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Author Topic: Legal roms  (Read 16052 times)

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SirPoonga

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Legal roms
« on: June 26, 2002, 02:52:01 pm »
Which roms are legal.  I think HowardC said Capsom games over 3 years are legal.  Any others?

Someone wants me and my friend to put out flash frontend in a design contest.  I only want to put legal roms in the demo.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

tom61

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2002, 03:18:16 pm »
This is a gray area, for the most part.

There are some roms that the manufacturer gives everyone a license to use it, as long as they do not charge for them. You can find these on Mame.net

There are some roms where the copyright on them is now gone, usually by the company dieing. You can find these on Mame.net

Any game you own you can emulate legally, pending you you copy the roms yourself, and do not circumvent any copy protection(the last item is because of the DCMA).

You can get license to some games. Capcom rom licenses can be bought from Hanaho, by buying one of their 'Coin-Op  Classics' discs (which actually run Mame). Using Capcom roms without buying licenses is illegal, no matter how old they are.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

SirPoonga

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2002, 08:52:11 pm »
Yyeah, I know all that, my main point was are there games like the Capcoms out there.  HC gets the Capcom newsletter.  He said they said technically a copywrite is on the game but they aren;t going to enforce you having roms older than 3 years old unless you try and make money off of them.

since I am doing it for a demo that is exactly what I need.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

tom61

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2002, 02:56:30 pm »
If all you're worried about is enforcement, I don't think any company is currently going after end users.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

SirPoonga

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2002, 05:21:11 pm »
In my own house I'm not quite as nal about it.  But I was wondering if other companies have the same policy Capcom, that's an official non-enforcement policy.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

Howard_Casto

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2002, 12:37:15 pm »
Quote
If all you're worried about is enforcement, I don't think any company is currently going after end users.



Think again.  Most people skirt around this issue but I'll give it to you straight.  Nintendo and Midway entertainment shut down any site even mentioning their roms as soon as they get word of it.  To be blunt midway had mame.dk shutdown because of the Mortal Kombat roms it hosted.  If you think about it those are pretty old game too, with the exception of umk3, which was a big flop in the arcades anyway.

On the other hand some companies appreciate the work of mame and although, refuse to officially support it, do not interfere unless it infringment of a very recent game.  Capcom and Atari are good examples of this.  

And yeah capcom made an offical statement about 6 months ago regarding their enforcement policies.  After the three year mark they stop promoting it, stop trying to re-package/port it, and do not enforce the copyright unless someone trys to make a profit off of the game or degrade the character of capcom or it's intellectual property.  The only catch is they keep the option to re-introduce the game at any time, and thus port it to a new system and re-instate the copyright.  
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

StephenH

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2002, 02:52:21 am »
US Copyright laws are good for 75 Years.   This means almost all games are copyrighted.


However, there are some legal ways to aquire ROMs, and play older arcade games.


1) You can download Gridlee, Poly Play, and Robby Roto from www.mame.net/downmisc.html.   Howard Delman and Jamie Fenton released Gridlee and Robby Roto to the public.   Poly Play is freeware because the former East German Government collapsed.

2) You can buy the Capcom Coin-Op Classics CD-ROM from Hanaho Games at www.hanaho.com.   This CD includes MAME32, and 14 legally licensed ROMs from Capcom.

3) Buy an ArcadePC Cabinet from Capcom, and you get 50 Capcom Arcade ROMs, plus MAME.

4) You can buy a real arcade board, and a ROM dumper device and dump the ROMs yourself.

5) You can contact the game companies directly and request to buy a license for the ROMs.     The older and the less popular the game was, the more likely they are to do this for you.    Also, the game companies vary.  For example, Nintendo thinks that all emulation is illegal.   However, if that were true, Capcom is doing a crime by licensing its ROMs through Hanaho, and Jamie Fenton making Robby Roto freeware.     It is "fair game" with any game company on this issue.


NON-MAME Options:

1) Shockwave.com offers emulated versions of Root Beer Tapper, Satan's Hollow, Joust, Spy Hunter, Bubbles, and a couple other Midway games that play in your web browser.   See www.shockwave.com for details.

2) Return of the Arcade from Microsoft.   This offers PC Ports of several classic arcade titles.   See www.microsoft.com

3) Atari's Greatest Hits from Hasbro.   This CD-ROM offers emulated versions of several classic Atari Titles.

4) Internet Gateway Inc offers Shockwave and Java based arcade and shareware clones of arcade games that play in your browser at www.igateway.net.  
 
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »

Lilwolf

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Re: Legal roms
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2002, 10:35:50 am »
Sad thing is... I would pay the roms I use often!  

I have always premoted emulation where possible.. I bought bleem even thought I ran it once... I liked the idea of someone being able to base a company off emulation.   I also have donated to a few projects I liked (cps2 is the only one I can think of ... but I'm pretty sure there are others).

So if a company offered me to buy some I would.. I don't know how much, but 5 - 10 bucks sounds fair to me....

And I do own a few pcbs...  

Games I would like to legally own.

Timepilots - I play it all the time
19xx - my daughter play it all the time
Gauntlet - great game!  great replay value
Ghosts and Goblins
All those sex games :)
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 pm by 1026619200 »