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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - General Emulation - [non-public domain/free] ROMs, legality, and ethics/morals |
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos                     Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6306 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| Repost of the original... I'm not going to bother with a poll this time, just state your opinions on topics like the legality status and the moral status of sharing ROMs which are not legally free currently.
I say that games in which the publisher does not actively keep alive should be shared. Hardware breaks and all sorts of stuff. What's the point of simply remembering the old days if you cannot replay it? Sure you might find, for example, a rare NES that still works after 15+ years, but what are you going to do if you can't find a working system? You have two options: One - Simply remember the game and hope that the company might rerelease it. But even if they do, what's the guarentee that it won't be the same game you remembered, but something with all sorts of extras that don't feel like the original. Two - Go out and find an emulator for said system (if it exists), and find the game in an electronic, downloadable format (aka 'ROM'), and play it. It might not be legal, but it'd bring back most of the original experience hopefully. |
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Blue Falkon Hoarder Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada Last post: 6513 days Last view: 6513 days |
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| Well let's look at it in a corporate view: Nintendo hates it. They even said strictly themselves on their legal section on the site that they do not allow ROMs in any way, even if you already own the game, and they want all ROMs reported to them. ROMs are illegal.
I believe that they should remain illegal but only under some circumstances. If you own the game or if the game is very old, you should be able to download it for free. Plus, ROM hacking should be allowed (even though it infringes copyrights)... that is, if they're made into non-commercial fangames like they are here. |
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Dragonsbrethren   440  Since: 12-01-05 From: New Jersey Last post: 6494 days Last view: 6494 days |
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| If I developed a game, spent a year or more perfecting it, and then the day it was released it was already available on the internet as a ROM I'd be pissed. That's the current state of GBA/DS emulation (Even though the DS isn't emulated properly yet the ROMs are out there, maybe I should say GBA/DS piracy)
If I developed a game ten years ago, it's not sold in stores anymore, I don't make a cent of it, and a fanbase wants to emulate it I have no problem with it what-so-ever. My guess is this is how most developers feel about everything prior to N64 emulation. It's still illegal no matter what. (edited by Dragonsbrethren on 12-04-05 01:43 AM) |
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spel werdz rite Since: 11-19-05 Last post: 6307 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| We, the ROM hackers spend an endless amount of time making games, and we don't sell them, we give them away. FuSoYa aslo easily gave away Lunar Magic, a program that could be sold! | |||
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Blue Falkon Hoarder Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada Last post: 6513 days Last view: 6513 days |
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Originally posted by spell words right And better yet it's still illegal!  |
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Vector Newcomer Since: 12-05-05 From: Here, there, everywhere Last post: 6746 days Last view: 6746 days |
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| Like any discussion, the issue at hand has two sides. The ROM hacker/gamer going down memory lane, and the corporate POV.
The points of view of nostalgic gamers and ROM hackers has been discussed plenty before my time, so I'm not going to touch on that. It'd be redundant. The corporate POV, though, has been less touched on. Many people think that "abandonware", games and console specifications that are no longer supported, due to them being obsolete, should be released to the public domain. Companies like Nintendo, however, have no intentions of doing this? Why? The short answer is: Money. Even though the console went out of production ten years ago, they can still make money off of the old games. For those asking how, I point you to Super Mario All Stars, every Sonic compiliation ever made, the NES collection on GBA, and the upcoming Revolution, with downloadable content in the form of old games. The programmers proably couldn't care less. Even though they're credited in the final release, nine times out of ten, the game's code becomes property of the company. Of course, thing like royalties can muddy the waters here, but I'm working the simple angle. In the end, Nintendo, and other gaming companies despise ROMs, and want them to be illegal in every sense of the word, because 1: Modifying an original product, like the source code of a game, is an infringement of IP rights, or so they say, and 2: they can't ban emulators. Not yet, anyway. So, they try to make ROMs illegal. Because if you can download Super Mario Brothers for free and play it on any machine you have an emu for, Nintendo can't charge you $9.95 to play it on the revolution. That's my 2 cents. |
