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https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/13/study-the-overwhelming-majority-of-historical-video-games-are-endangered/>
"Video games are a form of art and a form of expression. While that used to be
somewhat controversial to state decades ago, nobody of any value really argues
that point any longer. And the moment you accept that simple fact, it throws
into light how absolutely absurd it is that the preservation efforts of
libraries and museums are so severely hampered for this one type of art
compared with others, such as music and film. Industry lobbying groups have
been able to successfully block getting these institutions exemptions from
copyright law to better share this cultural history with the world by stating
two rebuttals: such cultural sharing would hurt the industry’s sales, and it’s
all unnecessary anyway because the industry is already preserving games and
making them available to people.
The first point is a silly one. Why should libraries preserving and making
available historical video games be any more of a threat to the industry than
their handling of books, film, and television? It shouldn’t. All libraries are
asking for is for the same rules to apply, but currently these institutions can
only share this art on-premise, versus being able to make it available
digitally. It’s an uneven playing field.
As to the claim that the industry is doing this all just fine already, well,
the always great Video Game History Foundation has put out a study
demonstrating that the industry has done an absolute shit job of this,
actually."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
