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Classic Games (Games) Emulation (Games) Entertainment Games

Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood? 171

Posted by CowboyNeal from the piracy-or-public-domain dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Game Bunker has posted an interesting article on whether you should own roms or not. With the latest piracy concerns, I think it's a good topic to bring up." The various writers at Game Bunker do a good job of showing the different sides of this issue, with some siding with industry while others, like most of us, merely want to play old games without having to dig up an ancient console.
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Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood? More

Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood?

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  • Doesn't change the law (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:32AM (#6330574) Homepage
    A few opinions on the subject doesn't change the law. Copyright violations are illegal. Morality is a different issue.

    Many people mistake copyright as being about money--it's not. It's about control. If a company doesn't want people playing their games anymore...well they can't stop those who have already purchased legitimate copies of those games, but they can stop future people from buying the games by stopping production. That doesn't give the public the right to pirate the games.

    That said, I don't think anyone has any moral problem with pirating NES roms since, frankly, you can't get the games anymore. But older, classic games being included in newer products (the original Metroid on the Metroid Prime disc, for example) and even Atari games being bundled with a controller that plugs directly into a TV's AV inputs really prove that there is still money to be made with these old games, and it muddies the moral dilemma.

    • Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:48AM (#6330731) Homepage
      Right, well this is a different issue than, say, MP3's in my opinion. If Nintendo were still coming out with NES games and they were pirated almost instantly, then I can see why there would be bigger isses with ROMs.

      Back when feasible emulation first started out Nintendo and others put the smack down on ROM web sites - especially sites by "big time" operations like GameSpy's ClassicGaming.com. They came down on emulators as illegal, but they've amended that stance. I think once the initial emulation hype died down the only people still interested in emulation were the ones who could go find the ROMs anyway. If Nintendo were the RIAA they would be hunting down and destroying computers and P2P networks and suing the pants off of those who download Donkey Kong. They're not. They can't condone it - so places like Mame.dk get knocked out. But they realize it's counterintuitive to try and eradicate it, so they let the people who would go download an old copy of Zelda 2 do what they want. And I think most true old school gamers would much rather pay $5 to the small time video game shop for a cart than play an emulator any day.

      Ironically this bit of piracy I alluded to earlier still happens - whenever a new GBA game comes out the ROM image is all over the Internet almost automatically. However, the number of people who would play the game on their PC in lieu of on a real GBA is small - witness the number of GBA's sold, hell, GBA SP's sold, and games sold in the last three years. And notice who Nintendo goes after. Not the people ripping the games or making the emulators (past tactics of theirs) but rather the people who make and/or sell the cart linkers. It's not a problem until or unless the ROMs can be played on an actual GBx/GBA.

      • And I think most true old school gamers would much rather pay $5 to the small time video game shop for a cart than play an emulator any day.

        But is there really much of a difference between buying a used cart than just downloading the ROM? (Honestly, I have no idea...does the publisher ever see any money from used game sales?)

        And irrelevent to what you posted (because I agree with most of what you said), I consider myself a "true old school gamer" and would much rather play Atari and NES games on an e

        • Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:4, Funny)

          by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:21AM (#6331030) Homepage
          does the publisher ever see any money from used game sales?
          Nope. This is why, for more recent games, game stores love used games - they keep everything above the price they paid to the person who sold them the used game. This is also why, when music stores started to carry used CD's, they got all kinds of hell from the RIAA.

          I guess I was really alluding to the fact that most people like having lots of old carts, the systems for nostalgia, and the fact that you never have to worry about the quality of the emulator if you have the "real thing"

          Plus, I never have to blow on a ROM to get it to work.
          Depends on what kinds of games [atarihq.com] you're into.
          • Just how many times do they think we're going to pay them for each cart?

            I still don't understand how they can honestly get upset. I don't see car dealers going after used car dealers.

            • I still don't understand how they can honestly get upset.

              They (the game companies) don't. Like you said, they made their money, and they they don't make these games anymore. The music labels were mad since they still make old albums and didn't want these used CD's to dip into their sales. Plus there was concern that people would buy a CD, copy it (ala cassette) and then sell it back as a used CD. There's not much equivalence with games - you'd be better off just renting the games.

