Does the DMCA exclude legacy servers?

[theforsaken]

Saw this under exemptions posted in October 2015 to the DMCA

"Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, when the copyright owner or its authorized representative has ceased to provide access to an external computer server necessary to facilitate an authentication process to enable local gameplay."

I still have the vanilla CD set. But back then when I played a demo I liked it, and purchased it. Now the game has changed so much that I no longer like it and as a result feel cheated on my initial purchase. I no longer have the ability to play a lawfully acquired game because the copyright owner has ceased to provide access to the version of which I decided to pay for.

That DMCA exception looks pretty dang close to encompassing legacy versions of lawfully acquired software. I wonder if it is close enough as is? Only problem is who is willing to go up against these guys in court..

The whole Nost shutdown is a shame, but the bigger picture I think is the movement it has created to getting a DMCA exception for legacy MMOs.

This could help many other projects, not just vanilla wow!

[r00ty]

**DISCLAIMER, I'm not anywhere near the legal profession, this is an interpretation of the English as it's presented and how I would read it, not a legal interpretation**

I say this because someone is bound to complain that I'm "playing lawyer" or something similar.

I would say the wording could be interpreted either way.

For the side of Blizzard they could argue either that WoW never provided "local" gameplay (e.g. it's meant to protect single player games that require a server just to play, as many modern games seem to). The other argument would be that the game "World of Warcraft" does still have active servers. Albeit on a more modern version, and those playing older versions are simply avoiding paying for the latest and still active version.

Counter arguments would be that in order to play the game locally at all you require a server, and these projects provide that, and that the game as it is now is sufficiently different to warrant labeling it a different game.

Blizzard would likely win, but there's probably room for a court battle to be won. Good luck finding someone with pockets big enough to try it on though

[Mimma]

DMCA only counts in the US. And no, Nostalrius did not receive a DMCA complaint.

[Drain]

DMCA is a blanket that can be applied to practically everything a company likes it to. It's abused all the time for anything a publisher damn well pleases. Most of the time, it's totally bogus. Its main use is to attack critics, reviewers, and LP channels on Youtube, who use footage or music from within a movie or game to do their job. It can entirely be applied to private servers if any are hosted in a country that has DMCA, which is why none of them are in the United States. Blizzard can just snap their fingers and the ISP will have to take it down. Outside the United States, in saner parts of the world, they have to take you to actual court to get things taken down, which incurs costs and risks. This is what they were preparing to do with Nost, and Nost decided to surrender immediately. There is no DMCA to instant takedown in France. Nost took it down themselves to avoid court.

What still confuses me is why Youtube and Twitch are still hosted in the United States, the worst place to put them. They are abused regularly and no channel is safe operating on them. I've never seen a channel I follow "not" have to deal with copyright BS because of DMCA being abused. It's literally used as a weapon, targeting a channel to take down videos, and steal revenue from it. Even after it is overturned, they don't have to pay any damages and actually keep stolen revenue. People keep begging Youtube to fix the problem, but I've always been advocating to fix it ourselves by removing adviews and revenue from advertisement. Everyone needs to just take donations and run a patreon page. Being totally separate from the videos, they cannot be targeted or touched. Cut out the leech advertisement middleman, support the channels yourself directly, and then the channel is nearly immune to attack.

[tempatantrem]

So heres the rub for blizzard. What they are going to say is that we agreed to them altering the game how they see fit and so we still have access to the product that we puchased. It could be argued however that the game has changed so much that it does not resemble in any form the same game that we purchased back in 2004 and that blizzard should be legally obligated to provide the community with a medium to play said game. If they chose not to then it is perfectly legal for us to play on private servers because we purchased the right to play the game and blizzard is barring us from doing so.