Video Game History Foundation’s Proposed Exemption To DMCA For Game Preservation Denied By US Copyright Office

One of the biggest problems when it comes to video games is preserving them so that those that are out-of-print aren’t lost to the community as a whole. With books, this is generally solved by libraries gathering out-of-print works or possibly digitizing them so that people may still be able to read them. This isn’t really something that happens with games. In fact, DMCA more or less prevents it.

That’s why the Video Game History Foundation filed a proposition with the US Copyright Office for an exemption to the DMCA that would help with supporting game preservation. That proposition has been denied with the Copyright Office citing statements from the Entertainment Software Association. In their statements, the ESA suggests that the VGHF failed to “propose a clear requirement to know who the users are or why they want access to a game”.

For the Copyright Office’s part, its statement regarding the request in the Registers’ Recommendation of Copyrights indicates that the VGHF has failed to show that “reproducing works to allow for multiple simultaneous uses in the computer program class is likely to be fair”. The same was said of “the proposed off-premises use in the video game class”.

In response, the VGHF issued its own statement in which it noted they would continue to advocate “for greater access and legal allowance for video game preservation”.