              I don't see car dealers

        • But is there really much of a difference between buying a used cart than just downloading the ROM?

          You mean besides the fact that one is illegal and the other is not?
        • But is there really much of a difference between buying a used cart than just downloading the ROM?

          Yes, there is a difference. A used cartridge was part of a series of some number of cartridges. The copyright holder, for better or worse, decided to make that many copies of their work. No matter how many times that used cartridge is resold, the copyright holder authorized the original production of that cartridge. There will always be, at most, the original number of that particular cartridge. Thus there
        • One difference would be in how it affects the initial sale price.

          It could be argued that if a product has a resale value later on, it can justify a larger initial sale price.

          For example (I'm making up numbers):
          If game X has a future resale value of $10
          You pay $25 for it, knowing that you're only out $15 years later when you decide to get rid of it.
          However, if you know full well that this game will be made available for download later for free, you might not be willing to pay $25 for it, but instead, maybe
    • That doesn't give the public the right to pirate the games.

      Actually, the public has a natural right to use, dissassemble, reassemble, copy, share, tinker with, and destroy the software/games/music/books/photos it obtains. In the U.S. this is even recognized in the Constitution, which required a special clause to allow Congress to create copyrights and patents. The idea was that the public needed to bargain away some of its rights in order to encourage authors and publishers to do their thing. Of course,

    • Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:4, Insightful)

      by PainKilleR-CE ( 597083 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:59AM (#6330820)
      A few opinions on the subject doesn't change the law. Copyright violations are illegal. Morality is a different issue.

      Many people mistake copyright as being about money--it's not. It's about control. If a company doesn't want people playing their games anymore...well they can't stop those who have already purchased legitimate copies of those games, but they can stop future people from buying the games by stopping production. That doesn't give the public the right to pirate the games.

      Fortunately for most of us, there's no copyright issue involved in downloading a ROM for a game we already own. At best, there may be a violation of a license agreement in playing the game on a platform for which it was not released (ie an emulator), and in many cases those types of agreements did not exist on the original cartridges. MAME may in some cases be a different situation, as those involve emulation of arcade machines, but even then there are cases where those games were offered on other platforms as well.

      You do not violate copyright by downloading or otherwise moving content to another medium for personal use. You violate it by downloading or otherwise copying content of which you do not have a legal copy, or by making copies available to those that do not have legal copies (which is where the whole debate comes from in the first place).

      I despise the fact that so many people (especially copyright holders) believe that people use P2P software (or other distribution methods) only to download material of which they do not or never will own legal copies. Personally, I would never own a copy of Metallica's new album if my only exposure to it were through the single song they currently have on the radio and MTV, but if I could listen to the other songs through one method or another, I might buy it (especially since it's dirt cheap compared to other CDs right now). Normally I'd listen to a friend's CD, but thanks to their last two studio efforts, I don't know anyone that would buy one of their CDs any more.
      • You do not violate copyright by downloading or otherwise moving content to another medium for personal use.

        Am I violating content by (to coin a phrase) "platform shifting"? If I paid for, say, Pac Man (it must have been in 3-4 classic game collections / updates I bought over the last few years) and I can legally play it on the PC, Dreamcast and gamecube, am I "entitled" to play it on MAME?
        • I don't think I'm reading too much into it, but I believe what he was saying was that if you bought MarioBros for NES, then you download the SAME ROM as the one you already physically have on a cartridge, that's the same thing as extracting the ROM from your cartridge. Thus, if it's legal to extract the ROM from your cartridge, it's legal to download the same ROM from online. (Whether or not the law agrees may be a little unclear.)

          Also, he did explicitly say MAME may be a different situation. The except
      • Yeah, I love that! The law is so stupid!

        You can even kill people without having to go to jail by outsmarting the law!

        You see, it's legal to kill tresspassers, so I just put up "no tresspassing" signs on my lawn (I have a house on a street corner) and when people cut across my lawn (even an inch or two!) I shoot them with my rifle from my attic window! Sure the cops always show up, but I just tell them "They were tresspassing, so technically it was legal for me to kill them." and they just go "ohhh! Yea
        • Huh?

