Free roms? (Not illegal ones)

[DaveMMR]

Other than capital crimes, civil matters are hard to pursue, especially if you do them in your own home.  Who is to know?

I guess you never heard of the RIAA... 

And they haven't heard of me either.

I pay for all my music and films.  We are discussing roms not music or movies. 

Music and films is actively sold and reissued.  You should be sued for thousands for procuring music and films you have not paid for.

And I wasn't just talking about you....

I was responding to this line:

Other than capital crimes, civil matters are hard to pursue, especially if you do them in your own home.  Who is to know?

Ark, we get that you walk on water with regards to copyright matters. But in responding to the point you brought up in your follow-up, I wanted to remind people that middle income housewives, college students, etc. - people who are by no means "criminals" by society's standards, were being bullied out of tens of thousands of dollars by the RIAA (which was the settlement; they were actually being sued for millions in some cases).  Yes what they were doing was illegal and wrong - but they were naive. Remember a lot of us grew up taping albums for each other or off the radio and the music industry was slow to provide consumers with the equivalent of the "single" (be it 45, Cassingle, etc.) in the dawn of the digital age. They were oblivious to the damage they were causing because it seemed "innocent" and "victimless". While I agree there should be some punishment; it should have been realistic, not financially devastating.

So now onto ROMS. Video game publishers don't go after ROM dealers as fiercely for two reasons:
(1) It's not that widespread. Talk to 10 average people. Ask them if they'd ever downloaded music illegally. Then ask them if they downloaded ROMs. I'm guessing your responses would be 8-10 "yes" answers for the former and 0-1 "yes" answers for the latter (and mostly confused looks).
(2) Publishers making games today are more concerned with piracy of their latest titles, which is a big problem. And people sharing the illegal code can and do get found out (though it's often just a warning from their ISP telling them to knock it off.)

So Ark, when you say:

I have also come to the conclusion that nothing is illegal, except obviously capital crimes.  You can do anything you want.

It makes it sound like publishers are just lying down on this. But watch, if and when it becomes easy enough for some non-technically inclined schmo to get illegal games with ease (like it was for MP3s) so that publishers take serious hits, you'll see that you cannot just do anything you want. They can do what the RIAA and start suing people for hundreds of thousands per title with minimal effort. It's not that hard.

But money talks and for right now, prevention (see: most consoles' protection since the NES) is much cheaper than prosecution.

[Donkbaca]

That's not entirely true. You couldn't patent software until the 90's, and that is what has screwed small developers up. 

as far as I am concerned this is a difference between home use and exploiting for commercial distribution. 

The thing we should keep an eye on the most is the 360 arcade. If a market develops for old games ten things get murkier

[ark_ader]

That's not entirely true. You couldn't patent software until the 90's, and that is what has screwed small developers up. 

as far as I am concerned this is a difference between home use and exploiting for commercial distribution. 

The thing we should keep an eye on the most is the 360 arcade. If a market develops for old games ten things get murkier

Funny you should remark on this.  I am having a conversation with a mate who is telling me of some details of the new Xbox 720. 

I replied that the 720 will be cloud gaming oriented due to the losses associated with old games, and how the trade in market is behaving.

If the 720 went into cloud, Microsoft would not have any problems with piracy or second hand games.

We see Apple and iTunes for the cloud. 

I think copyright abuse for games, music and movies will become a thing of the past once broadband speeds get higher and game control remains within the company.
 

