Read a comment a while ago that if libraries weren't a thing today and someone would propose them, the FBI would be on their ass and stalk after them for even suggesting such radical views. Copyright law is utterly broken and a disservice to society in it's current form and execution. Politicians need to get their fat fingers out of the stock market by law.

The DMCA is a curse.

FTA

Industry groups argued that those museums didn’t have “appropriate safeguards” to prevent users from distributing the games once they had them in hand. They also argued that there’s a “substantial market” for older or classic games, and a new, free library to access games would “jeopardize” this market. Perlmutter agreed with the industry groups.

So as long as someone, somewhere, might make a penny off of them, they can't be free. Insert your own metaphor here.

People will just continue pirating those games then.

It sounds like the problem is not with the feds but with the DMCA. It needs to be overturned.

Feds are wrong, or would be if copyright continued to serve its original purpose (according to the Constitution of the United States) to create a robust public domain.

All media should be accessible through public libraries, and arguments by federal courts presumes that the public does not have vested interest in content. It presumes the government isn't there to serve the public, which raises questions as to why we have government in the first place.

Yo ho ho and fuck the police

They’re right. I have been using old videos games for recreation. Too bad that they’ve decided to prevent me from paying for the privilege or at least being tracked through library usage and have instead decided it’d be better if I was just an untrackable “criminal”

Either way, I’m enjoying these old games and living my life guilt free.

OK, I'll download them then.

“Fair Use” is a thing. Someone needs to go back to law school.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

The irony!

Sharing is caring

And thus. Again, piracy seems to be the moral choice

Shithole country.

insane takeover of the public square here.

Land of the Free, everybody

good emulators out there. haven't tried any lately

Oh yeah? ~reaches for feathered Tricorn~

You don't say? ~shifts buckaneer coat across shoulders~

No, you don't mean that? ~straps on pistol/saber belt~

Why would you say such a thing ya daft cunt ? ~quote by nearby African Grey Parrot~

https://youtu.be/gP9qaDhcSwQ?si=fXLBBjA0VxJeHcja

The problem with these fundamental rulings is that they're largely trying to fit square objects through round holes. When a simple ruling is made to essentially say "to current law, no", the law itself ultimately becomes meaningless, because older games couldn't be easier to pirate. Most of them are smaller than a TikTok video, and are so cheap/easy to host that you'll never stop them from being shared. Hell, emulation has come so far that you can effectively emulate these games on a browser, on multiple devices, even devices that don't natively support gaming.

The smart thing to do would be to say that maybe the legal framework that embodies retro gaming needs to be researched and heavily considered. It's a hard task that'll require many lawyers, many fights, and lots of lobbying to ensure the word of law is worth something. Sadly, it's easier to say "lol no" and to essentially just promote piracy.

Does this mean my library isn't allowed to have games you can check out anymore? It's been doing that (and other things that aren't books) for at least a decade now with donated items.

I'm glad I keep backup copies of anything that might be important later on, like the 40 gig MAME Rom library.

Well, maybe we need a movement to make physical copies of these games and the consoles needed to play them available in actual public libraries, then? That doesn't seem to be affected by this ruling and there's lots of precedent for it in current practice, which includes lending of things like musical instruments and DVD players. There's a business near me that does something similar, but they restrict access by age to high schoolers and older, and you have to play the games there; you can't rent them out.

I could lend out my old computer with old games installed to somebody else to use, right?

What if instead i lend my hard drive, is it still the same thing? Or what if I lend out my remote access screen sharing password to my old PC. Still the same?

Maybe the legal workaround is to game the system here a bit - forget downloading executables which feels a lot like pirating and just lend access to a system that is legally running the original license.

Alright. Now enforce it. Good luck with that.