          I own a copy of "Burger Time" for the Intellivision. My intellivision is no longer functioning, but it's sitting there in the box along with my frogger atari game.

          Now, I could go out and buy a prom reader and backup my copy of Burger Time. This is perfectly legal.

          Now I can setup a mame emulator on my linux box and play Burger Time until my hearts content.

          However, it's illegal for me to go and drop that rom image on my anonymous FTP server because I've gone from backing it up to distributing it.

          No
        • You see, it's legal to kill tresspassers, so I just put up "no tresspassing" signs on my lawn (I have a house on a street corner) and when people cut across my lawn (even an inch or two!) I shoot them with my rifle from my attic window! Sure the cops always show up, but I just tell them "They were tresspassing, so technically it was legal for me to kill them." and they just go "ohhh! Yeah, we'll get these bodies out of here for you now." and leave.

          Just a hint, drag the bodies into your house and make sure

    • Hardly... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pb ( 1020 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:02AM (#6330848)
      Actually, you can still find a lot of actual NES games out there; I got a copy of Final Fantasy I from my local game store not too long ago, and they have a wide selection. And if you don't have something like that nearby, there's always the web [buyritegames.com], right?

      The problem with the copyright issue is that it can provide the original company with monopoly powers that are simply too broad, as the dissenting opinions in Eldred [cornell.edu] state. I see nothing wrong with letting companies keep their successful copyrights, but I feel they should have an obligation to "use it or lose it"; that is to say, companies should not be able to use copyrights to *suppress* works that could otherwise be in the public domain. They should theoretically have an obligation to sell things at a fair market price, but with copyrights, they don't have to. There's no check against their monopolistic behaviors.

      However, the illegal copyright infringements of ROMs, of music, etc., etc., has proven to the industry that there is a demand that isn't being filled due to monopoly powers. You didn't see the old arcade games being re-released by the companies and the current swath of remakes we've had until well after the development and popularity of console and arcade emulators. I think it's quite possible that it's now easier to obtain legal ROMs or games because of the interest spawned by illegal ROM copying, and without it, there would be few or no arcade collections released for the PC nowadays.
      • [i] I see nothing wrong with letting companies keep their successful copyrights, but I feel they should have an obligation to "use it or lose it"; that is to say, companies should not be able to use copyrights to *suppress* works that could otherwise be in the public domain.[/i]

        Care to explain this to me a little? After all, as long as something is a company's property, they have the right to do anything with it. If they feel that selling a product would canibalize the sale of their other products, they

        • Yeah, but why should we go for that?

          Copyrights aren't granted for fun -- they're granted because the idea is that such a grant will promote the public's interests. Namely it helps spur the creation of works, and then forces their widespread, free, availability.

          If copyrights are abused so that works are suppressed, that doesn't strike me as being in the public interest at all.

          And copyrightable works are hardly property. Individual copies sure, but that's not what we're discussing.

        • sure. (Score:4, Interesting)

          by pb ( 1020 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @12:29PM (#6331610)
          It all goes back to the nature of copyright, "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This balances the benefit to the public of having a work in the public domain. I would argue that when a copyright holder is not using their copyright "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts" (i.e., suppressing knowledge instead of making it available) then they are violating that original copyright agreement, and therefore should not get the benefits of its protection.

          Note that this would not be as big a deal if other parts of that language were actually enforced as well, such as the "for limited times [harvard.edu]" part, or the "exclusive right to their respective inventions and discoveries" (emphasis mine) part. This would imply that a person could reasonably expect a copyright (on, say, the song "Happy Birthday") to expire sometime, perhaps not too long after the death of the original author(s). It would also imply that copyrights can't be transferred or sold. But that isn't the world we live in, sadly.
        • Having a copyright on a work does not mean that you own the work, it means that you have a limited-time government grant of the exclusive right to reproduce the work. See Copyright Basics [loc.gov]. You can own a particular instance of the work, its physical manifestation, but not the work itself.
      • And if you don't have something like that nearby, there's always the web, right?

