I did my bachelors degree on this topic but have been interested in this problem since years before university. Specifically, the direction that we’re headed in terms of video game preservation [0].
I can still play most of the games that I grew up with, and nostalgia is well-known to be an important form of emotional wellbeing. Where will we be when the youth of tomorrow can’t experience that nostalgia? Sure there’s books (if they’re bought physically), but what else? Music isn’t guaranteed either and I won’t be surprised if in 30 years it is extremely difficult to _buy_ (legally) music.
> I won’t be surprised if in 30 years it is extremely difficult to _buy_ (legally) music.
When was ever feasible to legally buy music? I mean for the average Joe, not a record company or Michael Jackson.
It certainly hasn't been in my lifetime, and I'm old by Internet standards. The only thing that has meaningfully changed is that the license period terms have become shorter and shorter.
I remember CDs well, but the music on them was never owned, even if Napster tried to make a case otherwise (if you don't know, it failed to make that case, leading to its eventual demise). You're going to have to go back way further, if there was ever a time.
Nope. The music was generally licensed when those were popular. Ownership was retained by the licensor. Maybe in the wax cylinder era ownership of the music was usually passed with the physical media? That is getting to be before my time.
Interesting question and I did some research on it. (AI results were awful and downright misinformation by the way)
Early copyright law didn't explicitly cover music and audio recordings, because the technology did not exist or was not widely available at the time. However, I suspect that they may have been covered by early copyright laws.
Copyright Act of 1790 in the United States primarily focused on protecting written works, such as books, maps, and charts, while Early recordings were created in the 1870s.
Herbert v. Shanley Co., 242 U.S. 591 (1917), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held hotels and restaurants that perform music must compensate composers, even if the venue is not separately charging patrons to hear the music.
From this, I infer that music during this time was copyrightable, so commercial production of it via wax cylinder would also be infringement.
>and nostalgia is well-known to be an important form of emotional wellbeing ... Where will we be when the youth of tomorrow can’t experience that nostalgia?
Talk about overstating the case. Any problems that the youth will have in the future, will not be because they cannot re-play a live service game they are playing today.
I think you are missing the point (and think it is an interesting one).
I don't think they are overstating games as the single biggest factor, just part of a possible trend, which could be undesirable when considered in its totality.
More of a question if we are heading towards a future where "you'll own nothing and be happy", and the downsides of that on psychological wellbeing.
His point was we (probably) won't be able to play old video games as adults and that will be bad for our emotional well being. I think that's silly. In 30 years that will probably be the least of our worries. As an adult who played Doom and Duke Nukem 3d as a younger kid, I can assure you, that's the least of my worries. There's plenty of other things as an adult to harm our emotional well being.
"you'll own nothing and be happy" is a completely different topic but slightly related.
The original post was not just about video games, but ownership, nostalgia, and emotional development in general. I say this is obvious because they clearly discuss other media and property. They call out books and music as other parts of the trend.
I can still play most of the games that I grew up with, and nostalgia is well-known to be an important form of emotional wellbeing. Where will we be when the youth of tomorrow can’t experience that nostalgia? Sure there’s books (if they’re bought physically), but what else? Music isn’t guaranteed either and I won’t be surprised if in 30 years it is extremely difficult to _buy_ (legally) music.
[0]: https://joshua.hu/files/GameLost.pdf spoiler: it’s not good