[ed12]

humm

>“architectural work of art”[Repealed, 1993, c. 44, s. 53]

“artistic work”

« oeuvre artistique »

“artistic work” includes paintings, drawings, maps, charts, plans, photographs, engravings, sculptures, works of artistic craftsmanship, architectural works, and compilations of artistic works;

“Berne Convention country”

« pays partie à la Convention de Berne »

“Berne Convention country” means a country that is a party to the Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works concluded at Berne on September 9, 1886, or any one of its revisions, including the Paris Act of 1971;

“Board”

« Commission »

“Board” means the Copyright Board established by subsection 66(1);

“book”

« livre »

“book” means a volume or a part or division of a volume, in printed form, but does not include

(a) a pamphlet,

<

link> http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/FullText.html<

read on

ed

[ed12]

this should answer double talk

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Read the label and Material Safety Data Sheet carefully before use. Eliminate all sources of ignition before
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Building and/or construction practices unrelated to building materials could greatly affect moisture and
the potential for mold formation. No material supplier including Dow can give assurance that mold will
not develop in any specific system.<

ed

[MiahXGaming]

Sadly, very few roms (that are legal) are freely available.  There are some good ones on mamedev.org, but the classics are still out of reach!  There is one other package that has roms for mame.  If you buy the Midway Arcade Treasures: Deluxe Edition (and get the patches), you can drag and drop the roms for use in mame.  This pack is less than $30 and has 28 games, some classic, some newer.

I tried this, didn't work for me. Do you just have to copy over the .sr files? MAME recognized the games were there, but then gave an error message on missing files.

[wizkid32]

Hope my PM helped.  I guess that will teach me to beliove what I hear on the Internet!  It seems they are not drag-and-drop at all...    

To the OP, you can see that this is a rather murky area of home arcades.  The page linked to below has a good breakdown of the issue.

Link:
http://emulationrealm.net/modules/smartfaq/faq.php?faqid=3

[amendonz]

i'm 1 pcb from owning every rom on my computer 

[jennifer]

         That doesn"t make it any less illegal.

[amendonz]

never said it did (although tbh i think if there was an issue it would most likely help)

[danny_galaga]

Now If  you decide to build a banastand in a busy shopping mall and start selling frozen bananas, well that is a different kind of trespass all together.  This is how I view copyrights on games that are still commercially viable.

[wizkid32]

i'm 1 pcb from owning every rom on my computer 

Honestly, while there is much debate over this point, I really don't think any manufacturer would begrudge you IF you own the PCB.  (Except perhaps Nintendo!)

[amendonz]

yeah after i posted that i chucked on my cab and was greeted with something down the lines of "this pcb is only authorized for use in japan, etc, etc, all other use illegal" and i remembered all of my pcbs have something like that so yeah maybe doesn't help at all,  

[wizkid32]

Speaking of Nintendo, they are a real bore about this stuff.

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp

They claim that emulation is illegal and that offering a legal ROM source would be legalizing piracy.

I take it back.  I don't want their stinkin' games on my M.A.M.E(mulator) arcade!

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all.  No collections, no packages, nothing.  Unless you happen to own a Wii, have it connected to the internet, pay EXTRA for the channel to browse the web, convert your money to Nintendo Wii Points, and pay more than $5 for an ancient console port!

[CheffoJeffo]

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all. 

Unless you buy one of these ...



 

[wizkid32]

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all. 

Unless you buy one of these ...



 

What is that???

[404]

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all. 

Unless you buy one of these ...



 

You can't buy one of those directly from the manufacturer any more. Nor do they support the units with repair and replacement options. All the more reasons why Roms and Emulation have a real place in archiving digital history.

[CheffoJeffo]

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all.  

Unless you buy one of these ...



 

What is that???

It is a DK/DKJr/MB cab put out by Namco under license a few years back.

I have seen them in a distributor's showroom as recently as a week ago.

EDIT: Note that this is not an argument against emulation, but a note that Nintendo is licensing out the properties, even doing so in an arcade format as recently as a few years ago.

[MTPPC]

In general, copyright laws are set up to protect indviduals  from having other people exploit their IP for profit.  

One thing I continuously find mind boggling about this forum is that selling/distributing ROMs is a no-no (so all the regulars just do it over on KLOV), but bootleg artwork is a-ok.  We've even got a guy paying people for high resolution scans of artwork so he can turn around and sell it illegally here.

