| > Games made before I was born whose copyright won't expire until long after I'm dead. Just like Mickey Mouse or movies from the 1960s? Or the Lord of the Rings books? > In fact, games should have a shorter copyright term since they're harder to preserve and less valuable over time. I don't understand how that's an argument for the length of the copyright either way? If I draw with water-colours on a fallen maple leaf, that is really hard to preserve and because of lack of artistic skill, was never valuable in the first place (mostly due to lack of artistic skill); but I don't thing that should have its own special copyright term length. Rights to some artifacts being less valuable over time already factors into the severity of punishment when you get caught pirating (if memory serves right): aren't damages based on revenue supposedly lost from pirating? > Counterargument to myself and trivia: All the authors of Zork are still living. (I assume they receive no royalties, though, based on how the game industry generally works). That shouldn't make a difference: when they agreed on the deal to sell their rights (assuming they did so), the parties took into account how long the sold copyrights were likely to last. > I still have a box legally-purchased of Zork games (CDROM editions) and manuals and a copy of Planetfall here, but should I feel any shame about pirating them? I don't think I should. I don't much like most of current copyright law. Whether you want to feel any shame is up to you, it's a moral decision, not a legal one. |
One argument might be that, compared to other media, video games' continued availability may be particularly dependent on whether or not they become public domain.
If video game hardware quickly becomes out of date and old games lose their economic value quickly, then the copyright holder may not be motivated to put in the effort to keep the game available.
However, an archivist motivated by artistic or historical rather than economic value may still be willing to put the effort into keeping the game available if it is in the public domain.