Re:Need for Speed Underground 2 online in the browser
by vel0city on Saturday November 07, 2026 @12:03PM
(#50406084)
> For the most part, Universal Studios is willing to sell me an old movie for a fair price
So I can go to the store and buy any of these? No? Huh. Sounds like this is largely untrue for most films ever produced commercially.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Universal_Pictures_fil...
Re:Need for Speed Underground 2 online in the browser
by boston_clone on Saturday November 07, 2026 @09:35PM
(#50409980)
I’m not a lawyer or anything, but aren’t these all public domain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_in_the_United_St...
Re:Need for Speed Underground 2 online in the browser
by vel0city on Saturday November 07, 2026 @11:32PM
(#50410430)
They are under public domain. But they still could theoretically distribute them. Theoretically, pretty much anyone could, but most of this list is just essentially lost to time. They couldn't even if they wanted to for a lot of these.
But sure, let's go to more modern examples. Are all of these easily acquired "new" these days?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Universal_Pictures_fil...
Will EA sell me Need for Speed Underground 2? Nope! They won't even acknowledge it exists on their website:
https://www.ea.com/games/need-for-speed
Just look under the "Need for Speed Games" menu.
I think this is what makes movie piracy a lot less romanticized. For the most part, Universal Studios is willing to sell me an old movie for a fair price. It's mostly the software and especially the game industry that is hostile to this idea.
I think copyright law should be modified to have more consideration for the rights holder's commercial abandonment. I would change it to add these parameters:
If a copyrighted work was sold to the general public at any point, and the rights-holder no longer sells that product in a way that a reasonable person would purchase and consume that work or is no longer for sale in a manner consistent with its original form of sale, people are then free to copy and redistribute that work for non-commercial purposes, although they may collect donations for the purposes of covering distribution cost so long as they don't make those donations a prerequisite for the end consumer's access of the copyrighted work.