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Thexare Metal battleaxe Off to better places  Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6307 days Last view: 6306 days |
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Originally posted by Blue Falkon Nice biased source you got there, mind quoting specific legal passages instead of just blindly regurgitating the same lines that have been forcefed to you? If you can't do any independent thinking, just shut up and let someone else try defending the illegality - I'll gladly debate with someone who thinks. Here's how I see it. 1. ROM distribution is illegal; I'm pretty sure that we can all agree on that. Downloading, eh, I've never seen the specific legal wording myself, so I dunno. 2. ROMs for systems no longer supported should be legal - they aren't, of course, but I feel they should be. And honestly, if I was the one running one of these companies, I'd release the ROMs myself once that console became completely obsolete and further game sales were an improbability. Besides, people that have the ROMs will still sometimes buy rereleases/collections (example: me buying the Sonic Mega Collection) for various reasons. 3. Human greed will prevent 2 from ever happening. 4. Morally, that's up to the individual - my sense of right and wrong and yours might be different. My point of view should be obvious, however. |
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Deleted User Banned    Since: 05-08-06 Last post: None Last view: 6307 days |
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| I'm a relentless abandonware rom guy. And by abandonware I mean NES, SNES. Genesis, and old stuff.
I hated myself in the morning, but I also got a few GBA roms as well. Public Domain roms are fun once in a blue moon, too. PS: Blue Falkon, don't explode. IPS patches are legal The discussion of hacking roms is legal. Roms aren't, but it's not like it's OMG SWAT TEAMZORS kind of illegal. Chill.. (edited by Shyguy on 12-06-05 05:36 AM) |
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jordan_mega_gamer Red Goomba Since: 11-25-05 From: Vermont, USA Last post: 6333 days Last view: 6332 days |
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| I can think of a few ways to solve the legality dilema:
a) All roms are considered illegal and strictly enforced. Most people won't have roms, a few will, and nobody will be happy about it except the developers, who still don't gain that much in sales because of it. b) Roms are considered illegal, but it's not strictly enforced. People get roms, and developers aren't happy (this is the current solution.) c) Roms for systems more than X years old are considered public domain. (I think six-seven's a good number, it would allow NES, SNES, GB, GBC roms). People still get most of the roms they want, and developers still get most of their revenues. d) Individual companies decide when they feel their games are public domain, and release roms themselves. The developers are perfectly happy; for example, Nintendo could choose not to release a certain mario game if they knew they were going to port it soon. People would get roms directly from the companies' websites and be mostly happy. IMO, everybody wins with option D, but option C seems more likely. Sadly, I think we'll be stuck with A or B for quite a while... |
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LocalH Paragoomba Since: 11-20-05 Last post: 6545 days Last view: 6545 days |
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| None of those are accurate, because in no situation are all ROM images illegal. Even discounting homebrew/hacked ROMs, self-dumped ROMs are always 100% legal no matter what any game company says.
As it stands now, the only fully legal way to have ROMs of copyrighted games without explicit permission is to dump the ROM yourself. If there were low-cost mass-produced cart copiers for "obsolete" systems (anything pre-32bit, I would say), then people could dump their own carts and have legal ROMs. |
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beneficii Broom Hatter Since: 11-18-05 Last post: 6310 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| How about this? It has to do with "Access Controls"; scroll down to no. 3.
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0312/copyright.html (edited by beneficii on 12-08-05 03:47 PM) |
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LocalH Paragoomba Since: 11-20-05 Last post: 6545 days Last view: 6545 days |
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| Yeah, that's what I believe legitimizes copiers for "obsolete" formats - of which any sane person would probably consider any cartridges for systems that aren't currently marketed. (i.e., any cart-based system but GBA and DS). | |||
Xeo Belmont Wiiiiiiiiiiiiin  Since: 11-17-05 Last post: 6306 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| Now here's a discussion. | |||
ShadowTails Grizzo  Since: 11-20-05 From: C:\My Documents\ShadowTails\My House\My Room Last post: 6328 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| does that include the fact that distributing stuff like music and movies on the internet is illegal? because most of the things about legallty involve people making copies and making money on stuff... same with roms, you know pirates, they do the most illegal things, quite technically you think the government gives a crap about some mere little bytes? they can't really get you for anything unless you put them on carts make your own art, sell the carts and stuff in a semi real looking box, then throw all that into a blender after getting money and... you got illegalty, because they like to remove logo's and such, something that just seems really stupid and easy.
