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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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In the article it mentions emulation as the only method to play some games. I mean, that's a good thing right? Digital Media can be copied and shared over and over. Physical media can get lost, destroyed, hoarded. More work needs to be put into perfecting emulation software, and we need to ensure there is a backup of every game ever released.
What they mean is the only way to play these games is emulation instead of being able to purchase them from the company that owns the rights. That's bad because many people either do no know about emulation, do not know how to emulate, don't want to figure out how to emulate, don't want to involve themselves in legal gray areas (downloading ROMs is illegal afterall) etc... Basically, the companies that have the rights to these games are just squatting on them and not ever rereleasing them again. Those people above can never or will never experience those games. Some people want to just pay the company and play an old game that they heard about so they can't. As far as preservation goes, the archivists have that covered but there just isn't a solution for the average Joe to play older games that are no longer sold physically or digitally.
Personally, I think IPs should default to public if the holder is just goblin-ing the content. Both whole IPs and individual games. That way they'd be incentivised to keep digital versions available or enjoy watching people get it for free.
@DebatableRaccoon afaik the problem is physical media and that it becomes unavailable/unplayable for several reasons.
@piracy @jonny @GreenCrush @Coeus
Not entirely. It works both ways. Physical media that doesn’t have a digital version has an inherently finite supply but a digital release with no physical release vanishes the moment someone flips the switch.
If we can mandate the IP holder has to always provide a way to acquire the media legally it means there's always going to be some sort of source. Without crappy DRM, we could make our own physical copies of digital media and the same the other way around.
I'm afraid you're right. They do make portable consoles now that are emulation focused so that would be an easy enough way to get the average Joe set up, but even then they'd still have to navigate the rom universe and figure out downloads. I'm not really sure what a solution could be.
Maybe if there was a way to exclusively release the reproduction rights to video games that haven't been published within the past 10 years. This would at least make possession of the roms legal, and allow for a functional service to grow to provide them to the average Joe.
Can't imagine that happening any time soon, though. But I guess here's to hoping 🍻
@GreenCrush
I read it as them saying it's a good thing and sort of tiptoeing around piracy, as academics do