: Here is the Master Collection, where we took care of the Psycho Mantis parts and all the other stuff. No need to setup things" and yes, it would still sell.
I love my antique Vectrex. When that company died, the designer put all its IP into the public domain. Sadly, this is the only time I've ever heard of this happening in the industry.
oh there are a ton off free public domain games you can go and download that don't belong to any company anymore.
The fact that "Tax Writeoffs" exist at all is insane.
And also the fact that all of these write-offs are only available to rich people and large companies, which are the ones that should pay the most amount of taxes
@@juand.cardona2208
Aye.
I feel like the real problem is that they exist in this form. If they were only eligible to have the expense of the product written off if they released it and could show it flopped, that'd be one thing. At least then the argument could be, "Hey, we released this, thought the market would want it, but then less people wanted to see it than we thought." There'd still be issues with that because I think studios can make a movie more or less a manufactured hit by advertising it heavily enough, but that is a discussion that could be had.
But when it's stuff like this where it's like "Yeah, we made it and it's completed, but we won't release it", then the issue is literally then why even make it? At that point, it feels like it should just be considered tax fraud.
@@Checkers1993ify
I feel as tax wire-offs have become a way for companies to 0-tax, Instead of a tool for promoting inavation.
It's the poor who take the bruden, whilst the rich make all the profit they want.
to be fair to Disney, steamboat mickey mouse should have automatically remained copyright so long as the character was in use as literally the mascot of the company, like a "use it or loose it" law
Couldn't have said better. Look what happened when the original Winnie the Pooh (not the Disney incarnation) went out public domain. A Winnie the Pooh horror movie titled "Winnie the Pooh: Blood And Honey" (2022) sadly came out. Same thing they're doing with the Steamboat Willie incarnation of Mickey Mouse (as well as his other designs from "Plane Crazy" & "The Gallopin' Gaucho", also from 1928). And I don't wanna think what'll happen when other characters like Donald Duck, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino (aka Serena Tsukino in the Spanish speaking countries of America & USA and Bunny Tsukino in Spain and a few other countries), Mario & Luigi, Chip and Dale, Popeye the Sailor Man, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Batman, Superman and company enter on public domain.
@@swackhumdinger32 I say this is more of a side effect of copyright law making these things seem more mystical and otherwordly. We can't imagine what we will do when these things become public, but talentless people have always existed. But the truth is history shows copyright is more harmful long term for art. How many stories wouldn't exist the way they are if not for public use. Greek mythology, Gilgamesh and thousands of other tales wouldn't have the lore they have now.
@@godfrey4461 Thank you so much for weighing in!
Feeling real bad for the actors and artists that basically just had their carriers stagnate for a year+ with their names not going on something new.
I believe companies shouldn't get a tax break for deciding something wasn't worth putting out there after they've already started working on it.
It's like you've been reading my thoughts. Although, I wouldn't be so generous with a 30 year term, I'd take things back to a 14 year term. I completely agree regarding the selling of roms. I would absolutely buy official roms that are DRM-free from the online store for whatever publisher does so. And I have also floated the idea that they should lose their copyright on things they abandon, the way they would lose a trademark if they don't defend it. How can we lobby our congresscritters to make it happen?
You'll never outbid corporate lobbyists so don't bother, instead get into politics at the local level either running, petitioning or volunteering to help campaigns that have pro preservation platforms and work from there. The internet generation has finally made this into less of an arcane issue as pretty much everyone knows about the blatant copyright abuse via it's tangible effects on content creation and the owning nothing problem from the shift to digital property, so the iron is hot but unfortunately the only people running are boomers who don't understand or talk about the issue, make it into something everyone is expected to have a position on as part of a running platform so they can't keep ignoring it and kicking the can down the road like we've been doing.
@@GodOfOrphans That may be the only way to push things in the right direction. Still going to need a lot of money and someone has to be willing to be the public face with all the risks to life and limb that would entail going against the corporations. Most important, whoever runs has to not only win, but be incorruptible.
@@anon_y_mousse You don't neccessarily need to win just shift the OW enough that it can't be ignored anymore most people don't think about this sort of thing come election time all you really need to do is make it something they do consider come that time and the dominos should start to fall. You don't even need to win to achieve that just force the conversation up. Don't make the same mistake I and a lot of other people do of thinking it's too impossible and getting paralized and demoralized just aim for small achievable targets and the momentum will sort out the rest. EG. since most of copyright law is federal start by getting into say city council and passing ordinance to make the county a sanctuary county for piracy, better yet you can turn the inevitable meltdown the public private oligarchs will throw at you for it into free publicity and make it a local rights issue, that's what I plan to do anyway probably volunteer on a campaign for experience first then do exactly that. Breaking the habit of complacency and sloth is the hardest part and admittedly I'm still working on that part.
