1996 on the legal protection of databases (the “Database Directive”).
(Collectively referred to as the
“Community Framework.”)
˲ Directive 2001/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
September 27, 2001 on the resale right
for the benefit of the author of an original work of art.
˲ Directive 92/100/EEC of November
19, 1992 on rental right and lending.
Problematically for the anyone intending to preserve games, the Community Framework does not recognize the notion of multimedia works
as a specific type of protected content,
and no definition or specific framework related to multimedia works is
available in EC law. Reproduction of
multimedia works is addressed at the
Community level through the various
copyright and related rights directives as they apply to the constituent
elements of a multimedia work: for
example, software programs, databases, sound, and images. This is a
pattern that is replicated in national
legislation and in practice this means
a distributive, fragmented approach
is adopted, within which each component part of a multimedia work must
be considered separately. Since multimedia works are not, in general, made
available on computer platforms in
such a way that individual elements
can be removed from the whole, this
means a multimedia work will effectively enjoy, as a whole, the strongest
protection under law that is available
for any of its constituent parts.
Taking a legally distributive (or cumulative) approach to multimedia
works means each individual multimedia work a library or archive intends to preserve must be considered
in order to determine the protection
that it enjoys under the law, and what
exemptions might apply. It is not legally safe to assume every game enjoys the
same protection. As the law protects
each element of the multimedia work
separately, games with music will have
a different legal character than those
without, and so on. This makes it effectively impossible to carry out legal
due diligence on the scale required.
European law grants libraries and
archives no general right of reproduction but permits them to reproduce
(or transfer) digital material only in
in view of the
financial and legal
difficulties inherent
in public bodies
attempting to
preserve games,
might it be possible
to place this
responsibility
on the industry?
certain specified cases. While the exemptions libraries enjoy are sufficient
to permit some of the activities necessary for preservation, they fall far short
of covering the full range required.
There is a tendency for national legislation to be both more permissive
than Community law, and for it to provide a greater degree of detailed governance. This flatters to deceive however, as national regulation is often
simply incompatible with Community
law, and is open to be overturned by
anyone minded to press the point at
the European level.
In view of the financial and legal
difficulties inherent in public bodies
attempting to preserve games, might
it be possible to place this responsibility on the industry? This would
have the immediate advantage of circumventing many of the difficulties
outlined in this column. After all,
copyright holders have the absolute
legal right to preserve the material
they own, and arguably have at their
disposal better human and financial
resources to undertake this task than
do public bodies.
Games represent an important sector of the modern economy. In the U.K.
alone, there are around 200 games studios, employing around 28,000 people
and generating global sales of around
$2.65 billion a year. The industry contributes approximately $623 million
per annum to national GDP. How-
Calendar
of Events
december 17–18
the eighth asia information
retrieval societies conference,
tianjin, china,
contact: Yuexian hou,
email: krete1941@gmail.com
december 18–20
third Kuwait conference on
e-services and e-systems,
Kuwait,
contact: saleh Kassern,
email: kasserns@yahoo.com
January 3–6
international conference on
distributed computing and
networking,
Mumbai, india,
contact: shyamasundar
rudrapatna,
email: shyam@tifi.res.in
January 6–8
acM-siaM symposium on
discrete algorithms,
new orleans, La,
contact: david s. Johnson,
phone: 908-582-4742,
email: dsj@research.att.com
January 7–10
Fifth international conference
on communication systems
and networks,
Bangalore, india,
contact: david Kotz,
phone: 603-646-1439,
email: kotz@cs.dartmouth.edu
January 9–12
innovations in theoretical
computer science,
Berkeley, ca,
contact: satish rao,
phone: 510-642-4328,
email: satishr@cs.berkeley.edu
January 11–12
annual symposium on
computing
for development,
Bangalore, india,
contact: William thies,
email: thies@microsoft.com
January 16–20
Foundations of genetic
algorithms Xii,
adelaide, australia,
sponsored: sigeVo,
contact: Frank neumann,
email: frank.neumann@
adelaide.edu.au