The ESA says preserving old online games isn't 'necessary'
The video game industry as a whole does a piss-poor job at preserving its history -- especially when it comes to online games. The Entertainment Software Association -- responsible for E3; counts Electronic Arts, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and Ubisoft as members -- is petitioning the US Copyright Office to not make DMCA exemptions for abandoned online multiplayer games. It's an effort to block the folks at the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment in California who would like to see an exemption made to how the DMCA treats titles like the original Everquest . The ESA's reasoning for opposing? It thinks that letting third parties operate online servers will result, more or less, in a library or museum committing copyright breach. Giving access to the proprietary server code could hypothetically lead to preservation societies building their own infrastructure and charging for access. Thus, they'd be a direct competitor to the original developers and publishers, which i...