@@GodOfOrphans That's an interesting idea, but it'd probably be easier to get something in the curriculum to influence future congresscritters, even so much as to influence the children of existing congresscritters might push things along too. I'm not sure I'd call it sloth if you haven't had the time to do anything. I don't have much spare time, but what little I get I have some personal projects to complete and even if I felt that I could put them on the back burner, I don't think I'd have enough time to influence any elections. I maybe get an hour of continuous free time a week.
I'd give IP holders 15 years, w/the option to renew annually after the 15 years expired...at a cost payable to the public (invoking the example that DISNEY set): 10% of the IP's value, compounded annually.
Basically, if an IP holder wants to keep his/her/its (corporation) IP out of the public domain after 15 years, the IP holder has to pay the whole public -- not just SONNY BONO and a few other people in the Capitol building. IP holders have to pay every year, the renewal amount would increase every year, and failure to pay would drop the IP into the public domain.
Worst-case scenario is that companies like DISNEY would be paying the whole public to cling to their glut of IP -- and the amount they pay would increase to the point that sooner or later it'd be judged better to release the IP into the public domain.
That's why I like the Touhou IP. The creator went in a wildly different approach and it works
The PC-98 touhou games are impossible to purchase (thousands of dollars if you try to get them second hand, and they won't ever get reprinted) and their uploads are consistently DMCA'd. The series is very much just as guilty of this aspect.
@@mastemaherald9939 I'm having difficulty reading from my previous statement that I said it is perfect. The older games were self published to an specific event in a very limited quantity, I think it is kinda obvious why it is hard to get them. Zum stated that he doesn't have much interest in the pre-windows era, if I'm not mistaken.
Touhou IP is public domain but it has ownership. There are guidelines you MUST follow. Also you can get DMCA'd from almost anything nowadays and sometimes it is not even from the owner.
It is not perfect but is better than MOST stuff out there.
Team Shanghai Alice has the reverse ideology (haha) from Nintendo
@@MadsonOnTheWeb Touhou IP ISN'T public domain, technically. ZUN just allows people to do what he allows, while making sure they credit him properly, so there won't be some jackass trying to take the trademark rights via a court.
@@adzi6164 It is fine since you follow the guidelines. My point that is is still better than most things out there
Showing 5 different copyright acts we have had in this country in less than 200 years, each one adding more and more years of copyright protection, really tells the story of greed well. Imagine thinking nearly 3 decades to exclusively profit off of one idea isn't enough
Maybe it was understandable in the 1800’s back when there wasn’t internet, television, or means of quickly traveling. It’s harder to make money without those.
But it is not the 1800’s anymore.
Any abandoneware and defunct games that are no longer in production should be public domains until they are re released or remastered.
Like Kingpin, it's no longer defunct cause it has been remastered for the current gen consoles.
No, there should be a period of time, ten, maybe 15 - 20 years, or if the holding company goes bankrupt, that a title permanently becomes public domain. Rug-pulling because someone finally sees value in the work again years down the line would lead to a different nightmare.
So you want lazy/bad remasters (with possible microtransactioons) and for them to DMCA the older better version?
Re-releases and remasters should be treated separately from the original versions.
@@Nurse_Xochitl it is like playing a dice, some remasters are impressive like ( Duke nukem 3d 20th anniversary, Borderlands handsome collection, Tekken tag HD, kartos games, metal gear solid HD..etc ) while others are terrible ( doom bfg, fable HD, GTA trilogy, Kingpin...etc.. )
piracy is ethical until abandonware is public
There are so many hidden gems when it comes to abandonware just a treasure trove of old projects that are usually not even bad games just didn’t sell for whatever reason.
As a creative, there's a saying in our world that goes "Once a creative goes corporate, it is no longer creative. It is all profit.'
The worst part of copyright is absolutely when a company just sits on an IP. It's one thing when a company is protecting its rights to make money, it's something else entire when they are doing nothing except preventing anyone form making money. My general opinion would be that in cases of abandonment copyright should be 10 years at the absolute most and maybe as little as 5 years. Although in the latter case it might be okay if a company can file for an additional 5 year extension if they demonstrate a clear intent to make the product available again, but only if there would also be penalties for failing to actually deliver within that allotted extension.
