Copyright Office DMCA Rulemaking: Hearing re Proposed

Class 23

Entertainment Software Association

March 20, 2015

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Proponents have failed to submit record evidence supporting such a sweeping, ill-defined class.

There are ample marketplace alternatives to the activities in which proponents claim they want to engage.

Hacking video game access controls leads to a higher level of infringing activity.

Overview

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The Petersen automobile museum is scheduled to reopen later this year featuring the “Forza Motorsport Experience,” an exhibit that reportedly focuses on video games’ influence on car culture, with gaming stations and immersive visuals.

EA has worked with the Stanford Archival Project to authorize non-commercial reproduction of game code and visual assets from a number of EA’s early games from the 1980s for research purposes.

EA has granted authorization to the Computer History Museum to release source code for an early EA product, for non-commercial uses, as part of a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Amiga platform.

Nintendo is sponsoring the “Indie Game Revolution” exhibit at the EMP Museum in Seattle, presenting creative works in contemporary video game culture.

Microsoft worked with the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to use video from the game Fable III in the Centre’s “Game Masters” exhibit.

Microsoft supported the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum to video capture sequences from Flight Simulator X for its “Speed” event and the Smithsonian American Art Museum to use video sequences from Halo 2 and Fable for its “Art of Video Games” display.

ESA has partnered with GlassLab, an unprecedented research and development effort exploring the potential for existing digital games to serve as powerful learning environments and providing real-time assessments to improve student learning.

Non-Exhaustive Research and Preservation Efforts

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Harm To The Market for Copyrighted Video Games

http://www.houstonpress.com/arts/us-copyright-office-to-explore-making-some-video-games-public-domain-7396031

“The U.S. Copyright Office is looking into an exemption that may for the first time make some video games exempt from copyright infringements.

Among a long list of new proposed rules regarding electronics, there's one section in particular that has old-school video game fans really excited. Proposed Class 23 would lift copyright exemptions for video games that require online server support but for which such servers are no longer active or maintained by the developer.”