        Don't send people to Buy Rite games! According to the BBB [bbbenc.org]:

        Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record due to unanswered complaints concerning delivery problems & product dissatisfaction. The Bureau processed 240 complaints about this company in the last 36 months. One hundred and fifty-seven of those were processed in the last 12 months. Of all the complaints 234 were resolved but not always within the B

        • ok, but... (Score:1)

          by pb ( 1020 )
          There are lots of retailers out there; I just did a google search, and that's what came up. However, how many sales are we talking about here? I bet Buy Rite does a lot of business. Also, it's good that almost all of those complaints (over 97% of them, at least) were resolved.

          Still, thanks for the heads-up. Do you have any suggestions as to which game retailers have better reputations, prices, or selections? (and of course there's always e-Bay... just don't use PayPal, eh?)

    • Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Many people mistake copyright as being about money--it's not. It's about control. If a company doesn't want people playing their games anymore...well they can't stop those who have already purchased legitimate copies of those games, but they can stop future people from buying the games by stopping production. That doesn't give the public the right to pirate the games.

      It is about money. The only reason for copyright is to reward people who contribute (eventually) to the public domain, thus promoting t

    • In what universe is 'control' the justification for copyright law?

      The point of copyright law is NOT to let artists control their work. It is to reward artists for giving their work out, and thus hopefully encourage more work.

      Any company that refuses to give their work out has basically already broken their end of the arrangement. In times past, the work would fall into public domain after a few years...but no work does that anymore. Sadly, there's not a way for that to void the contract under current copy

    • "But older, classic games being included in newer products (the original Metroid on the Metroid Prime disc, for example) and even Atari games being bundled with a controller that plugs directly into a TV's AV inputs really prove that there is still money to be made with these old games, and it muddies the moral dilemma."

      Except for those of us who had already paid for those games ages ago, there are no moral issues. They got their money.
    • > Many people mistake copyright as being > about money--it's not. It's about control. Not according to the constitution. According to the founding fathers, it's about promoting the science and the arts:
      To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
      • Things change. Millions of court cases and extra laws on the subject have changed the point of copyright. You can go all the way back to the constitution, but if you ignore everything but the basics then there are lots of things that don't make sense. Like the original founding fathers didn't want women to be able to vote. I guess that you feel the same way, since you think that only the original definition matters.

    • That said, I don't think anyone has any moral problem with pirating NES roms since, frankly, you can't get the games anymore.

      This is a bad example of moral issues surrounding ROMs, but a very good example of what big business has done to revoke the legitimacy of the secondary market. You can still buy a huge range of video games since the beginning of video games, you just can't buy them new -- or at least, not new in their original form. Looking purely at console games, four years ago I owned nothing b

  • You show me where (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Hellraisr ( 305322 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:38AM (#6330626)
    If you can show me where I can buy an original Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man arcade game in mint condition, I wouldn't need to use MAME.
    • Why do you need to buy an original? There are lots of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man games out there, both in arcade boxes and as rewrites for new hardware.
    • http://www.bhmvending.com/namcoclassicreunion.html

      $2700 (plus $250 shipping) gets you a brand new official 'Class of 1981 Greatest Hits' 25" screen arcade cabinet, manufactured by Namco, which plays Ms Pacman, Pacman and Galaga. It even has a dollar bill validator!
    • Well, Ebay are currently showing 3 coctail versions in current auctions, and another 3 upright ones, for a start.

      But this is kind of by-the-by. They are more interested in the fact that you aren't purchasing any of the perfectly fine currently available versions for your home machines.

    • Re:You show me where (Score:3, Informative)

      by PyroMosh ( 287149 )
      You can buy a new copy right here [namco.com].

      There. That's why you don't have to use mame. Sometimes companies DO want to port their old code to new machines. And emmulation dilutes the value of that.

      Just like piracy dilutes the value of retail software.

      Emmulation people like to pretend that emmulation is somehow diffrent than regular software piracy because "it's only old / out of print games!"

