Once upon a time some 'clever' people [the BBC for one] though it a clever idea that once they'd broadcast a Television Series they could re-use the media for their next recording/s and taped over the old.

Sadly this was at a time BEFORE end-users had the facilities [at home] to record what was broadcast....eg. was before the advent of VHS/Beta in the home.

Lots of series were thus lost permanently [unless you star-jump to Ursa Minor and catch the signals from decades ago...

Examples were proggies like Doctor Who, where entire series/episode sets were 'lost'.  Then one day some arcjhivist was rummaging through the ABC vaults [in Australia] and found some old copies that were used to broadcast here...and many were thus recovered.

One of my personal faves...Callan is still missing virtually all of the first 2 series [in B/W]...and are almost certain to be gone for good.

I remember watching them...in the late 60s ....but they'll be 'no more'.

That's just plain frustratingly annoying....and shows what a lack of fore-sight can really do.

Meanwhile....VHS/Beta tapes do not last 'forever', either....so dubbing them to DVD [with or without remastering] is vital...and DVD/CD media is really an unknown quantity with regards to viable life-span.

Anyone creating [or distributing] art/video/music etc needs to be pro-active with regards to issues of Preservation.

Not everything we do/have is or deserves to be treated like the disposable society we seem to embrace so well.

Steam and Impulse, both being DRM, fall in exactly the same dilemma.

When they go under, where will all their games/updates go?

This was the argument we made in a university paper regarding DRM and the culture being lost to its implementation.  Good to see LOC following suit with our findings

 

Embittered ex-scholar's answer: Because librarians don't have anywhere near the combined pull of the RIAA, MPAA, and SIIA.

I formally support pluralistic democracy, but the interest group problem is, well, bad at times. At least when you're convinced that a particular interest group is working *counter to* your own interests, which is how I think about the three I named.

p.s. Librarians are still a very interesting and regularly influential class of folks. They do win some of the lower-profile fights here in the US, such as protecting our borrowing records and trying to keep our library-based net usage private. But those issues don't directly affect profit margins...

Direct-ordered CDs are also activation free, AFAIK.

Wow lots of shining examples lately as to why copyright is broken and needs to be fixed.

Since when does DRM stop piracy? It stops you installing your game on your mates PC perhaps but stop large scale piracy? Afraid not.

And Kyro your patches will be lost when/if Impulse becomes no more, got to admit that would be a shame if i wanted to boot up Sins for nostalgia reasons in years to come.

I never said i hate stardock. I support stardock is misunderstand my post.

You have to keep changing the disk thats why i support cracks if they keep DRM.

Mascrinthus, Stardock has built archiving into their system. To create archives for the fully updated versions, one would simply tell Impulse to archive them.

The DRM issue only applies to something you'd need to get around, and Stardock has given us tools instead of obstacles.