Eh, they're encouraging emulation in the same sense Nintendo does. Which is to say, they want it technically possible, but locked behind a walled garden with strong DRM restrictions. And everything else gets sued into oblivion.

Which still misses the forest for the trees. A lot of these classic games that have been unavailable for so long only maintained, or even grew, their popularity because of "abandonware" preservation efforts. Without the efforts of coders and hoarders doing it largely for free in that legal grey area for year after year after year, most of those games would have faded from memory and there would be no demand for Microsoft and others to capitalize on now.

It's really scummy to neglect an IP for so long, and then simultaneously attack the community that kept it alive without any help from you, and simultaneously take their money. Often for an inferior product at that.

Whatever happened to Public Domain laws, and how long does it take for video games to fall into the Public Domain?

Namrok wrote on 2021-11-18, 15:12:

Whatever happened to Public Domain laws, and how long does it take for video games to fall into the Public Domain?

Longer than any of us will live. Even if there aren't any further retroactive extensions to copyright terms, functionally there isn't a public domain anymore from the point of view of anyone who cares about the work in question.

Big Pink wrote on 2021-11-18, 16:41:

Namrok wrote on 2021-11-18, 15:12:

Whatever happened to Public Domain laws, and how long does it take for video games to fall into the Public Domain?

Longer than any of us will live. Even if there aren't any further retroactive extensions to copyright terms, functionally there isn't a public domain anymore from the point of view of anyone who cares about the work in question.

Beyond economic recovery means a practical case of being in the public domain for individuals (fair use) but not corporate interests.

When something is considered worthless garbage after 5-10 years (aka after support ends and the realistic ability to purchase new ends) there is definitely a case to simplify the mechanism to move into the public domain.

Disney is the only reason moronic law was made, and the timeline for a recording along with certain other works should represent the expected lifespan and usefulness of said work.
AKA Items with a short window of gainful sale and use should have an automated path to public domain once the author “gives up” and further holding companies should have much higher bars to camping on works than they do.

99% of copyright lawsuits do not involve the original author and instead fall into a 3rd or 4th party holding company which should be made extraordinarily difficult if they can’t prove they have any use or sales intent

Good reasons why most of our patent and copyright law should be tossed and re-written
Most of the time it’s used in a manner to punish the original author and cripple creativity as written most of it has little bearing on our current society or commercial environment.

Greeeeat..lets destroy history by handing it over to Microsoft so they can destroy classics with mandatory feature updates and DRM walled gardens filled with advertising and security holes. So we can chuck out our 386s and 486s in favor of XBOX Beige......a DRM locked down touchscreen Ryzen emulating a 486 DX2 66 that needs 399MB just for the Emulation telemetry layer.

Leave my vintage hardware alone.

Namrok wrote on 2021-11-18, 15:12:

A lot of these classic games that have been unavailable for so long only maintained, or even grew, their popularity because of "abandonware" preservation efforts. Without the efforts of coders and hoarders doing it largely for free in that legal grey area for year after year after year, most of those games would have faded from memory and there would be no demand for Microsoft and others to capitalize on now.

This nails it exactly.

Namrok wrote on 2021-11-18, 15:12:

Whatever happened to Public Domain laws, and how long does it take for video games to fall into the Public Domain?

In the US, "thanks" to players like Disney and Sony - never. They make sure to lobby the Congress to keep extending the copyright, forever, just so that they don't lose rights to their original "lucrative monopolies", as Stallman puts it.

It's disgusting that a lot of people (not here) buy this Microsoft PR fluff.

Besides the obvious facts that Microsoft is only for emulation because it isn't a threat to them, but their competitors (who focus more on exclusive games), is a member of a copyright lobby (ESA) and still have a requirement that their consoles need to be activated on an internet server that might not be around forever... Microsoft is pretty known for flip flopping on their decisions.

Make some solid commitments, and maybe someone other than Xbox fanboys will buy this shit.

rmay635703 wrote on 2021-11-18, 18:22:

Beyond economic recovery means a practical case of being in the public domain for individuals (fair use) but not corporate inter […]
Show full quote

Beyond economic recovery means a practical case of being in the public domain for individuals (fair use) but not corporate interests.

When something is considered worthless garbage after 5-10 years (aka after support ends and the realistic ability to purchase new ends) there is definitely a case to simplify the mechanism to move into the public domain.

Disney is the only reason moronic law was made, and the timeline for a recording along with certain other works should represent the expected lifespan and usefulness of said work.
AKA Items with a short window of gainful sale and use should have an automated path to public domain once the author “gives up” and further holding companies should have much higher bars to camping on works than they do.

99% of copyright lawsuits do not involve the original author and instead fall into a 3rd or 4th party holding company which should be made extraordinarily difficult if they can’t prove they have any use or sales intent

Good reasons why most of our patent and copyright law should be tossed and re-written
Most of the time it’s used in a manner to punish the original author and cripple creativity as written most of it has little bearing on our current society or commercial environment.

I always felt that keeping the laws in place in terms of maximum years but adding mandatory every 5-10 year relicensing with increased fees based on the age of the work would be the best balance. If a work is profitable, then there should be no issue paying the smaller relicensing fee. But as time goes on, the fee increases to balance out that this work is being withheld from the public domain so a rights holder needs to pay more the longer they wish to maintain control.

This would work great in cases like the No One Lives Forever series. There are multiple rights holders and Night Dive Studios was trying for years to work out licensing agreements. With this method, if there was no clear owner, someone on the corporate side claiming ownership would need to do the legwork so they can expend the copyright. Or else it just ends up timing out and going into the public domain.