A group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is currently looking for legal exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyrights Act (DMCA) in order to revive online games that have been abandoned by its publisher.
Although EFF's intention is clearly beneficial to the gaming community, its proposition has received criticism from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) saying that the proposed exception is encouraging the use of pirated software as well as a clear violation of copyright infringement.
The EFF proposes that an online game will be considered "abandoned" six months after its publishers officially shuts of its centralized servers and by then publishers will allow hackers to modify the game's source code to circumvent certain authentication services in order to put the game back online again. This will allow gamers to fully access their online accounts without going through the games official servers which is very useful once the developer decides to completely shut off its servers.
In response to EFF's proposal, the ESA has released a statement the directly counters the EFF's claims.
One argument presented by ESA is that the EFF wants the exemption to cover all gaming platforms including mobile and console devices. It added that, using a tweaked source code on a console platform for example means that user need to hack their console devices, a process known as jailbreaking or simply "jailbreak." To support this claim, ESA pointed out that jailbreaking is not exempted under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Another point presented by the ESA covers certain technical issues, specifically the definition of a basic multiplayer game from a large-scale MMO. The EFF only asked exemption for the basic multiplayer game and the ongoing confusion between the two genres will make it hard to determine which games are legally hackable.
Many analysts, although some supports EFF's cause, said that ESA has a clear advantage on this arguments and they won't be surprised if the exemption doesn't happen, according to PC World.
Initial public hearing for the proposed DMCA exemption will be held on May 19 to 21, according to Ars Technica.