SIMFILES Legal Question....

[helios]

I think this is the right forum to post this in... (If not please move). Anyways, I was wondering what the status was on SIMFILES (DDR ROMS in essence). Do they have the same legal issues as ROMS do, or are they freely distributable? SIMS aren't a dump of the actual game, they're just a MP3 and arrow info. Anyone know what's going on with this?

[StephenH]

For the arrows, I am not sure, but I think that the MP3 music portion, you have a copyright issue.   I am sure that the DDR music MP3s are probably owned by a record label, or a music publisher.   I know some of them, in fact are owned by Interchord Japan, and Toshiba EMI.    In the US, I bet the rights are owned by Capitol or Virgin, because EMI owns these labels.

Sharing these would probably refer to these cases:

A&M Records et al. v Napster Inc.
Fonovisa v. Cherry Auction Inc.
In Re: Aimster Copyright Litigation
Metro Goldwin Mayer Studios et al. v. Grokster LTD.

[SirPoonga]

Unless you have the DDR CD (DDR games were on a CD pretty much) you can't legally have Actual DDR songs for the most part.  I'd think.   However, there are ALOT of free songs out there with dwi or sm files.  Look in the user submissions of ddrmaniax.

[Shieldwolf]

but i would say any arrow info should be allowed to be traded