As for general copyright on active properties, a flat 50 years with no extensions should be enough. Even if someone wrote a bestselling novel as young as their 20s, that would still be long enough for residuals to last into retirement, by which point it's entirely their own fault if they've squandered that money or failed to produce any other work.
Additional work really should be the only defense a company needs to be litigious. It's worth noting that even if Disney had allowed the copyright on Steamboat Willy to expire, it would only be that exact depiction of Micky Mouse that would have been public domain. We certainly would have seen the animated short itself included on DVD compilation, and third party manufactures might have made figurine and plushes of the character. Anything that's not an exact copy though would be a dangerous minefield, because even something as simple as making a colored version of Micky could be infringement on the later copyrighted works Disney still owned.
Thinking about the piss poor state of game preservation is honestly just infuriating. Thank you for championing the art, man.
Discovered this channel a few months ago and was pleased to see a collection of mature views on gaming as an artform (that is worth preserving) and business (that is worthy of fair criticism). Expressing my solidarity 😌
With how a lot of companies want to censor or withhold certain forms of media because it doesn't fit the current society, I question why they need to have copyright last so long.
When a project gets written off, it makes it very hard for the workers to get their next job, because we rely on IMDB credits as part of our resume, and unreleased projects look like a major resume gap.
Many old game classics can be downloaded in good versions ( good mods and twaeks for modern systems), like those popular Need for Speed games.
What I fear is that with modern titles that are online only, even for single player, it becomes harder and harder to crack/ preserve them and the DLC when the servers will be shut down in a few years. For example Need for Speed Heat that requires EA desktop and online connection to play Solo or the old Driveclub game that vanished with its DLC´s forever...
I get that companies want to protect their IP, but there must be some legal option that makes a product available again after the publisher doesnt sell a game for years and has lost interest...
It's a good thing that much of those modern AAA games are hot garbage and aren't really worth preservation.
@@kaden-sd6vb Yeah, I can't imagine in 20 years people will *really* be itching to give Fallout 76 or Anthem a whirl.
@@fearlesswee5036 That hot garbage might be future historical context for the state of gaming in the mid 2010s. Hubris, laziness, disregard for IP integrity, how comfortable big brands were with chasing trends,
Heat was cracked
So bad example but whatever.
@@Damian-cilr2 Had to buy it for 6 Euros because UNITE mod only installs on legit copies. So the modders actually got EA another sale, even if its just 6 Euros :)
just imagine that EA releases the source code of the blackbox games and made the public domain, those games would be alive much more
I'd do _anything_ to return copyright to its original "14 years, with the ability to file for a SINGLE 14 year renewal" form. There's utterly NO reason for anything longer than 30 years.
5:38 Silent Hill 4 is not abandonware anymore, it's available for purchase on gog and has been updated to run on modern systems.
How? Did Konami okay it?
@@pcharl01 yeah everything on GOG has been a result of negotiations with the rights holders to fix it up so it will run on modern systems and be sold again. Which to give CDP their credit can be a massive struggle just to chase down who currently owns what at times on top of the technical issues of getting a 19 YO game working on a modern OS.
@@cericatI'll always give props to CDPR for GoG. Great platform. It's not perfect but I have so many of thw games I love backed up, DRM free thanks to GoG.
It's very hard for a lot of abandonware which includes a host of different copyrights to ever become public domain
Consider a game like NFS: Underground 1 & 2. No way their extensive licensed soundtracks, and licensed car-related brands are going to be shared openly and freely just like that, in a legally clear manner
The best course of action is to leave these games to a legal grey area, and have the people that want them download them from Abandonware-related websites
The more you poke the bear, the worse things will get here. Companies, the music industry, all manners of brands, etc, will try to extort you if they can. And if they had the power (which fortunately they do not have) some of them would rather have a product be completely erased than having people freely distribute unlicensed stuff
I think studios' motive for locking away unreleased works (as opposed to making them public domain) basically boils down to, "If we can't make a profit from it, nobody can". Sending a work to public domain, from the studio's point of view, is essentially pulling a Springtime For Hitler gambit-- sure, it will probably fail, but there's always the chance that it COULD become a hit, but the studio might not see a penny from it. So the studio would rather can the project than run the risk of some random schmoes potentially making millions at the studio's expense.
That's just my theory though.
The worst part is this could all be solved by the original intent behind public domain, things were supposed to become public domain after two decades, and that's it. Now it's literally a hundred years.
