<story><title>Copyright Office Adds DMCA Exemption for &apos;Abandoned&apos; Online Games</title><url>https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-office-adds-dmca-exemption-for-abandoned-online-games-181026/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>judge2020</author><text>Sadly the ruling directly forbids reverse-engineered protocols and custom made servers that emulate the original server. The ruling also states that these abandoned online games could only legally run at a museum&amp;#x2F;library and that it&amp;#x27;s against the law to distribute them to the internet or host them publicly.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and the video game is not distributed or made available outside of the physical premises of the eligible library, archives, or museum.</text></comment>
<story><title>Copyright Office Adds DMCA Exemption for &apos;Abandoned&apos; Online Games</title><url>https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-office-adds-dmca-exemption-for-abandoned-online-games-181026/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>taneq</author><text>This covers legally obtained server code, but what about reverse engineered third party servers which allow the use of abandoned game clients?&lt;p&gt;As an example, a popular &amp;#x27;Blizzlike&amp;#x27; Vanilla WoW server (ie. authentic to the original, pre-expansion game) has been built without using the official server software. Recent announcements from Blizzrd aside, it&amp;#x27;s hard to argue that the original game is not abandoned, as it&amp;#x27;s been unplayable since 2006.</text></comment>