[game_preservation] GDC 2009 Report, Roundtable Notes

[Andrew Armstrong]

Sure, I'll edit it to be more clear, it obviously isn't at all. I didn't 
even know who said the Edge thing, but I can remove it, it was just a 
nice little comment I thought :)

Andrew

Henry Lowood wrote:

> Hmm, Andrew, "Less need to keep the paper once it is scanned."  I 

> don't think anybody said that.  I disagree with the statement, and 

> Steve was talking about his need to keep the paper, so that he could 

> give it to a repository for safe keeping, once it was scanned.   I 

> think that point was missed in the notes.  Also, I would rather not 

> put out in public a discussion about an individual's papers.  So 

> perhaps let's just remove that bit.

>

> Also, could you remove the notes about the Edge article that was not 

> written?  What I said did not come out right, and besides, that was 

> just an informal comment, not meant for broadcasting.

>

> Henry

>

> Rachel "Sheepy" Donahue wrote:

>> Thanks for the notes!

>>

>> A few comments:

>>

>> Scanning is not a valid preservation method!!! Ahhhh! ;)

>> Just saying so because it sounded like you were saying you "didn't 

>> need" the physical items if they were scanned.. but paper is much 

>> more straightforward and cheaper to preserve!

>>

>> You say:

>>

>> " Fair use is very unexplored territory around this. No test cases 

>> for any of this stuff. Only way to test things is in court. Fair use 

>> for literary material is cannot copy more then part of the work..."

>>

>> Mind, my response is entirely from a US IP law perspective.

>> I was at an archives conference a few months back and had the good 

>> fortune of going to a session with a pretty knowledgable (to this 

>> peon) IP lawyer. I asked her what shrink wrap license meant for the 

>> fair use exemptions that exist in copyright law, and she said that as 

>> there is precedent for people making personal agreements to 

>> circumvent that sort of law, "agreeing" to the license means 

>> forfeiting those rights completely.

>>

>> There's also a fair amount of case law (in the US) -- especially from 

>> before the DMCA was enacted -- regarding shrink wrap licenses, but it 

>> is really painful to wade through if you're not a lawyer. There were 

>> some consumer protection laws that were suggested, but ultimately 

>> didn't get passed, if I recall. I haven't looked at much of the legal 

>> literature surrounding DMCA, though (yet).

>>

>> "An IGDA position to have an official archivist at every company"

>>

>> I obviously support this ;)

>>

>> "Maybe having the SIG being a coordinator like the IEEE History 

>> Centre. We can also go to the other SIG's and get the history of 

>> their area of history covered."

>>

>> This might be a little crazy, but when I first thought of the survey 

>> I thought it would be really cool if something like the American 

>> Institute of Physics did for physics could be done for the game 

>> industry. Basically they went around to the major physics industry 

>> names and took a look at record keeping/generating practices of the 

>> company as a whole and invididual scientists. The report is really 

>> cool and loaded with useful information, and will prove to be an 

>> important tool in preserving the history of physics (which is what 

>> AIP strives to do). I think it's a good model for any organization 

>> looking to preserve industry history; not just the sciences.

>>

>> http://www.aip.org/history/pubs/hopi.html

>>

>> Obviously a HUGE undertaking, and would probably face a lot of 

>> difficulty getting to the people in the know since game development 

>> is a bit more of a closed industry, and I don't think developers view 

>> the IGDA (I could be wrong!) with the same sort of respect AIP gets. 

>> So getting in the door is harder.

>>

>> "A final point on how much it costs to preserve one game - the cost 

>> can be from zero to who knows. Say $50,000 if just being asked to 

>> preserve something ? a big number to do it, just because people like 

>> numbers!"

>>

>> The cost is difficult to calculate because it isn't a one-time, fixed 

>> cost. Sure, the initial "archiving" of the game may be relatively 

>> inexpensive.. but what does sustaining it cost? There will be money 

>> involved in maintaining the servers, migrating emulator code (or the 

>> game itself), refreshing media, etc, and that's trickier to project.

>>

>> Ok, I'm done.

>> Rach

>> _______________________________________________

>> game_preservation mailing list

>> game_preservation at igda.org

>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>

> -- 

> Henry Lowood

> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;

>      Film & Media Collections

> HRG, Green Library

> 557 Escondido Mall, Stanford University Libraries

> Stanford CA 94305-6004 USA

> http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood

> lowood at stanford.edu; 650-723-4602

>   

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>

> _______________________________________________

> game_preservation mailing list

> game_preservation at igda.org

> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>   

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/attachments/20090402/6997646d/attachment.htm>