"Obsolete" games legal to download?

[Alexvrb]

http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/ga...ews/31559.shtml

Here's a bit of the article:

The Library of Congress has recently granted copyright exemptions in the Digital Millenium Act to obsolete games. The exemption applies to games that require the original hardware as a condition of access, and if the game is “no longer manufactured or reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.”

 

[mal]

I think to say that obsolete games are legal to download is a bit of a stretch.

I was under the impression that this just allows people to circumvent copy protection on computer software protected by dongles which are obsolete or that don't work and computer software copy-protected by a media that is obsolete (including old games).

As far as I can tell, this means that you still have to own them, but you wouldn't be prosecuted under the DMCA if you were to get around the copy protection to continue to use them.

I'll move this to general for now, unless someone can back up this 'free to download' line and it will go to news.

I read up on this at The Register.

 

[ExCyber]

mal pretty much has it. The exemption is not for copyright in general, just Sec. 1201 anticircumvention rules. Copyrights are still perpetual in the US until Congress decides to get out of bed with big media. See, the Supreme Court ruled that even though the Constitution says that copyrights must be for a limited time, it's legal for Congress to keep extending them forever as long as there's a chance they'll decide not to next time.

 

[antime]

There's been a lot of people posting this rubbish on Usenet and message boards, but you'd think that a print magazine would do even rudimentary fact-checking.. I predict this will be the new "24h rule".

 

[aaron]

mal totally said "dongles"

 

[mal]

Worse than that, I was talking about things protected by dongles.