Basically Roms are "Illegal" drinking and drivings illegal, as much as I see it Roms aren't going to get your girlfriend pregnant, get you thrown into jail... unless your selling them and making money, same for distributing mp3's and stuff, if they don't want us distributing the stuff... why make it so easy to rip them from CD's?... If you ask me, its the government's fault, oh well if anything like that becomes legal I will go to washington D.C. and dance on the white house lawn naked, same for if america changes its TV standards... like censoring the word hell... and editting anime... if you ask me thats illegal, but anywho Just keep the roms on your computer unless you try to sell them, (same with music and vid's) then thats the only way you can get thrown in jail... making a copy of something for your friends totally legal, big whoop if some little parchment of paper says its illegal, drinking and drivings illegal, is that stopping the people who do it? driving over the speed limit, illegal, people still do it... so if you ask me these disscussions should stop... |
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Sukasa Birdo Not quite as active as before. Xkeeper supporter Xk > ||bass I IP Banned myself! Twice!  Since: 11-17-05 From: Somewhere over there Last post: 6307 days Last view: 6306 days |
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| Well, they're illegal if you don't own the original board/ROM/disk/whatever, but I can't see how a ROM hack can really be called illegal, because once you change the data, it's not the publisher's data anymore, it's yours. Besides, the fact is, it's an unwinnable fight. For every ROM user/distributor you shut down, there will always be 3 more that crop up. | |||
Disch Red Cheep-cheep Since: 12-10-05 Last post: 6586 days Last view: 6586 days |
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I'm bored. So here's some replies to really old posts along with my own additional ramblings
This mentality/logic is flawed. Game programmers, designers, marketers, etc do not profit based on the sales of the game. They're all on salary. They make the same money whether the game is a smash hit or whether it never even gets released. Game makers do not make royalties... royalties exist when you make something then give to someone else to market/distribute. Since the programmers are not making the game on their own and selling it to Nintendo/Sony/MS/etc... they are not entitled to royalties. Financial impact of piracy from a modern-day software company is felt only by the head honchoes of the company who already make more than enough money... and to a lesser extent the stockholders of the company. The only way the people actually making the games feel any pinch would be if they have an assload of shares... or if piracy becomes such a problem that they lose their job due to layoffs or whatnot. Considering that the gaming industry has done nothing to grow exponentially the past few years... it's safe to say the latter isn't happening.
Except for the short answer of "money"... this is the best thought in this thread so far. I don't really like to associate copyrights with money, since they're not directly related at all... but the idea in your post is dead on. Bravo. There's a bit more to it than that though... intellectual rights span MUCH further than just remakes of old games. Maintaining ownership of retro games protects future investments. This is definatly the easiest/clearest example to point to though.
No you wouldn't. If you made financial decisions like that, you'd bankrupt in a month. Giving away your products for free is a great way to drive your business into the ground.
Call it greed if you must... but as it stands, the whole idea of capitalism is to make money off your products. Until you get some real-life experience in the field it's hard to explain... but if you've ever tried to operate your own business, you'll see how competitive and hard it is to get by -- and that's when you're only looking out for yourself -- when you start "looking out for the little guy" and giving away free shit... there's just no way to maintain a profit.... and the business collapses. The only thing that really seperates large corporations from small business is the rate of success and growth. The reason big companies are sticklers about piracy is because if they weren't, they wouldn't be big companies.