      Well, sometimes a company can stop selling one product to sell another. Not to mention that it wouldn't be profitable
    • Why does it need to be in mint condition? Your mame version looks like a computer, a generic cabinet should be fine for you.
  • Console games I could care less about - but there's great history and art in the old arcades. As long as someone is preserving the ROMs, I'm happy, but I'd like to see retro enthusiasts de-criminalized.

    what jacked up teen that plays vice city all day would want to take major havoc or tac-scan for a spin? c'mon. at this point, most of those old cabs are right on the edge of being called 'vintage' by most people.

    free the retro dorks!

  • let's not delude ourselves here... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:44AM (#6330697)
    regardless of the arguments for roms, the fact remains that they are illegal under our current laws. since I find it highly unlikely that anyone can justify their rom collection as some sort of silent protest against the tyranny of copyright holders who withhold their creations, people have two choices: don't collect roms or collect them under full knowledge and acceptance that what you're doing is illegal and, if discovered, will justifiably be punished.
    • The thing is, if people wait until the copyrights on old arcade game ROMs expire, many of those games will be lost forever... It's the same with many movies from the first half of the 20th century - they are rotting away in vaults.

  • Why don't they just sell them? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:44AM (#6330699)
    Why don't these ROM companies have a site that lets you download them for 99 cents each; an Apple Music Store sort of thing?

    • Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:53AM (#6330771) Homepage
      Well the Apple Music Store has at least some controls in place to keep people from turning right around and sharing the songs. Short of developing a SecuROM solution (hmmm, where have I heard that?) they wouldn't be interested.

      Besides let's be honest here - Nintendo takes some old SNES game and places it on the GBA and sells a truckload. Why would they give that away for cheap? Plus remember that Nintendo didn't make all the NES games - hundreds of publishers did. They can't vouch for them all, and Nintendo's found a much more lucrative venue for their old products.

      • "Nintendo takes some old SNES game and places it on the GBA and sells a truckload."

        Now, that's an idea. Nintendo gets the rights to a boatload of old arcade roms, and makes them available for the Gameboy.

        At least someone would be selling them, making them available.
    • Probably the sheer number of individual pubishers involved make it a daunting task.

      Not to mention the need to trace exaclly who owns the rights to what. There's been various mergers, selloffs of divisions, not to mention companies folding in the years we're talking about.

      Plus, as mentioned in another reply, there'd be the need to develop a less acessable ROM format, and a offical emulator as well (to prevent more "piracy")

      Plenty of leg work needs to be done, I wouldn't look for anything like that for a l
      • Not to mention the need to trace exaclly who owns the rights to what.

        Then who is going to prosecute me for trading those games, eh? :)

        Seriously, this is why the latest proposed copyright law amendments which proposes to expire copyright unless renewed for a small fee and requires the registration of the copyright holder into the public record is so important.
        • I was refering to the case of actually selling the ROMS on a per download basis. Few companies would take the risk of selling any games that they didn't have thier greedy fingers wrapped around a contract stating they can sell it.

          Otherwise, they'd be sure to be hearing from the copyright owners, probably in the from of a lawsuit.

          But I agree with the copyright law amendments... although, if they're passed in the US, they still mean little to me. I'm not American. :)
    • Why don't these ROM companies have a site that lets you download them for 99 cents each; an Apple Music Store sort of thing?

      While that would be nice, that would also mean that Nintendo, Sega, Atari, et al, would have to make their own emulators to play the games on. You don't think they'd want you to use an unlicenced emulator do you?

      Because of that, I don't see this happening.
      • Why would that stop it from happening? Nintendo has already made their own NES emulator for the GC, it's in Animal Crossing. I think some (all?) of the classic gaming collections are just ROMs and an emulator.
        • Why would that stop it from happening? Nintendo has already made their own NES emulator for the GC, it's in Animal Crossing. I think some (all?) of the classic gaming collections are just ROMs and an emulator.

          Because they're not in the business of making PC software. They'd have to make emulators for PC, Mac and possibly Linux and update and maintain them. That's not something they're going to do.

          Now, if the next Nintendo system came out with a hard drive, broadband, et al, THEN I could see them hav

  • Natural response to ridiculous copyright lengths (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 30, 2003 @10:52AM (#6330762)
    It is perfectly clear that the US public doesn't accept the traditional period of copyright + IP ownership. mp3 sharing is a big thing--people have no moral qualms about doing it. The laws should reflect the morals of the people. Why is murder illegal? Because most people consider it immoral.

