That aside, downloading a ROM (or CD or DVD or PROGRAM) is absolutely LEGAL, provided you own the original work.
- As said, Prove it. I doubt it exists. I believe this is Purely up to the companys discretion.
In the future, you probably will not be able to:
1) Own a game permanently (Hence the advertising push for the "Cloud" )
2) Sell a Used game
"UPLOADING" (by definition of the law) is illegal. it's one of these legal gray areas that we are talking about. That is the issue here, yes it's legal because law but it's not because copyright, but is because something else.
You couldnt even get the ROM data, if you didnt UPLOAD it from the chip to your PC / Rom Burner. And, furthermore, its doubtful the Law states you are allowed to COPY (backup) your Roms from one chip to another... even in the case of a failing chip.
These laws are poorly written for a reason. Because the lawmakers do not understand that level of technicality.. AND, most laws are created by MONEY. So there's little reason to change them, unless it is effecting profits of said corporation, ... and then it will be 'bought' into existence.
Atari's larger investors, and +51% stock owners, dont care if you Ever fix your Asteroid's machine. In fact, they might rather you didnt have that ability. As the less games to compete with their new games.. the better. These people do not have to care about Historical importance.
i suppose one could stretch the law so far as to say DISTRIBUTING is legal if you could find a way to determine with absolute certainty that the person downloading the work from you had an original of said work.
Its only recently that companies had started to bend to the will of the masses, in allowing media to be re-downloaded.. and or have a digital copy. That again, is their choice. A choice that can be revoked at any time... especially when that company dies, is sold off, and or changes its position.
Distribution across multiple computers saves them the costs of storing & bandwidth costs. So its started to become a new standard. Thats probably why the new cable modems that TW hands out are the size of a Cereal Box. And or data is being held in peoples cablebox hard drives as well. "The Cloud". What a crock of crap.
You can't have gray in law, it must be black and white. This is why ridiculous lawsuits happen. you ever seen "Liar, Liar"? this is perfectly represented by the following: "Several years ago a friend of mine had a burglar on her roof, a burglar. He fell through the kitchen skylight, landed on a cutting board, on a butcher's knife, cutting his leg. The burglar sued my friend, he sued my friend. And because of guys like you *he won*. My friend had to pay the burglar $6,000. Is that justice?"
How can one ignore a part of the law, yet try to enforce another when they contradict each other. Gray.
Thats a bunch of Crap and you know it.
It doesnt matter how CLEARLY spelled out the Law is. Someone will just alter its meaning to suit their agenda, use psychological tactics to get people on their side (WMD!), Buy out and or threaten the Jury, Buy the Judges (in Monsanto's case... put their own corrupt & morally bankrupt people in the FDA to pass their deadly toxic tampered seed)...
Basically, the law means SQUAT.
If someone wants to screw you over.. and they have the money, power, or key friendships... your getting screwed, no matter if the law is written word for word perfect.
In Liar Liar, it wasnt the Laws that failed. Its that the system is easily corrupted by money and power. Nothing at all, to do with written word.
There is plenty of homebrew software out there.
Whats your point? Its not exact code, graphics and sound duplicated.
Homebrew isnt a Rom / Direct Copy. At best, you could make clones game roms.. and potentially be somewhat legal.
However, not many people have the skills to recode a game to fit on the hardware from scratch, using the hardwares
original language and operational parameters. Just changing graphics, sound, levels.. alone, isnt enough. If code is completely duplicated in mass ... and can be proven, then it could be illegal. We are allowed creative freedom within reason.
ROMs are the actual DATA present in the working game, Thus is intellectual property (IP).
Hate to say it.. but even hardware is IP. You cant make a duplicate SNES motherboard, and sell it.
Certain chips are custom built.. where as others are generic. But the order and way they are assembled are IP.
But, being that these chips are being emulated, rather than reproduced physically.. changes things. Also, if the process is even mildly different, it may also change things.
the IDEA has been "stolen"? this seems gray again. you can't copyright an idea or a method.
You can get sued if something is too close to the original in nature. They are definite bounds. Usually companies dont bother to sue clones. But many of them could, and many of them would win. Even mild notices sent via email on the threat of possible lawsuit, usually does the trick. Most times the said clone is far inferior anyways.
In other words, it protects the specifics of your book after it’s written.
That really isnt 100% true. If your book had a recipe in it.. someone could reproduce that same recipe in their book. Many times the same quote may be in many different books. And if it was a martial arts book... the process could be described in a similar, if not exact same way. You can even write a book about a boy Wizzard & his two close friends from Magic-School
But the key is how much difference there is. Theres a certain percentage that you have to abide by.
MAME is the "Chicken" and the ROM is the "Kentucky Fried". Now, your argument is invalid. C without the KF is just Chicken. And, i'm not seeing alot of people at KFC complaining people are cooking chicken.
Thats what I meant. Typed it up backwards. However, I believe I was eluding to proprietary chips. Either way, as said.. the argument stands. I dont believe you cant sue Devs for putting out software that has zero roms, and merely simulated IC chips.
now we are getting somewhere. secret. that's the....secret. people try to protect themselves and their IP. if you make it secret enough you can protect your IP because nobody knows. but therein lies the problem. how do you make it secret, yet available? a book does nobody any good if it's written in gibberish, and the only person capable of reading it is the author.
Are you a Mason?
Secrets cant stay secrets forever. Someone is bound to blab. Especially if theres enough money involved.
And roms... they are not really all that secretive... unless they are epoxy blocked and or running some crazy encryption. Understanding the roms data and ability to decompile it into an understood program... is quite another thing however.
Its possible.. as seen with the recent outrun engine 'Cannonball'. (Whom also seems to have no fear over Sega beating his door down with layers, and handcuffs)
Also, on the Subject of Secrets (relating to society, rather than games) .. it breeds elitism.
And thats something I personally think is bad.
we were talking about the law and the (il)legality of selling ROMs on ebay, remember?
Yup. As I said.. we all know that selling roms, on ebay or in person door to door.. is not legal. But being a pest to ebay, whom is most likely part of a chain of businesses owned under a parent umbrella company.. and said puppet string puller.. is like waving a Burning flag covered in dog poop in the middle of busy road... drawing way too much attention to something that everyone was pretty much ignoring.. and didnt really care about.
If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's there to hear it.. does it really make a sound?
If people report rom sellers constantly to ebay... ebay may get frustrated.. and ebay, probably umbrella-ed under many parent companies & various stockholders... may decide to do something drastic.
At most, if they really feel theres a big enough operation, or feeling of strong distaste.. a game company might send a cease and desist email... and if it continues.. they might decide on legal action, in the form of an official snail mail letter... and go from there. Theres really no way that mame team would be involved in this.
Mame has nothing to do with ROMs being sold... just like Grills manufacturers have nothing to do with what gets cooked on them.