Download-only Content

[mtwchk]

Hello All,

I'm a media librarian, and have been looking for a forum like this to learn from my colleagues at other institutions who might also have experience grappling with some of the issues that come with supporting gaming.

I work at an academic library, and we have been supporting a very small gaming collection in support of a handful of courses for several years.  We have PS2, PS3, and XBox consoles in our viewing carrel area for on site use, and circulate collections of all three types of games.  I'm running into our first request to 'acquire' downloadable content (e.g. not available in hard copy format) on our on-site consoles.  Specifically, he would like for us to download two games from the PlayStation store for students to come to the Library to play.  I'm just starting to look into potential licensing restrictions and other challenges we might run into if we pursue this request -- does anyone else have experience with this kind of thing?  If so, would you be willing to share what's worked for you?

Thanks in advance!

--
Meghann Matwichuk, M.S.
Associate Librarian
Film and Video Collection Department
Morris Library, University of Delaware
181 S. College Ave.
Newark, DE 19717
(302) 831-1475
http://www.lib.udel.edu/filmandvideo

[Víctor Amor]

Hello, I am currently researching on this fact, digital stores like Steam, Nintendo Network, Origin, Xbox Live Arcade and if, PlayStation Network have a complex digital rights management, so leave them is the person who has purchased the title but always subject to the availability of servers and the company SONY that is who manages these servers with developers (who may lose their intellectual property if the company closes or goes bankrupt). The possibilities are there, but so far it seems that few titles (on the Nintendo Network has happened with various titles for the Virtual Console and download new titles for naming issues or licensing between companies). In this sense, libraries have little to do (for now) to the majors in the entertainment industry, as sometimes happened with film, music, television, and yes, even with books (where often depend from publishers).

If you can find the same titles without DRM on another platform, it would always be better for the library and the users of it. If you tell me the titles I can help you find them on another platform. But buy a license is the same as the library and will not control (such as publishers about sometimes).

Courage, the future is the software and interactive resources.

Amor San Segundo, Victor
Master in Research in Documentation
Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain

[Philip Minchin, Euchronic Games]

Hi,

Legal technicalities aside, the question is as much "what will they choose to make trouble about" as anything. As far as I can tell, the law was written to be intentionally way too broad to be practically enforceable (or for that matter balanced against any interests other than Big Copyright's) - it's a sort of ambit claim that lets them make trouble about the things that bother them at any given time. The tradeoff of that kind of law is that they have to choose their battles, and making trouble for libraries seems like a singularly stupid fight to pick given that we have obvious critical and educational (i.e. fair use) applications for whatever uses we're making of the software, plus the fact that we are customers ourselves, and additionally have the data to show we have always been a source of increased sales for the items we share.

While recent moves to prevent people from recording playthroughs of games and uploading them to YouTube (only by Nintendo, to date; other companies seem fine with it still) suggest that having these games intentionally played in front of a mass audience might get you some negative attention (though even that is probably subject to you making money from the activity), simply having the games installed on the console to be used exactly as intended seems unlikely to do so any more than having games played with a disc in the console. It's not like you're giving users access to the files on the system, so they can't pirate the games. All they can do is play them.

I certainly know of public libraries here in Australia that have downloaded such titles to have them playable on their systems as a way of giving people a choice of games to play on the console without having to change the disc every time. (I also know that several customers have asked library staff how to buy games they played that way, and in at least one case bought the console on the strength of their library experience.)

If you're buying downloadable titles for the PS3, may I suggest a few? Journey, Papo & Yo, Unfinished Swan, and Flower are all recommended (in that order). Journey is available on a disc now, I believe - and you really should have that title, so if you're limited in the number of downloadable titles you can buy, or want to be able to lend it, pick it up that way.

Good luck!

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[Laini Bostian]

I love this: "Courage, the future is the software and interactive resources."  
 
I work at a public library, and have run into a problem that is not entirely dissimilar.  We have a collection of "educational software," basically games on CD-ROM for PC's and Mac's.  I want to expand the collection, but no hard copies are being made for Windows 7.  The CD's are still being sold, but they are good for "Vista."  It looks like I can only purchase downloads from Amazon now.  And, that will not work for me as I have no way to offer those to the public.  Has anyone heard anything about downloadable software being circulated by libraries?  It would be great if Overdrive could pick that up, along with the movies, music, e-books, and audiobooks one can download from their platform.  But, they do not do it.
 