    The issue with these video games is that the company that produced them already made their money 20 years ago. The fact that people now expect to be able to do whatever they want with the rom images (and proceed to do so) indicates the public's moral opinion that the original makers have already made enough money on their original works, and that the information should now be public domain.

    The Beatles came out with lots of albums in the 60's that were very popular--they became rich on their work. 30 years later I still have to pay someone in order to legally listen to Beatles music. This is ridiculous. The original creators of the music have already reaped fantastic financial rewards. Now society is better off if the information is free and available. And suprise, everyone agrees because almost everyone who is able to is perfectly willing to swap mp3 files.

    Copyright lasting until 50 years after the author's death? Software patents on obvious ideas that have lots of prior art? Get a clue.

    The public's actions determine what can reasonably be enforced. Patent and copyright law are becoming irrelevant to life in the real world today, and I say *BRAVO*.
    • The Beatles came out with lots of albums in the 60's that were very popular--they became rich on their work. 30 years later I still have to pay someone in order to legally listen to Beatles music. This is ridiculous. The original creators of the music have already reaped fantastic financial rewards

      and that someone, in most cases, is either Michael Jackson or the last remaining living Beatle (other than Ringo). Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter who wrote the songs, either, as Michael Jackson owns the

      • Beatles information (Score:5, Informative)

        by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @12:34PM (#6331645)
        and that someone, in most cases, is either Michael Jackson or the last remaining living Beatle (other than Ringo). Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter who wrote the songs, either, as Michael Jackson owns the rights to songs written by Paul, and Paul owns the rights to songs he did not write.

        Partially correct. Check out this Snopes page [snopes.com] regarding ownership of the Beatles. First of all, to say that Paul owns the rights to songs he did not write is untrue. John and Paul had an agreement and followed it--if either of them wrote a song for the Beatles, it would be credited to both of them. Whether or not Paul actually wrote the songs is just wrong, technically speaking, both John and Paul wrote those songs.

        Second, Jackson only owns the publishing rights. He still splits royalties 50/50 with Paul and John's estate (presumably Yoko).

        As long as the Beatles' original albums are still available in new formats (or at least in unprotected formats), and Paul is still alive, I'm ok with paying for those albums.

        So I guess you want copyright terms to be only last the term of life of the author?

  • I recently purchased Sinistar Unleashed, fondly remembering the old "Sinistar" arcade game.

    I was greatly disappointed: while this new one had "modern 3-d graphics", it was something that looked like a descendant of "Star Raiders" but was much harder to play than "Star Raiders", with clunky controller action, and a murky,muddy display where just about everything looked the same (a bunch of shades of black).

  • Captain Pedantic Strikes Again! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:01AM (#6330831) Homepage Journal
    This article isn't about collecting ROMs (which is of course entirely legal), it's about collecting copies of the data from other people's ROMs.

  • Nintendo's issue (Score:4, Interesting)

    by leifm ( 641850 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:01AM (#6330839)
    I think is that they are recycling much of the NES/SNES era stuff on the GBA. So I suppose they could have a valid argument that if ROMs keep floating around a GBA port won't sell. And lagally they are in the right as well. I don't happen to agree in many cases, but they are right.

    One thing I'd like to see, but I doubt it will happen is Nintendo throwing the entire NES/SNES library on a GameCube disc for like $50-100, and you could play them all, just choose your game from a menu. That alone would make the 'cube worth purchasing.
    • lagally == legally
    • One thing I'd like to see, but I doubt it will happen is Nintendo throwing the entire NES/SNES library on a GameCube disc for like $50-100, and you could play them all, just choose your game from a menu. That alone would make the 'cube worth purchasing.

      You can do exactly that with a Dreamcast [dcemulation.com]. Just mail Nintendo a check for $50 (or buy 1-2 games you wouldn't have bought otherwise?).

      Realistically, this kind of thing can't be done legally because just the attorney fees to figure out who owns the copyright
      • Yeah, the legal hurdles occured to me several min after I hit submit. So I will just leave it at this, software patents/copyrights should last less time than other things. Software moves very fast, and in most (not all) cases 10 years after the fact most software isn't making anybody anything. So I think (and nobody cares what I think but...) software copyright and patents should expire after 10 years, at least for consumer software.

