[game_preservation] Internet Archive Starts Archiving Commercial PC Games?

[Jim Leonard]

On 12/16/2013 3:51 PM, Devin Monnens wrote:

> Or, in the case of digital media, the source media might decay and

> become unreadable before the copyright expires (hence a need to preserve

> it before that happens, and some organizations have decided it is better

> to preserve first and ask questions later - which is probably the

> correct thing to do in some cases, given the life expectancy of the

> media and the speed of the legal system).


There is a big difference between "save all the things" and "distribute 
all the things".

Since 1996 I've been involved in a project to preserve all IBM PC games 
ever shipped on a floppy disk.  I work with several other people to 
obtain, archive, and alter these assets so that they are both playable 
in emulators as well as being able to written back to disk so they can 
be experienced in their native habitat.  (ie. both "original/protected" 
and "cracked/patched" versions are retained.)  We pool our resources 
quarterly to purchase games off of ebay that have not yet been "released 
in the wild" in an effort to rescue them off of fading media.  Everyone 
in our group retains a copy of our efforts, so it's not in danger of 
disappearing if one or more of us expires unexpectedly.

I write the above as preamble to these questions:  Do I believe in 
archiving everything?  Absolutely, without a shred of doubt.  But do I 
believe in posting our archive online with complete disregard of harm or 
consequences?  Not until the legal system recognizes digital 
preservation as a protected activity.

(We have made work-in-progress versions of our archive available to 
researchers upon request.  This is a far cry from posting the entire 
thing publicly, worldwide.)
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)
Check out some trippy MindCandy: http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.oldskool.org/
You're all insane and trying to steal my magic bag!