After a hearing earlier this year for a petition three years in the making, the US Copyright Office announced today that they would not grant a new exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in support of video game preservation. The exemption which was brought forward by the Software Preservation Network with support from The Video Game History Foundation would have allowed libraries to provide remote access to out-of-print video games for the purpose of scholarly research. The proposal was supported by a comprehensive study by the Video Game History Foundation proving that only 13% of games released in the United States before 2010 are actively in print in any form. The petition was also supported by multiple companies within the reissue market who felt that it would not only do no market harm to their business but would ultimately increase interest in classic games.

Opponents such as the Entertainment Software Association claimed that the exemption would hurt the marketability of reissuing old games (despite statements from Limited Run Games and Antstream Arcade to the contrary). They also claimed that the 87% of games noted as unavailable in the study conducted by the Video Game History Foundation were due to intentional windowing and business strategy. (The study found these games were more often unavailable due to complicated licensing and rights issues that were unique to the video game industry and ultimately unlikely to be resolved.)

It is worth noting that these limitations do not exist for other forms of media including software that is not video games. Though there is currently no clear definition of what constitutes a video game in this context.

You can read a full statement by the Video Game History Foundation regarding the results of this ruling here..

Disclaimer: The author of this article has worked extensively with the Video Game History Foundation on various projects.