About a year ago, I downloaded Silent Hill 3 for PC. I got a big "scary" (they tried lol) letter from my ISP telling me I'm a bad, bad man and need to stop *_or else._* That game is 100% abandonware, but they still felt the need to give me a stern warning. Kinda hilarious.
seriously your isp cares about what you download? damn that’s over stepping control
@@Shrewbloom pirating shit in the US without a VPN will most likely get your ISP mad at you
You said piracy is cool and immediately had me
yes!!
In the age of "owning nothing and being happy", I think we should all strive to live by this addage; "If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing."
@@fearlesswee5036 Piracy isn't stealing because stealing requires depriving someone of something. If I could create a copy of my neighbor's car he wouldn't complain...
This video is dumb though... the reason games aren't on sale is because no one wants to buy them, not because companies are hoarding them. Libraries are full of books no one every reads. EBay is full of games no one ever plays. Pretending it's an availability issue is pointless.
@@davidlloyd1526 ah yes, because nobody plays classic games anymore?? wtf is this take
@@davidlloyd1526 I can give you several examples where this is nowhere near the case, but how about I just give an egregious one?
Battle for Middle Earth II. A game which cannot legally be distributed anymore because EA's license ran out yet which still has an active playerbase and modding base. It was never that there wasn't a market for it, it was a popular RTS game that was also the sequel to another popular RTS, and it lasted long enough to get an expansion pack.
I feel like a 30 years dead line with extensions that cost money (exact lengths and prices undecided) would be a great midpoint. It gives companies that really need to keep their icon of being (Disney) a way to keep their image safe, forces the owners to push to "use this license they're paying to keep around," and will make abandonments publicly confirmed because "extension was not filed in time."
a 7-10 year deadline for media with expectation and one non deadlined mascot slot with a public database of former an current copyrights. compaies have 10 years to make their money from a specifc game or film and they have a slot for their current mascot. it encourages using media while you have it an single mascot slot so its a waste if they are not currently being used.
Emulation (including all the technical problems it brings) is still currently the only viable long term preservation method. Unfortunately the game companies are against preservation, even while not directly admitting it, as they see that the older titles cannibalizes revenue from their recent offerings.
It doesn't help the older games tend to be x10 times better....
The problem is the fear of failure is magnified because of how expensive everything is these days. We don't get mid range games or movies anymore, its either extreme blockbuster or indie project. The mid range movie, something like that Wiley Coyote movie will never get a release simply because the numbers won't ever favor it in terms of profit. Its a real shame too, a lot of cult classics started as mid range movies or games. We are losing a complete section of art due to financial fear.
I'm very much in favor of a "use it or lose it" approach to copyright. You have companies like Nintendo where there are games they are doing literally nothing with but they shut down every attemt at sharing those abandoned games.
Companies only see games as "cash cows", they milk it dry and let it die! This should be solved ASAP
It makes me feel better that I made endless plans for games in the same "franchise" I made up- since by making up the ideas and they;re not real, I'm designing them out of passion.
In probably a lot of situations, putting abandonware in the public domain would just be impossible because the games although abandoned, contain trademarked material (logos, brands, music, characters etc...) for example NSF:U2 definitely used trademarks for the various vehicles, vehicle upgrades etc... and I bet companies like Toyota, Nissan, Porshe would have a problem with something that was made using their name and logo becoming public domain, no matter how old or neglected it is. Perhaps something similar to public domain would fit better considering.
Maybe we just need official policies surrounding abandoned ware. Legislation can define the different types of abanondedware like this UA-camr pointed out and it could include basic principles that protect a preservationist from being sued just like the Good Samaritan law protects people from situations like a failed CPR attempt.
A copyrighted work going into the public domain would not put an actively used, keyword actively used, trademark into the public domain as well.
Trademark is not a part of copyright and has to be actively combated so as it does not become generic.
It's a pity that so much great stuff is buried and not used. I even rather see it get licensed out then rotting away.
The best way I've found to run old Windows games is Linux. Wine and Bottles emulate them pretty well. Mechwarrior 3 gave me a bit of trouble, for example, but I solved it in the end. Others like Blade of Darkness or Vampire The Masquerade Redemption run well either that way or using Proton with the Steam versions. Gog, Linux and Steam are very helpful
That's because MS has stopped maintaining the older APIs. DirectX 8 and 9 actually run better in Linux with Proton now than they do under Windows 10. Intel got a huge boost in performance on ARC with older games when they stopped using windows native DirectX 8 and 9 and instead baked the Linux D3D to Vulkan wrapper into their windows driver.
