this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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Are there books in libraries? Yes, and the publishers don't have to do a thing. And it is good for society. Similarly, can you fix an old car, even if the manufacturer went bankrupt? Of course you can.
We have precedent, my friend.
To fair to that rather silly commenter, Stopkillinggames puts the onus on the publisher while your examples are based on the individuals or other third parties providing the "fix"
Only if the publisher has taken steps to stop individuals from preserving them through more traditional means.
As in, the publisher has stopped them preserving it otherwise, so now the publisher must make it accessible somehow?
Exactly. If you implement DRM that will make the software unusable if it can't phone home, you should be legally required to have a plan in place for when your servers shut down.
MMO servers get a bit more complicated since they often rely on third-party components that aren't releasable.
There are also video games in libraries, and there are books in libraries with components that are unusable these days. Nobody is required by law to support these components in perpetuity. Nor is any publishing company required by law to maintain support for a book in perpetuity in any way.
Nor is anybody required by law to help you fix your classic car. People with classic cars spend tons of money to find spare parts or even get them manufactured. This is despite the fact that cars are much more of a necessity than video games.
Likewise, if you paid a video game to keep their servers open, or paid them for their source code, they'd give it to you. If you paid a smart person to reverse engineer the network protocol and write an equivalent server, you'd have your part.