Best,
Laini

 

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Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:31:28 -0700
From: victor...@gmail.com
To: libg...@googlegroups.com
Subject: {LibGaming} Re: Download-only Content

[Philip Minchin, Euchronic Games]

Hey Laini,

I'm actually in the middle of working on exactly this issue. I've been talking to Steam on and off for years about an Overdrive-like e-lending service; Steam have just announced they will support sharing of games between friends and family members, so it's even closer than ever. Lending software is a more complex issue than lending fixed media, so it's not surprising Overdrive are slow to market on this; but Valve (the company that makes Steam) has already solved all the technical issues arising.

Steam may not currently have all the "educational" titles that you're looking for (I tend to find that many are too boring/badly designed to teach much, hence the quote marks), but if they move into the library market they are likely to get interested in the better educational titles, and a great many of the games and tools they already offer have educational applications too. (Cf Steam for Schools)

If you're interested, I'm happy to keep you posted about any updates.

All that said, software for Vista will largely work on later versions of Windows. You get a slightly greater risk of compatibility issues, but I have no problem routinely running 10-year-old software on my Windows 7 machines.

[Víctor Amor]

Sure, Steam has taken a step forward but the issue of digital content for use in the library is far from be capable to pay or use therein, Europe is emerging digital loan grading, use and sale of the same, so it will be a step forward in this. Meanwhile there to download them that way, but if there are magnificent downloadable games for educational use, educational and playful in libraries. The future is digital and digital content will be very important in our libraries, at least that's what I've been and continued investigating, and I think I can help and learn a lot from people who develop and program it in a moment of my life I was also programming and understand well the effort of that work.
That said, I encourage and continue, anything you can write me and I will be happy to help all I can. Thank you very much. I will continue to keep this fantastic group LibGaming.

PD: Thanks by mention Overdrive, did not know him and is very interesting, know more sites similar?

Amor San Segundo, Victor
victor...@gmail.com

[Laini Bostian]

Philip and Victor, thank you for the quick responses!  I held out little hope that something like Steam even existed.  I will take more time to read about it tomorrow!  

I am nearing completion of my MLIS.  My first Masters in is Elementary Education, not Library Science.  I manage Youth Services for a county library in Virginia, U.S., with a population of 45,000.  I want to know everything I can about technology.  I read Computers in Libraries journal, but I have to do extensive research just to understand some of the background references in the articles.  

Victor, I love your positive attitude!  I live in fear that I will have no job in five years since the big publishers in the United States will not sell e-books to libraries.  A few will, but only some titles.  I want to be thinking beyond books, even though I believe books are here to stay.  

Please share all you can with me as you find things of interest in the field.  I am extremely involved with gaming and teens, but we mainly play board games, card games, and live action role playing games (on a LARP level once every couple of years).  The XBox Kinect gets very little use!  We brought a lot of lesser known strategy games into the mix.  

Anyway, do share, and I hope that I will have interesting things to share as well!  

E-mail me at lbos...@cclva.org, and I can share my personal e-mail as well.

Thank you for this interesting information on Steam, Philip!

Best,

Laini

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Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:45:30 -0700
From: victor...@gmail.com
To: libg...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: {LibGaming} Download-only Content

[BWS Johnson]

Salvete!

While not properly gaming related, some cool stuff is going down in terms of IP and the blind which might eventually prove helpful.

http://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/fall/2013/20130912a.cfm

(If you're in the DC area, I would encourage attendance at these gatherings, since they are fascinating, free, and come with food. :D Lawyers 10 Librarians 0)

I'd hope that these changes start to further bleed into general Library and ed stuff. We're already meant to have expanded rights; we rarely assert them.

Once again, I would just like to state that if we had a Librarian of Congress with a steel spine, all would benefit.

*commence the I am not a lawyer disclaimer dance*

Cheers,
Brooke

[Philip Minchin, Euchronic Games]

> Once again, I would just like to state that if we had a Librarian of Congress with a steel spine, all would benefit.

I second that. (Mind you, I keep hearing talk about cyber-librarians/cybrarians so I suppose it's only a matter of time.)

On a more serious but even more tangential note a paper I wrote (that isn't directly gaming-related but does have some relevance, and very much comes from my interest in games) has just been published:

http://inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2013/two-way-libraries-open-catalogues-and-the-future-of-sharing-culture/

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[Víctor Amor]

In response to the above of loan and sale of video games in europe, here you have friends in the United States in English law attesting this fact:

http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=124564&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=5238591

Not only has rights to the physical one, also on the digital and in the next platforms should allow the sale of second hand digital video, the loan of the same, so it is something that will come and only a matter of time users and information professionals can make use of sale / purchase and loan them. I also hope the same will happen soon in America.

Regards

Amor San Segundo, Victor