time.com/3656635/play-oregon-trail-ms-dos-games-free/

I think it's great the way they're just getting on with it and forcing the point on game preservation. This is in a big legal grey area, but they're going ahead anyway because so many of these old games are being forgotten or lost. More here, on Jason Scott's blog (he's the guy who led the initiative).

And here's a direct link to the MS-DOS library: archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games/v2

mossy_11 wrote:


Nope, they are allowed to: archive.org/about/dmca.php

From what I hear this is still pushing the edge because they are arguably distributing the games and not just storing them in a suitable format for posterity (which is what that DMCA exemption was about — circumventing copyright for the purposes of creating archival copies).

It's the right thing to do, regardless, but can anyone confirm they are allowed to specifically make the games playable online? Having talked to professional archivists and academics about these issues in the past, and all the layers of legal restrictions that they have to battle through, one after another, I'm curious.