  • Someone's not paying attention (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ondo ( 187980 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:01AM (#6330840)
    It would be a shame if, 10 years from now, no one has the chance to play great games like Mario Bros 3, The Legend of Zelda, or Metroid.

    Mario Bros. 3 will be re-released as Super Mario Advance 4, the Legend of Zelda is available on Animal Crossing, and Metroid is available on Metroid Prime.

    Are we starting to understand why Nintendo doesn't like ROMs?
  • Laws are nothing more than public oppinion. We all agree to certain rules (more or less) and generally try to get along. When public oppinion changes, so do the laws... that's how democracies work (in therory anyway).
    So I want to play Loadrunner and don't feel like dredging up an AppleII... I'm going to be sued for breaking some archaic copyright law? Please. Don't we have better things to worry about?

  • It doesn't matter (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Quite frankly, it doesn't matter what YOU think. It only matters what THE LAW thinks. You can debate whether you think it's right or wrong or illegal or perfectly fine, but THE LAW says "Distribution of copyright other than by the holder is prohibited". Pretty open and shut.

    Of course, that won't stop any of you. Napster, kazaa, gnutella, freenet, emule, mldonkey, direct connect, hotline all exist for the sole purpose of copyright infringment. Don't dance around it.

  • Just think about the artists! (Score:5, Funny)

    by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @11:13AM (#6330946)
    The coders of QBert are starving right now because evil pirates aren't buying their software!
    • Well, we know that the programmers of Pac-Man are not starving due to piracy. They have an unlimited supply of Inky, Blinky, Clyde, Sue, power dots, and smaller dots to engorge themselves on. However, I can't say that this is a very healthy diet.
  • Would nintendo prefer me playing a rom of super mario brothers that i didnt pay for, or playing on the X-Box? Personally speaking, id rather be playing the rom, having been a life long fan on nintendo, the opportunity to play some of the games from yester year (and discover some new ones) has just reinforced my preference towards them over ps2/xbox.
  • In my opinion, it is simply wrong for copyright to continue to be enforced beyond the lifetime of the original work. Why should a 20 year old game cartridge be illegal to copy even when it has ceased to function? Why should a paper placemat at a fast food restaurant enjoy artist's lifetime+50 years when it will cease to exist in less than a month?

    Allowing copyright to persist beyond the lifetime of the work itself creates an eternal copyright, especially when the copyright holder takes little to no steps

  • Collecting and playing are two different things. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by \\ ( 118555 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @12:46PM (#6331724) Homepage
    I realize this is semantics to some, but not to others.

    I read comic books; I don't give a shit what they're worth, or what they'll be worth in the future.

    People collect roms to give themselves a buzz, "gotta catch them all" type shit. I play roms, old things that cannot be purchased anywhere but ebay for outrageous prices due to insane cart collectors. I don't emulate n64; that system is still just about new, for God's sake.

    NES games is a different matter, especially famicom games that never made it over. It's fun to play them and see what we missed in the USA, and it's more fun to play a game that is slightly different, like the Japanese Bionic Command, complete with nazi references intact. Master D indeed.

    Lastly, translated Japanese roms are awsome. We may not have gotten most of the original Final Fantasy games here to the USA, but now I can play most of them thanks to fan translations.

    Legal? No. Perhaps the owners of older games could look at their property and decide if perhaps it might not be beneficial to them to release their old games as roms, aka, let them be freely downloaded.. ah, blah blah, ramble.
    • Lastly, translated Japanese roms are awsome. We may not have gotten most of the original Final Fantasy games here to the USA, but now I can play most of them thanks to fan translations.

