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LoopHole
ultrastyle:
Something just occured to me.
I own one of those joystick that plugs into the TV games that has 5 games on it. Pac-man, Rally-x, Galaxian, Dig-dug, and Bosconian. I just read in a forum that some company plans to come out with a bunch more of these. Now is it just me or is the rom on my PC a backup of said games? Purchasing these handhelds may lead to having a fairly healthy stack of legal backups, at the very least for classics. Finally, a loophole for the average american to enjoy!
Chris
pmc:
I don't know man. Sounds alot like saying that since I bought a Ms. Pacman cartridge for my Sega Genesis in 1990 I may now be legal to own an Internet downloaded ROM that I use with MAME. I don't think there's any legal relationship between the two excepting a common copyright holder and a related code geneology.
I own several games for multiple platforms and had to pay for each of them separately. They are different products.
That's my initial thought anyway. I'm certainly no lawyer.
ultrastyle:
But in this case, you are getting the exact copy of the ROM, not a port to a platform. My ROM on my PC is the same as the ROM on the handheld.
Brad Lee:
Have you decompiled the code on the handheld games and checked that it's the exact code as the mame rom? I'm not sure, but I doubt that these handhelds are just tiny versions of mame running the same code, loading the same roms, etc. My geuss is that it's a near total rewrite of the game, heavily optimized for whatever chips are in the handheld.
Magnet_Eye:
I thought I read that the games on those aren't the originals, but reproductions.
???