Reminder that the reason that GOG is DRM-free and offers offline installers is because it was started by former pirates (in a sense).
If there is a game you love, buy it from GOG and archive the offline installer. If it isn’t available on GOG, pirate it. The number of games that have disappeared is too damn high.
I’d also like to add that the yakuza series used for this picture are great games that now come with DRM, unless you buy them on GOG.
I bought a big bundle of the games through steam on sale and Yakuza: Like a Dragon came with DRM on steam. Buy on GOG, its the same game but DRM free.
I should have waited for the GOG sale, now I might pirate it to play the game I bought without DRM.
Copyright should only exist if the entire work, including the entire code base, is held in escrow by the copyright office.
If you don’t do that, you don’t get protection. This is literally the reason why patents exist, you tell us how you did it, and we prevent anyone else from copying that method for a period of time.
Mandatory deposit is already required for copyright registration, and this includes video games.
- Deposit of copies or phonorecords for Library of Congress8 (a) Except as provided by subsection ©, and subject to the provisions of subsection (e), the owner of copyright or of the exclusive right of publication in a work published in the United States shall deposit, within three months after the date of such publication—
(1) two complete copies of the best edition; or
(2) if the work is a sound recording, two complete phonorecords of the best edition, together with any printed or other visually perceptible material published with such phonorecords.
Neither the deposit requirements of this subsection nor the acquisition provisions of subsection (e) are conditions of copyright protection.
(b) The required copies or phonorecords shall be deposited in the Copyright Office for the use or disposition of the Library of Congress.
Wtf??? Then they have nothing to fucking say about the copyright of games, if they don’t have them preserved at the copyright office
Do we know if they send copies over there, or otherwise archive them there? If not, then fucking hell
