[HN] Study: 87% of classic video games are not legally available

aion@lemmy.world to RetroGaming@lemmy.world – 743 points – 87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games | Video Game History Foundation
gamehistory.org

cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/41704

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This may be hot take, but I think games are art and are part of our cultural legacy, and making steps that stops us from enjoying us from that legacy should be considered a crime, especially when they put at risk art disappearing forever.

How can I reconcile it with, say, as a private entity, I have the right to withhold sharing my ideas or creations for whatever reason?

You have the right to withhold sharing your creations. If you never release anything at all then the above would not apply. This is about if you release something then years later stop making it available and prevent anybody from ever making a copy again.

(And the reason for that distinction is sound: the unreleased work is like nothing ever existed, the released work is part of the public culture.)

That hinges on the idea that nontangible assets are not scarce (which IMO applies or might just as well apply if it's in the internet). You are not entitled to a boxed copy of ET (1982), but the same arguments can't be applied to electronic copies of it.

I'm talking about having the right to never release a work to the public in the first place (replying to another comment on that). This has nothing to do with scarcity.

The simple argument is: you can choose to create something and never give it to anyone. Nobody is entitled to take it (that is a basic privacy principle). But if you do release something to the public, either for free or for sale, then there should be rules protecting the public's access to that work.

This doesn't mean it has to be the end of copyright. Yes there's no scarcity, but there still needs to be a function incentive to create the work in the first place, so a little artificial scarcity creates that incentive. But once the work has had a reasonable lifetime under copyright, or is no longer legally available, then yes we absolutely should be able to access it as part of the public domain.

Why should the government be enlisted to prevent the distribution of work?

The whole reason for copyright to exist is to provide a means for people to make money on their cultural work. How is society made better by removing works from the public?

In theory, a way for an artist to independently sustain continuous output of creations.

But how so? The only way it potentially makes sense is a Disney Vault like idea, but even then that only provides additional value for very old works that could be argued should be part of the public domain.

I can't think of a case where an artist would ban publication of their own work made within the last 20 years to make money, but please let me know of a potential case.