What Do The Copyright Laws Say About Copying Video Games?

 

Recently, with the rise of digital and optical media, there has been a lot of disagreement regarding the practice of people making copies of this style of media. Beginning in the 1990s, with the increase in popularity of CDs and DVDs, and has now spilled over to the Video Game industry. You can find a million and one views on the issue, on whether it's an ethical practice and whether it's permissible legally. But what does the law actually say?

 

Well, the law says that you are allowed to make copies for backup purposes, and that no media company, record company, or game company can sue a gamer for doing so. It also says that in order to stay in compliance with the law, a gamer cannot make any financial profit from the copy, and cannot give, lend, loan, or sell copies. They really are meant for archival purposes only. And if you make back ups for these purposes only, you cannot be sued.

 

Now, this will disappoint a lot of gaming fans. After all, it seems like everyone is modding their game systems. Wii iso download websites are all over the world wide web. But remember that if you do choose to download full version games that are illegal, you could be facing criminal charges.

 

So, let's assume that you do not plan on being like blackbeard and committing piracy. The copyright laws do not say that the record and game companies are required to provide the means that will allow you to archive your games. And it's a shame. Because if you're spending $20 in the case of a CD or DVD, or up to $50 in the case of a Wii game, you shouldn't have to risk having it get scratched or get stepped on by your little brother, and then face losing the money that you've invested.

 

Fortunately, CDs normally do not have DRM, and can be ripped using free tools including iTunes. And DVD and Video Games can often be ripped using third-party (i.e. not free) utilities that can get past the DRM. Note: the phrase “defeating the encryption or DRM” sounds kind of like it would involve doing something illegal. However, as long as you are only doing this for backup purposes, you are still within your rights legally. You can find some great game backup software at many of the popular Wii ISO Download sites online.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 1:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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