You buy a box of old documents on Ebay. It contains an original manuscript of The Fellowship of the Ring with J. R. R. Tolkien's edits and notes in the margins. Tolkien's estate demands the copy back so they can burn it. You should mail it to them because they own it, right? It's just a book, right?

No, you shouldn't. They owners shouldn't be able to destroy it for the same reason we have laws protecting monuments and historical sites. When something has historical or cultural value, the public has a right to preserve it even against the wishes of the owner.

>>They owners shouldn't be able to destroy it for the same reason we have laws protecting monuments and historical sites.

Monuments and historical sites require Acts of Congress or Executive Orders to establish. If you care so much about this game's source code, maybe you should write to your congress critter.

No new laws needed. The Library of Congress just needs to take software and video games more seriously.

please stop dragging US politics into much broader topics.

Do they own it? If so, yes. Give it back. What they do with it is on them. Crucify them, not the person doing the right thing.

If you don't like Blizzard's stance, deal with them, not criticize someone for not achieving the end you prefer.

> Do they own it? If so, yes. Give it back.

The boundaries of legal ownership and those of what some consider morally acceptable might be different, so I don't think it's so black and white.

On the other hand, I agree that people shouldn't be criticizing someone for not doing something illegal, especially because they are the one who would have to face the consequences of taking illegal action.

Lol but watch everyone flip their shit when Apple tells people that they can't modify their software or hardware because "Apple owns it".

It's actually pretty simple. If you find yourself in the same situation:

1. Rip disk 2. Send to archive.org 3. Mail disk to Blizzard.

Blizzard will destroy this copy or at least make sure it never circulates again, by sending it to archive.org you have relieved yourself of the burden of releasing it. They may or may not choose to release it but they will at least keep it archived so that if Blizzard is to be lost then history will not be lost with it.

And, importantly, never tell anyone about #2 (at least until you can be completely certain Blizzard won't take action against you).

I would replace step 3 with framing it nicely and hiding it in in a corner in my attic. A couple centuries from now it will end up in a pawn shop somewhere

You'd still get in trouble for making that copy and distributing it.

you're not distributing it and I'd trust the people at the Internet Archive to keep it anonymous and Do the Right Thing.

Distributing to one entity is still distributing.

Yes, and when Blizzard notice that exact same source code you have conveniently appeared on the internet a few months later from an anonymous source, I'm confident they won't inform the police and sue me to fuck.

So send it to Blizzard anonymously as well.

I can't make you a legal guarantee of that, but Blizzard will not destroy the copy. It seems unlikely they'll release it any time soon given SC Remastered, but they're not idiots.

Removing from circulation permanently is basically the same as destruction for the purposes of archival.

I highly doubt it's going to be removed from circulation forever. My guess is it'll be archived internally, the disc itself will end up in their campus museum, and at some point legal will sign off on releasing it to the public.

SC1 is coming up on its 20th anniversary next year, who knows what they'll do for the occasion.

> I highly doubt it's going to be removed from circulation forever.

Agreed, but sometimes…

Shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire

Happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_MGM_vault_fire

Preservation requires distribution.

Of course, and thankfully I know for a fact Blizzard has redundant backups of all their source control :)

The disc would die in a fire certainly, but so would it if it were at the Archive.

More likely imo, someone will be charged with archiving it inside Blizzard and on their internal repos.

Blizzard already has the source code, in fact it's actively being extended as part of a HD remaster right now.

I have no doubt they are very happy to have the original copy back, it probably means quite a lot of the original developers and I would never dream of keeping it from them had it been up to me.

I would definitely hope they keep the hard copy somewhere safe but history hasn't been kind to game source code.