SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

January 13, 2022 by Gary Price

Washington Post: “Academics Want to Preserve Video Games. The Game Industry Is Fighting Them in Court.”

January 13, 2022 by Gary Price

From The Washington Post:

For decades, champions of the video game industry have touted gaming’s cultural impact as the equal of literature, film and music. Traditionally, the classic works from those mediums have been preserved for study by future generations, and amid gaming’s global rise in relevance, a group of video game scholars and advocates is pushing to preserve the game industry’s historic titles and legacy in a similar fashion. In the process, though, the would-be preservationists have found a number of challenges that include, ironically, legal opposition from video game companies and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade organization that lobbies on behalf of game publishers.

A 2018 report by the Association of Research Libraries found that archivists are “frustrated and deeply concerned” regarding copyright policies related to software, and they charge the current legal environment of “imperiling the future of digital memory.” The obstacles archivists face range from legal restrictions around intellectual property to the technological challenges of obtaining or re-creating versions of the various consoles, computers and servers required to play various titles published over the years. Not only must the games be preserved, they also need to be playable, a quandary akin to needing a record player to listen to a rare vinyl album.

However, the legal hurdle — chiefly, bringing court cases against multibillion-dollar companies and their trade organization — remains the biggest for preservationists seeking access to games for academic research.

“Game history is part of general culture as well as intellectual and media history,” said Henry Lowood, curator for film and media collections as well as science and technology collections in the Stanford University Libraries. Lowood is one of the academics pushing for increased access to games for the purposes of study. “It’s not possible to include a full history of any of those topics without including games from the 1970s forward.”

[Clip]

Game makers have argued that enabling the access sought by the academics would economically harm their companies. The ESA has argued that even old games still hold value since they can be rereleased or remastered, noting as an example that thousands of older games are currently available on Microsoft’s Xbox marketplace for digital download. The ESA’s legal opponents have argued that such a stance allows the game industry to gatekeep which titles are made available or preserved, effectively limiting the study of gaming’s history.

[Clip]

In U.S. copyright law, exemptions exist for specific use cases, such as academic research, that would otherwise appear to violate the technical protections granted by law. Proposals for exemptions are reviewed every three years by the U.S. Copyright Office. In 2018, academics scored a legal victory that granted them an exemption to preserve games that are no longer commercially available. In 2021, a push for remote access to preserved games for academics failed.

Learn More, Read the Complete Article (about 2300 words)

See Also: University of Michigan Library: “A New Frontier: Preserving Computer and Video Games” (August 24, 2021)

See Also: Research Article: “Where Does Significance Lie: Locating the Significant Properties of Video Games in Preserving Virtual Worlds II Data” (October 15, 2016)

See Also: A Look at the Acquisition and Preservation of Video Games at The Library of Congress (September 27, 2012)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Libraries, News, Preservation

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

New Report: "Alternative Publishing Platforms. What Have We Learnt?"

From Knowledge Exchange: Different alternative publishing platforms have appeared over recent years. But what are their pros and cons? Do they differ significantly from traditional scholarly journals? To better understand ...

Not Real News: An Associated Press Roundup of Untrue Stories Shared Widely on Social Media This Week

From the Associated Press: A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were ...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is Hosting a Virtual Roundtable on AI and Content Creation on October 4th

From the Federal Trade Commission: The Federal Trade Commission staff will be hosting a virtual roundtable discussion on October 4, 2023 to better understand the impact of the use of ...

Andrea Jackson Gavin Appointed Inaugural Program Director of the HBCU Digital Library Trust

Below is the Full Text of the Announcement Letter (via the Harvard Library): We are delighted to announce the appointment of Andrea Jackson Gavin as the inaugural Program Director of the ...

U.S. Census Releases 2020 Data for Nearly 1,500 Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups, Tribes and Villages

From the U.S. Census: The U.S. Census Bureau today released 2020 Census population counts and sex-by-age statistics for 300 detailed race and ethnic groups, as well as 1,187 detailed American ...

Book Bans Spike by 33% During the Last School Year, According to New Research by PEN America

From PEN America:  The number of public school book bans across the country increased by 33 percent in the 2022-23 school year compared to the 2021-22 school year, according to ...

Penn State Leads Big Ten Academic Alliance Project on Open Homework Systems; ChatGPT Usage is Rising Again as...

AI ChatGPT Usage is Rising Again as Students Return to School (via Bloomberg) Universities Rethink Using AI Writing Detectors to Vet Students’ Work (via Bloomberg) Amazon AI-Generated Books Force Amazon ...

$800,000 Budget Cut Proposed: West Virginia University Library System Plans to Reduce Staff, Modify Space Amid University Cuts;...

From WCHS: Following the vote to cut 28 majors and more than 100 faculty positions at West Virginia University, the university’s library system could be the next to take the ...

American Library Association (ALA) Releases Preliminary Data on 2023 Book Challenges; Highest Number of Book Challenges Since ALA...

UPDATE LeVar Burton to Lead 2023 Banned Books Week as Honorary Chair (via ALA) —End Update— Below is the full text of a statement released today by the American Library ...

Harris County Libraries Declared a 'Book Sanctuary' Amid State Crackdown; UCLA Library Receives $4.2 Million Political Cartoon Collection...

Acquisitions UCLA Library Receives $4.2 Million Political Cartoon Collection Spanning Centuries (via UCLA  California At 20, San Jose’s MLK Library Remains a Partnership For the Books (via The Mercury News) ...

The Lens Loads Now Open Dataset From Crossref of Retraction Watch Papers; Digital Science Announces Brand Redesign for...

Clarivate Clarivate Unveils Citation Laureates 2023 – Annual List of Researchers of Nobel Class Digital Science Digital Science Announces Brand Redesign for ReadCube and Papers Internet Archive IMLS National Leadership Grant ...

New From AUPresses & Ithaka S+R: "Print Revenue and Open Access Monographs: A University Press Study"

From a Joint News Release: The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) and Ithaka S+R today publish “Print Revenue and Open Access Monographs: A University Press Study.” This report is the ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.