@@atomicskull6405 very instructive 💪🏻 thanks
Yeah! Many games that just don't run on Windows, or are really buggy, run perfectly on my Steam Deck.
Do you know what WINE stands for?
Yesssssssssss. There sould be a law in the us that says any game that hasn't had an update or any type of rerelease in the last decade since its last update sould go into public domain
worlds adrift was hard for a lot of the community. looking at the steam community hub it shows many people like myself visit it and share our memories with the game even tho its been a few years since its been shut down all of us feel robbed and want it back
Man I remember this. I used to mess around in the editor I believe. Sucked when we got the news I was always hoping this game would be something special.
Use it or lose it. At least so abandon software can be shared freely legally. Then there are IP rights and stuff, so maybe modifications and reselling should be done under other names and maybe with some changed, depending if it is a big update that is not in a expansion form. However, distribution of a game for free with a sale of expansion or a update pack I think should be legal. The code should become open source.
Awesome idea, but it would poise a bad position for corpos.
So probably will never happens.
NAL, but I would imagine the problem with the "pd upon abandonment" concept is that it would require a legally valid definition of "abandonment" that the publishers couldn't find a loophole around. e.g. if we define "abandonment" as "withdrawal from sale", then the publishers could get past it by saying that all of their discontinued products were still available for purchase indefinitely at a cost of $15,000 per title, subject to a buyer approval process over which the publisher retains sole discretion. Technically not withdrawn from sale; completely unavailable in reality.
if a product is no longer available by official channels, especially when it's unique content rather than just an older version of an updated software there is basically Zero damage/revenue loss to the original content publisher, if anything these older free programs may actually drum up more of a following to content that came after people might not have otherwise been willing to foot the massive price tag of the newer games without trying the older ones first
I'd say that the best way to get the suggestions in this video a reality is for us Europeans to contact the EU concerning these kinds of things, and have the various governments join together to strong-arm these mega corpos into benefitting humanity a bit more.
Also, I hella wish old games could just be re-released without getting an overhaul that detracts from the aesthetics of the graphics, and in certain cases changes sound effects for the worse, etc. etc. a la Crash, Medievil, Spyro, etc.
I think this would be great, with one exception. Things where the property is still being used. For example, if a Yu-Gi-Oh game becomes abandonware, it should be fine to freely redistribute it, but the cards and ip shouldn't become public domain. But if the ip is abandoned as well, then it should also become public domain.
There are also _massive_ swathes of novels from the mid-20th century where it's nearly impossible to determine ownership, which means that these works are functionally lost, even if you can buy them in used bookshops. Nobody can reprint or adapt them, and digital preservation is just as legally messy as it is with software.
But unlike software, books degrade. Many were only ever printed on cheap paper, meaning potentially every copy may have disintegrated by the time they're allowed into the public domain.
A large portion of these books were definitely intended to be disposable (much like movies in the early lost years of cinema) but many were not, and either way, that's for readers, not publishers, to judge, and I guarantee you there are buried masterpieces in there from authors who were never given a fair shake and whose works are going to be lost forever because of laws designed to protect a cartoon mouse.
It breaks my heart.
This is a fantastic video that will never be heard by anyone that matters.
It makes too much sense (cents) and corporations and corrupt governments/politicians only speak in dollars.
Abanonware effectively IS public domain.
However, the right to exclusively monopolise a product should also be treated as a commitment to keep the thing available to buy,
What we need is to stop monopolization/anti-competitive business practices... or at the very least restrict it heavily.
Capitalism only works when there is competition, and consumers boycott bad/greedy business practices.
Sucks that no way in hell will anyone lower copyright years because that would mean a company might lose valuable dollars and the government doesn't want their babies losing their precious money
To be fair, Silent Hill 4 (at least the PC version) is no longer abandonware ever since it got added to GOG, so that's at least one game less from that 26,000+ amount.
