It's now legal to crack DRM on games sometimes

[DerVVulfman]

It's now legal to crack DRM on games sometimes

By Alex Calvin, Editor - PC Games Insider

A new ruling by the United States Congress says it is legal to crack DRM on video games in America.

The copyright judgment published by the Librarian of Congress last week says that consumers have the "right to repair" goods. The main focus of this ruling is electronics, meaning that customers can now turn to third parties to repair phones or laptops.

But as spotted by the eagle-eyed sleuths of Reddit, consumers will be able to modify games they have purchased to make them playable even when developers and publishers have closed off servers and so on.

Here's the full legalese from the ruling:

Video games in the form of computer programs embodied in physical or downloaded formats that have been lawfully acquired as complete games, when the copyright owner or its authorized representative has ceased to provide access to an external computer server necessary to facilitate an authentication process to enable gameplay, solely for the purpose of:

(A) Permitting access to the video game to allow copying and modification of the computer program to restore access to the game for personal, local gameplay on a personal computer or video game console; or

(B) Permitting access to the video game to allow copying and modification of the computer program to restore access to the game on a personal computer or video game console when necessary to allow preservation of the game in a playable form by an eligible library, archives, or museum, where such activities are carried out without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage and the video game is not distributed or made available outside of the physical premises of the eligible library, archives, or museum.

Not only does this make it easier for consumers to play games once companies are no longer supporting them, but it means that they are easier to archive or feature in the longer term in places such as museums. Just so long as people aren't profiting from them.

[kyonides]

Well, I hope more countries will stand up and pass similar laws to allow more people get access to such much needed services. Would it also cover stuff like our loveable emulators of choice?

[DerVVulfman]

Some companies will certainly complain if it pertains to emulators. They would feel they'd be losing money from intended sales of their retro consoles like the reintroduced SuperNintendo. Good luck getting Nintendo to find favor with THAT!

[kyonides]

Without those emulators for NES and SNES games, they wouldn't have been able to release the NES and SNES mini consoles in the first place... Irony, how dare you show your face here!

[Kirito]

While it is legal to crack the DRM for fair use preservation purposes, it is still illegal to distribute said cracks. That's covered in another section of the law that Librarian of Congress is not allowed to touch. So, yes, you can bypass protections in order to preserve or repair something, but no, you're not allowed to tell anyone else how to do it. That said, you are allowed to use any methods of bypass you learned in order to preserve or repair someone elses covered items on their behalf.