On KLOV I notice they all look down their noses at mame conversions but froth at the mouth for 19 in one and 60 in one custom addon boards for their original pacman arcades. I wonder if the member producing those custom EEPROMS is paying his royalties.

It's my opinion that copyright has lost its credibility since Disney keeps getting it extended by 30 year increments. I treat it like a patent - they had their 20 years to capitalize on it.

[404]

What really sucks?  They don't even offer you a chance to play their classic games at all.  

Unless you buy one of these ...



 

What is that???

It is a DK/DKJr/MB cab put out by Namco under license a few years back.

I have seen them in a distributor's showroom as recently as a week ago.

EDIT: Note that this is not an argument against emulation, but a note that Nintendo is licensing out the properties, even doing so in an arcade format as recently as a few years ago.

got me on that one. i thought that was a nicely done DIY cab. 

[DaveMMR]

On KLOV I notice they all look down their noses at mame conversions but froth at the mouth for 19 in one and 60 in one custom addon boards for their original pacman arcades. I wonder if the member producing those custom EEPROMS is paying his royalties.

I'm only making an assumption here (I don't venture into KLOV), but their beef is with people who MAME classic cabs to fit Frankenpanels, computer monitors, et. al., and aren't concerned with the actual copyright issues.  It's not like their collection of original machines is putting money in the original publisher's pocket anyway.

The custom boards I would suppose is installed without any irreversible change made to their original cabs.

[CheffoJeffo]

On KLOV they look down their noses at MAME for all sorts of reasons -- killing classics, frankenpanels, authenticity, whatever ...

I think MTPPC misunderstands what those boards are -- the 60-in-1 actually is MAME on an ARM chip and there are no custom EEPROMS to be burned.

[CrazyKongFan]

I think he's confusing the 19-in-1 and 60-in-1 type boards with the multi kits some members have produced, like the 8-in-1, 96-in-1, etc for Pac boards, which actually use original hardware. Of course, I doubt they've gotten permission from the original rights holders to produce them, but at least they're more authentic, since they are running on original boards (usually just with a new EPROM, or maybe a daughter card)

[CheffoJeffo]

I think he's confusing the 19-in-1 and 60-in-1 type boards with the multi kits some members have produced, like the 8-in-1, 96-in-1, etc for Pac boards, which actually use original hardware. Of course, I doubt they've gotten permission from the original rights holders to produce them, but at least they're more authentic, since they are running on original boards (usually just with a new EPROM, or maybe a daughter card)

The Exidy 440 kit did and, I understand, the MultiTaito is also licensed, but nope, not the rest.

[CrazyKongFan]

The Exidy 440 kit did and, I understand, the MultiTaito is also licensed, but nope, not the rest.

Ah ok. I forgot about those (not having either), but I've thought about getting the Multi pac someone was recently selling...supposedly they work on the bootleg Pac-1/Pac-2 board that I have

[wizkid32]

WARNING, RANT BELOW!

If everyone will permit me to go off on a wild tangent, I think that Nintendo sucks.  It's one thing not to believe in emulation, but it's quite another to say it's illegal, that offering legal ROMs would be legitimizing piracy, and not offer ANY way for consumers to play their classic games.  If you'll pardon the poor analogy, that's like the following:

There are two bridges to get to the town of Smallville, where people really want to go!  One is owned by Nintendo, and they put up barbed wire and have guards there 24/7 to make sure no one can get across.  The other bridge is a little bit run down, and slightly shady, but is free for all the public.  The problem?  Nintendo parked a semi-truck on the latter bridge.  They also place landmines on it, and so no one can pass there either.   

It's like this with Nintendo's classic games.  They are Smallville.  Packages and compilations are represented by the first bridge, and emulation by the second.  nintendo clearly doesn't want my money, as I would happily pay for a package/compilation. 

From now on, I call for a boycott on anything Nintendo, until they give us some classics!

(Pants from his intense rant.)