Yes ROM store FTW. It would actually be great that way even new consoles will see Emulators as a new product to sell and get an instant boost to game library for their console. Especially if they really get into it. The People that rip their own games are winners too.
abandoned games are one thing. that's a piece of art lost, sure, but in other areas abandonware can be way worse:
there used to be a company called "second sight" that developed bionic eye replacements for blind people. they weren't anywhere near perfect, but seeing 80 black/white pixels is still a *lot* more than seeing nothing at all.
the problem? this wasn't profitable. it couldn't be. so you can imagine what was bound to happen - the company folded* and thus, there was nobody left to maintain the software those bionic eyes were running. in turn meaning that all these people who had gotten their eyesight back lost it again.
blind again, but still carrying that dead weight in their heads. which introduced other problems: one of the patients might have a brain tumor (or something along those lines). a CT scan couldn't clear that, so they'd have to do an MRI to figure it out - which is kinda a bad idea when you've got a bunch of metal inside the head you're trying to scan. second sight used to offer advice for this, but obviously there was nobody left there.
at the time the article i read was released, it was still unknown if the patient had anything in their head.
so i'd have a more radical pitch: when software that's still actively used in medicine or critical infrastructure is abandoned, it must *immediately* be given to a different maintainer or at the very least be made open-source. anything else is irresponsible and actively harming people.
* to be precise, they merged with some other company to form some new company that's trying to do the whole bionic vision thing again, but connecting directly to the brain this time. after reading the text above, i'll leave judging whether that's a good idea up to you.
This should also include different versions of games that are on sale. For example, Wolfenstines' PC version is on steam, but what about the superior 3DO and Atari Jaguar versions? Some versions of games have completely different content.
On top of everything else to like about this video, you can tell by your tone that feel passionately about this. A lot of video essays are lacking that these days, thanks for keeping it alive
It's the same argument a manager at the McAlister's Deli I used to work at tried to use to keep anyone from eating the food that customers refused or sent back untouched. "It might be going in the trash, but it's still our property. You eat that, I have to write you up for stealing from the company." Like they ever paid their employees enough for that to mean anything.
I think not just the public outcry, but WB saw potential projects get canceled even before the initial pitch meetings as the project proponents saw that there was a good chance WB would cancel any project, so they decided to eschew WB and shop elsewhere for a producer who was more likely to see the projects through properly.
5:43 Typing of the dead, abandonware?
**Checks steam library. Hmm.... clicks on the store page.
Whew.
Yep, it's definitely there.
Guessing you're talking about Overkill specifically, not the same as the original Naomi/DC game which yeah is MIA at this point, what we have specifically is a mod of the Wii game House of the Dead: Overkill.
Something I dislike is when a company gets bought or is absorbed up into it's parent company and then they start reselling their works decades after. You're paying to absolutely random people that had nothing to do with what they sell. Bonus points when it's some remake/remaster/port that's way different than the original that is now inaccessible legally.
A game named 4x4 Evo was released for PC in the year 2000. Terminal Reality Inc. provided a special license and some enthusiasts are still maintaining the game alive after almost 25 years.
Actually, I saw Oregon Trail on Steam. It was released last year. That said, I do think there needs to be a rework of stuff so that older stuff becomes public domain as I want the Wiiware version of LIT (mobile version doesn't hold a candle to that version), Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Championship/Sonic the Fighters, Tail Concerto, The Darkness 1, and Go! Go! Hypergrind.
However, it's worth pointing out that some of this old stuff can come back. Bubsy went MIA after Bubsy 3D. Splatterhouse is another example, there was a big gap between Splatterhouse 3 on the Sega Genesis and Splatterhouse for PS3 with the older games being unlocked in the game as you progress minus the Famicom game.
As for your solutions, you're on to something as a hybrid solution might work, but I think it should be closer to the original 14 years. I'd say 10 specifically and the retroactive censorship of Skull Girls reaffirms my stance on that number, but you can apply for updated versions for newer hardware and better designs, but all the older stuff will be public domain including the source code. This means the N64, Gamecom, Playstation, Gamecube, Dreamcast, and PC Platinum Edition versions of Resident Evil 2 would be public domain, but the Steam Remaster version wouldn't be.
I'd love to get the source code for all of the old games I played as a kid so that I could port them to my current system.
@@anon_y_mousse In addition to games lost to time such as the ones I've listed, I am also interested in scrapped prototypes as I wonder what could have been. Example, Dinosaur Planet for N64. I wonder what it could have been if it didn't become a Star Fox game. Another would be that Sonic game would have been based on Sonic SatAM if it hadn't been changed to Sonic Extreme and then canceled. Mother 3 (Earthbound 64) is another good example.
