> 5 is much too short, though. and "commercially available" is very exploitable.

It's not too short for things that have stopped being sold. If a book or video game has no more commercial value in selling, why not end its copyright?

I'm not saying 5 years after something is published. I'm saying 5 years after it stops being sold by the publisher.

If a publisher wants to "exploit" that by keeping everything in print, then great. We still keep the existing copyright limits. But I guarantee you most of the stuff no longer being sold, they don't care about because it's not profitable anymore. If it was profitable, they'd still be selling it.

Video games are particularly egregious because even if an old game is currently sold under the same name, it often is not the same game:

* it’s running via emulation or has been recompiled for a different architecture with noticeable changes from the original (control latency, graphical differences, fixed/new bugs)

  * content has been added or removed (often due to licensing)

  * an EULA has been added or modified

  * it’s not playable on the hardware where it was originally released

This is unlike books and music, which rarely change, or movies where it happens but is certainly not common.

Video games are different, though. The Genesis version of Sonic 3 has a different soundtrack than all others and hasn’t been available since 1997. Symphony of the Night had the most similar rerelease in 2006 on XBLA, but everything since has been a version with many big fixes and additions based on the PSP version. Final Fantasy VI has had many “enhanced” versions, but surprisingly the original ROM was available until the Wii U eShop shut down last year. Also aurprisingly, new old stock of the PS1 version could be bought from Square Enix up until a few years ago.

There are countless other remasters or ports that replace the original which is then never sold again.

None of that presents any kind of legal difficulty.

If a game is recompiled under a new architecture, it's still the same graphics and text and levels and everything. It's not really any different from a new printing of a book in paperback instead of hardcover and in a different font. The copyright on those elements remains intact.

If you're simply talking about access to previous versions for researchers and archivists, that's more of a question of archival practices than of copyright. Which is a very interesting conversation, but a totally separate one.

It may it matter to you, but it certainly matters to competitive, speed run, and enthusiast communities around different games.

I mentioned Sonic 3 because it’s not the same music after the initial release. Depending on the version, Symphony of the Night is not the same levels or graphics. There are multiple versions of Revenge of Shinobi which replace various bosses for the Sega Genesis. Final Fantasy VI may or may not be the same code. Later versions may or may not use resources from earlier versions, sometimes a release is a completely new game with the same gameplay and aesthetic (this was especially true in 16-hit and earlier eras when arcade and home versions were complete reimplementations of the same game).

They might have the same name, but at what point does the Ship of Theseus become a different thing?

> They might have the same name, but at what point does the Ship of Theseus become a different thing?

Who knows, doesn't really matter. Like with most things, the courts can determine on a case-by-case basis whether or not a particular thing currently on sale is similar enough to the old/original version of it such that the original thing should still hold copyright. Not really a big deal from a legal standpoint.

My original reply was to a post suggesting something go into the public domain so many years after it has stopped being sold. I was just trying to illustrate how quickly that becomes a tricky problem.

I don’t think that concept is viable for other reasons, so hypothesizing is all we’ll ever have.

>It's not too short for things that have stopped being sold. If a book or video game has no more commercial value in selling, why not end its copyright?

Well that's more for exploiting. They can stop making copies of say, Horizon Zero dawn that came out in 2017. And maybe they stop selling it in 2019 (in this theoretical) . Just when the 5 years are almost up, they start making another retail run of it, or the remaster in this case. Repeat and iterate until you get bored.

> I guarantee you most of the stuff no longer being sold, they don't care about because it's not profitable anymore. If it was profitable, they'd still be selling it.

I want to thank that, but companies still prefer to hoard IP's, if only to keep others from working with it. There are several IP's from now defunct companies that got picked up by non-gaming studios, who obviously have no intention of ever making a game. They just want a cut if anyone ever wants to try. Or to sue when fans try to do stuff with it.

For 5 years in advance, it's not hard to keep a disc run or remaster in mind. Just look at Sony. For a longer term like 20 years they need to be more creative.

> I want to thank that, but companies still prefer to hoard IP's, if only to keep others from working with it. There are several IP's from now defunct companies that got picked up by non-gaming studios, who obviously have no intention of ever making a game. They just want a cut if anyone ever wants to try. Or to sue when fans try to do stuff with it.

And this is exactly why the suggestion upthread is a good one. As a society, we shouldn't allow people to hoard IP and withhold it from the public.

How would you deal with digital versions now? Publishers will just leave all the PC versions on steam and call it a day. Those will never expire as long as the publisher remains in business.

As long as it's still for sale, and sales will actually get fulfilled, and there's a reasonably-widely available platform the game will still run on, that's fine. The point of the 5-year suggestion is to ensure that people continue to have access to these works. Forcing things into the public domain (after a 5-year not-for-sale period) is one way. Keeping things for sale so people can buy them is another.

Yeah, that's the other can of worms that I didn't go into. Even if a game gets delisted from steam, they can just whip up that digital copy "for sale" on their website or any other cheaper platform (since sales are No longer the priority, just keeping the copyright is).

It should be "20 years or whenever it's not commercially available, whichever comes first"

Otherwise, we'll still see companies make stuff and kill it and sit on it for decades. (Often binning fully-finished releases without ever letting it be sold ever -- see Discovery and Disney's recent releases)

Preservation should start the minute access is threatened, not some decades later when it's likely too late.

That's more of a question of weird tax law quirks related to corporate mergers, not copyright. It's not generally profitable to make stuff and then not sell it immediately.

And I certainly don't want to start a precedent where people are forced to publish things they don't want to. That's kind of the polar opposite of freedom and liberty.

> Often binning fully-finished releases without ever letting it be sold ever

If something hasn't been released yet, and never will be, then why does it matter? It might as well not exist.

No one should be obligated to publish something they want to keep private, for whatever reason.

> No one should be obligated to publish something they want to keep private, for whatever reason.

That logic works fine for a single author. Totally agree.

But it breaks down when a team of 200 people create a work, and 199 of them want to release it, but the last 1 person does not (which is the case most often seen today)

Well ideally it would be twenty five years from date of publication with extensions of five years upon re-release, up to three times. Meaning you could, at most, get forty years, but only if you re-released the media in question before the original copyright term or the extensions ends. This means that only the most enduring media will likely get forty full years of protection. Meaning that, had a film come out in 1984 and not been re-released in any form since it's original theatrical run from 1984 to 1985, it's copyright protection would have ended in 2009. But if it got a VHS release in 1988, a DVD release in 2002, and a Blu-Ray release in 2009, it's copyright wouldn't have expired until just this year. To make this work, making sure sub-licensing and syndication do not count as releases (the show appearing on a television channel or a third party streaming service for example) would close some of the loopholes. This would also mean that for the full forty years of protection there has to have been physical media created, providing a protection that the data can't be arbitrarily revoked.

The retro wave hits everyone around 30 years, and again around 50. It would be interesting to have a non-continuous copyright claim. The first 15 years it's yours, then 15-30 it's public, 30-60 it's yours again, and finally 60+ it's public domain forever.

I think that would be incredibly frustrating. If someone were to make a commercial product derived from something that was in year 29 of its lifetime (while in the public domain), they'd have to stop selling it a year later.