Since you only point out the 3rd class -- I feel it's important to cover what the document is really saying: "persons who engage in noninfringing uses of copyrighted works in these four classes will not be subject to the statutory prohibition against circumvention of access controls." [snip] "The purpose of the proceeding is to determine whether current technologies that control access to copyrighted works are diminishing the ability of individuals to use works in lawful, noninfringing ways. The DMCA does not forbid the act of circumventing copy controls, and therefore, this rulemaking proceeding is not about technologies that control copying." That's not saying "okay, games which use old outdated hardware are up for grabs" as some people here may have been thinking (not accusing anyone.. just thought I'd cover this base because like I said... I'm bored) It's saying more or less what Local H was:
It's legal to bypass any lockout/copy-protection measures on the system, pull out any software for whatever purpose you wish (provided you don't redistribute). That is more or less what that doc is saying.
As I previously stated I don't like to associate the law with money. The law does not protect a being's money... it protects their rights. As also has been previously mentioned, retro emulation is not directly damaging financially. It's true that Nintendo doesn't miss out on any NES cart sales when you pirate a SMB1 ROM, but that doesn't mean anything when it comes to whether or not that's illegal.
That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have read all week.
What is the government's fault? That piracy exists? That downloading ROMs is illegal? It sounds like you're just ranting incoherently.
No... it's in how they're distributed. If I download an illegal copy of Toejam and Earl... it's illegal regardless of whether or not I own the cartridge. The site/wherever I got it from didn't have permission to distribute. "must own the real cartridge to download" "must delete within 24 hours" "for educational purposes only" and other moronic disclaimers do not reflect the law in any way, and are compeltely bogus.
This is where you get into a grey area. Taking SMB3 graphics and putting them in a patch for SMB1 makes the patch just as illegal as the ROM, since it contains copyrighted images. But assuming everything you put in a ROM is original content ... it could still be illegal if it was based on copyrighted content. Although like I said it's a very grey area. I can't speak in absolutes but I will say that ROM hacking is definatly not 100% legit. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6307 days Last view: 6307 days |
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| ROM hacks are sort of a gray area. On one hand, you're using your own content as opposed to the copyrighted content. However, on the other hand, copyrighted content - the game program, and anything you didn't hack - still remains. This is the main legal benefit of patches - an IPS made from the original ROM vs your hacked version will only contain your modifications, so unless you imported other copyrighted data, none will be in the patch. | |||
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FreeDOS + Giant Red Koopa Legion: freedos = fritos Since: 11-17-05 From: Seattle Last post: 6306 days Last view: 6306 days |
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Originally posted by HyperHacker Which happens all too often anyway. Especially patches that rip SMAS music or graphics into SMW. You're essentially distributing copyrighted data and the patch contains illegal contents. |
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Jomb Deddorokku  Since: 12-03-05 From: purgatory Last post: 6309 days Last view: 6309 days |
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| Yes, of course most ROMs are illegal. Just because something is illegal, does that necessarily make it wrong? I can understand why a ROM of a relatively new game is illegal, but after it gets old i no longer agree with the law. Term of copyright was origionally much shorter than it is now, way back when. And rightly so. What happened was greedy corporate lobbyists have managed to extend the term of copyright to an absurd degree.
But why do we as a whole accept this? If i was a house-painter and i painted your house, you'd pay me then and it would be over with. No one would stand for it if i kept coming back demanding more payment for that house i painted years ago, or insisted all new owners who buy the house have to re-pay me or my heirs because i painted it 30 years ago. Why we accept the notion that people who make intellectual property should continue to be payed for it essentially forever, while any other working joe only gets paying for actual work being done is beyond me. |
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HyperHacker Star Mario Finally being paid to code in VB! If only I still enjoyed that. <_< Wii #7182 6487 4198 1828 Since: 11-18-05 From: Canada, w00t! My computer's specs, if anyone gives a damn. STOP TRUNCATING THIS >8^( Last post: 6307 days Last view: 6307 days |
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That analogy doesn't make sense, though. The closest possible way it relates to emulation is if you buy another copy/remake of the game, which is like getting another paint job, so of course you'd have to pay for it.  |
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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - General Emulation - [non-public domain/free] ROMs, legality, and ethics/morals |
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