I also think that if these older works were released into the public domain, updated versions of games would have more effort into them. Example, Sega wouldn't be able to use delisting of the previous versions of those four Sonic the Hedgehog games on Steam to get people to buy Sonic Origins as people would be able to legally get Sonic 1, 2, 3 Complete, and CD legally for free. As such, they'd have to put more effort into it such as upgrading the visuals. Maybe make them look more like Sonic 2 HD, Sonic 4, Sonic Advance, or maybe a behind Sonic camera perspective such as the Modern Sonic stages from Sonic Generations. We could also have more lost levels restored into these games.
@@Ness_and_Sonic Yeah, that's another great avenue too. I found a website last year that had archived prototype versions of old console games, like PS1 and 2, OG XBox, etc. Like even just the demo disc I had for the first Spyro had elements that were different to the final game, and it'd be cool if certain things were explored more, but to see that some were going in completely different directions is neat.
It's a remake. The zombie infested parody The Organ Trail is actually far more like the original being a reskin but with far more options and replayability. It's definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the original. I enjoy it many times more.
@@AngryCalvin Not surprising as I saw multiple versions such as #th editions. A friend of mine said he liked playing that on the school's computers growing up, so I wonder if the remake is any good. I might see if it goes on sale during the Christmas event for him.
Shoutout to my friends & I behind the fan project of "Guitar Hero World Tour Definitive Edition" A free fan-made mod that takes most (eventually all) assests from every Guitar Hero game & puts it into one big love letter of a game!
It makes sense as to why Activision left GH as abandonware (we loathe them for killing the franchise twice) but at least us fans can make a better product than what theyre willing to make
This video showed up on my home feed, never heard of you before, and you’ve immediately earned a new subscriber. I earn my living as a developer (although as a consultant, currently on a government project) and nothing of the things I’ve worked on has been actively supported for more than 5 years, and no client has ever used their tailored software for more than maybe 10 years. A lot of those projects could effing flourish if the source was released in to the public domain, without hurting us or the clients, even if they’re niche stuff.
I agree.
Quite frankly the idea that something can't be distributed _AT ALL_ because the company that owned the rights went bankrupt, but _someone somewhere_ still owns the copyright, and may not even _know_ they own it, is completely rediculous.
Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a video in my recommendations and instantly thought, “Hey, I already agree with this.”
Like this video just hits down every single point on the flaws with video game preservation these days, and exactly what I want to see.
I’ve already held the view that if a company is unwilling to provide a legal avenue for accessing a specific type of media (whether that be a videogame, movie, etc,) the company should be legally forced to release said media into the public domain for preservation reasons.
You even off-handedly mention the issue of online games always shutting down (I was already made aware of this issue from Ross on the channel Accursed Farms). Ross has really campaigned against online-only games/games as a service/streaming games with no end-of-life plan as being a threat to video game preservation.
It takes much work from fans to create private servers without the server software, so even then, some smaller games that got shut down may not get revived by fans.
Generally, this video touches on some of the concerns I’ve had with video game preservation and media preservation. Have a like!
Completely agree. Epics discusting treatment of Unreal Gold is a prime exsample.
The problem I can see with a law for abandonware is that companies will try to do the bare minimum to avoid being technically "abandoned". Say you make a law that says if some media hasn't been available to buy or had new copies printed in 10 years then it gets released to the public domain. They could work around it by printing a handful of new copies every 10 years. Maybe they could even sell each one for a ridiculous price.
Maybe the law could be written to avoid that particular loophole, but there are probably many others.
I think corporate copyright should be more like patents, which were intentionally kept short to ensure that inventors kept creating new things rather than just sit back and coast on their past works. The idea was, a limited period of exclusivity would be granted for the inventor to capitalize on their invention, and this would thus incentivize the time and effort of creating the thing in the first place. But the window of exclusivity was limited, and thus you'd need to make new things to keep making money. The public domain destination was the point of it, the system existed to incentivize the creation of new things that would, after making their creator a nice hunk of wealth, go on to enrich the entire population by adding to the collective knowledge base.
Can you imagine what effect that would have on the entertainment industry? They couldn't just milk old IP forever, or if they did produce new things using that IP they'd have to make damned sure it was good because anyone and everyone could compete. If you want the halo of exclusivity, you have to create something new and make the most of the limited time that buys you before the idea goes up for grabs for anyone to use to create something new based on. We'd get so much more actually new IPs created as companies would have a genuine financial interest in creating them, taking the risk to float them and to support them if they spark and develop them into something that becomes able to stand the test of time.
