Should videogame copyright become use it or lose it - style situation?

[Tyzuris]

Many games are in danger of becoming unable to be played because their publishers are not porting them to newer generations from their original consoles which also means that as those original consoles see their production ended, then there will one day be a moment where it's very hard to play games released on those consoles only.

So do you think that there should be like a set amount of time given to videogame producers during which they have to port their games for the current gen console or face losing the copyright to said games until they have ported it over to the most recent generation of console?

I think this would be a good move in making sure as many games stay playable as possible. And if a videogame producer doesn't intend on porting the game they've made to current gen (after the generation of console the game was originally made for had its production ended), it clearly indicates they're not interested in any money gained from said game anymore, and thus they don't need said copyright anymore if they don't intend to make money from said copyright anymore, and it doesn't hurt them to lose said copyright. And it will also benefit the fans who will be able to do their own jury riggings by emulators, etc... with said game if the videogame producer doesn't intend on porting it to newest gen within a deadline dictated by the law.

 

[Battlegrinder]

The issue with this is that if a game loses copyright protection and goes into the public domain, that doesn't mean "the code is free and fans can update it themselves". It means everything in the game is now public domain and people can do anything they want with any part of it. You're not limiting to just making a fan patch to get it up to par with modern systems, you can do anything you want with the characters, the plot, the setting, etc, just rip it off wholesale to create your own thing.

For example, Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain, and has been for years, which is why there's all sorts of different shows and games and films featuring him and taking different spins on the character, even ones wildly different than the original. That's great for letting new creative teams create stuff, but if Arthur Conan Doyle was still alive and still trying to get people interested in his Sherlock Holmes stories it would be bad for him, because he has to compete with people using his own IP against him. This is why we have copyright extend out for more than a few years in the first place.

It's particularly unfair in this case to make devs have to spend more time and more money reworking their older games to work on newer system, which will get increasing harder the larger their library gets and the more things change between systems (many classic games end up getting entirely remade because they can't just be patched up to compatibility).

There's also the fact that many games are not actually made by the IP owners, they're made by studios that got a contract to make a game for someone else. Lucasfilm would be very upset if a bunch of SW stuff leaked out into the public domain because some subsidiary didn't republish some garbage tie in game from 20 years ago.



A better solution to the problem might be changing software piracy laws to require that IP owners prove damages before they can act. If you don't make a game available for purchase, you can't sue or take down pirate copies because they're not costing you any money.