As a bonus, works using existing IPs would have to meet a higher standard because they'd face competition. Exclusivity is monopoly, and monopoly inevitably leads to apathy and inertia. Why do better when your customers have no choice but take whatever mediocre low-effort thing you crank out or do without? Why bother putting in the effort of making the best "Beloved IP" production you can when you can slap the name and brand logo on any old crap and it will sell based on the built-in loyalty established long ago when the thing was actually good and earned its fanbase which you now coast on the backs of? Competition would ensure they had to.
I agree. But patents also have a serious problem (look up "patent trolls") and you'll see what I mean.
People like to blame capitalism for all our problems, but they never look at the real problem at it's core... selfish human greed.
By preventing monopolies and other anticompetitive/anticonsumer business practices, we'd be a lot closer to fixing a lot of our problems.
You're not wrong about businesses around the world still using ancient technology for their operations. I worked for a small accounting office around 2018-2019, and during the time that I worked there, they just _barely_ made the jump from Windows XP to Windows 7 (and keep in mind, Windows 10 was already out for a good 3 years at this point). They also made regular use of fax machines, and invoices were printed out on a devastatingly loud dot matrix printer that you could hear from the complete opposite end of the building.
The internet archive keeps everything public, things that will be lost or forgotten can be found there, the people that upload and archive are the real ones
You make some great points and I like your ideas on how to fix the issues.
Building an XP retro rig has made me absolutely insane about this issue. I spent 2 hours in EA live chat trying to explain that yes, you can install The Sims 3 without Origin or the EA app. In fact, the game was sold to me before Origin even existed. I bought the game knowing I was buying a disk with all of its contents. They used to provide you with your product keys if you asked, and they were in the registry. Guess what? They've gone to the trouble of REMOVING those keys if they existed in your registry when you updated to the EA app. They do NOT want you to install ANY of their games, no matter how old, without them watching over your shoulder the whole time. Which means if you want to play on period accurate hardware.... tough titties.
Steam is worse. Fortunately a lot of XP era games had disk releases.... the ones that didn't.... good luck getting them to work, because Steam patches every possible way that a miniscule amount of people using retro rigs have contrived to download and play games legally on Steam. Steam ditches support on Windows 7 and 8 next month. I would bet 95% of games designed for these systems never saw a physical release. Even pirated copies of games like these will physically not run without a Steam emulation layer. None exists for XP. They do for 7/8 -- but as Steam continues to update these games into perpetuity, what will happen when these games become incompatible with the original systems they were designed for? Who will maintain an archive of these older/original versions? What if these Steam emulators become outdated or require features that these systems cannot use? We will lose the ability to play games on their original hardware. And I think that's a damn shame.
Patents should not exist and copyright should expire 20 years after creation - the world would be a lot better place for it.
Situation with MMORPGs is most painful for me.
It is hard to accept that people will never be able to play some games.
Even forced open sourcing won't help, because developers adapted "shittification" practice:
Game is made to be most fun at release, then it gradually becomes worse.
When servers shuts down, game is almost unplayable.
In such case, it is hard to say which exact version worth preservation.
And there is almost no chance that source code for that exact version actually exists somewhere.
I mean, if the source code is available, surely it's possible to just...remove the negative elements added later in the game's life? If source code wasn't available then yeah you're SOL with whatever version happens to be archived and functional.
I think the problem with "abandonware" as a moniker is that it doesn't have a legal status, what I think would the job in practice though is limiting copyright to say 40 years past the creation date of the work. This would ensure the copyright holders are incentivized to extract value from their work while they can and not just sit on works to collect dust for up to ~100 years.
Edit: guess I should have watched the entire video, same talking point at the end lol.
When a company stops trying to make money off a product (e.g. halts updates, hosting, and bug fixes on a game) they can't reasonably say that sharing it publicly (99% of the time FOR FREE) is costing them losses from sales. That's the inherent flaw with copyright law. It gives companies wholesale reign to claim possible, NON-EXISTENT losses of money when the consumers try to share something with the public at large just because they appreciate the product itself. That's why I have been a staunch supporter of file sharing since I first installed Limewire way back on my old gateway desktop when I was a kid. Corporate profits should take a backseat when the profits aren't being made to begin with.
I wonder if there is space for a compromise where the publisher loses control of the game itself but still holds the sole right to profit from that IP. This would allow game sharing and community modding but stop a movie studio from profiting off of a game that may have a cult following
I think that sounds reasonable; when a game becomes "abandonware" status, it's public domain in the sense you can freely distribute and obtain it, but cannot profit off of it. This is more likely to get passed in congress than a "scorched earth; everything's free" policy. (Still unlikely, but more likely than the alternatives.)