      I completely agree - finding out there's a prequel/sequel to a game you played that's only available in Japanese sucks - but you're wrong about Final Fantasy

      Final Fantasy Origins (PSX): FF I + II
      Final Fantasy Chronicles (PSX): FF IV+ Chrono Trigger
      Final Fantasy Anthology (PSX): FF V + VI

      So as you can see, after Sony's E3
      • I completely agree - finding out there's a prequel/sequel to a game you played that's only available in Japanese sucks - but you're wrong about Final Fantasy

        Final Fantasy Origins (PSX): FF I + II
        Final Fantasy Chronicles (PSX): FF IV+ Chrono Trigger
        Final Fantasy Anthology (PSX): FF V + VI

        So as you can see, after Sony's E3 FF XI announcement, the only game in the (main) series not published in north america is FF III.

        Was using the NES/SNES roms "right" before the games were published on the PSX? Did it bec
      • I bought FF6 for the PSX. It might have been some of the worst money I ever spent.

        All menus took AT LEAST FIVE seconds to open up. It wasn't a RPG anymore, it was a patience tester.

        If the rest of the conversions are equally bad, I'd much rather fetch an illegal ROM and emulate it on my trusty PC.

  • Dowloading ROMS... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @12:55PM (#6331796)
    ... illustrates demand. If interest in a game is being rekindled, why not find a way to productize it?

  • arg (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SQLz ( 564901 )
    Video games, CDs, movies, etc should come with some kind of like...serial number or offical looking slip of paper saying you have bought a license. I've lost more cds and carts than I have mp3s and roms. Most of the mp3s I have are from CDs I lost. Of course, I could never prove I did by "Iron Maiden - Live after Death" in 6th grade so I could technically be in big trouble for owning the mp3s.
  • The reason Nintendo is the only company all hot and bothered is because they still have a market for older games. Where is this? You have to look no father than your nearest Game Boy system. Nintendo is releasing games like Super Mario Bros. on the Gameboy Advance. Rumors bound of other great games being ported to the GBA, such as Earthbound. Watch Sony get po'd about PS1 piracy once they release their portable gaming system.

  • ... how so many gaming sites use little cartoony type pictures for the authors of the articles? Is it because these people are horribly and hideously scary or what?

  • Morality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @06:15PM (#6334526)
    I think the question asked is "Is it moral?", of course the legality of it leaves little to doubt. However the morals of it, leave a lot of discussion.

    This conversation usually is rather interesting, for the most part. here's the way I look at it.

    Rewarding the producer is a good and moral thing.

    What is more moral. Downloading a ROM image or buying a used cart? The second right?

    How? The producer is left in the dirt, and money that WOULD have spent on that product is instead in the product of a third party. Not exactly a moral outcome, is it?

    Sure, the reseller has that right (I agree totally), but from the producer type of view, it's still a lost sale. Execpt that one is legal and the other illegal. (But both the same from the producers POV)

    So are ROMs moral? For anything that one can not buy an original shrinkwrapped copy, they not really moral, but not the opposite either. It's sort of like a tree falling in the woods with nobody around. Not really doing much of anything.

    My suggestion? It's the same for everything. We appoint a copyright court. The standard is, you keep copyright as long as you keep distributing the product at a competitive price. You decide that it is too expensive and not profitable enough to release. Fine. Either release it to the public domain, or risk a challenge being made. If you lose the challenge, you pay the legal bills of the winner. Simple as that.

    No more culture going down the memory hole.

  • The thing about ROMs and "piracy" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Monday June 30, 2003 @09:36PM (#6335962) Journal
    First, we must acknowledge that downloading ROMs is illegal. There is no argument to the contrary.

    However, let's look at how ROM "piracy" is different from, say, MP3 "piracy".

    1. These titles are not available through retail. - Limiting the discussion to 8-bit and 16-bit era console systems, there is no way to get any of these games through retail in their original form, except used.

    2. The vast majority of these games are not available in non-original forms. Certainly, Nintendo and a few others have released a handful of games in GBA form, or bonuses in other retail products. Even a couple of "anthologies" have made it to market (there are many for old arcade games, most of which never had a complete, arcade-perfect home translation, but there are far fewer anthologies of games that were home-console titles). However, MOST titles are not available in any way, shape, or form.

    3. Used games are subject to availability, wear/damage, pricing, and profit the copyright holders $0. I walked into FuncoLand a couple of days ago, and saw a used Kid Icarus game in the used "old games" bin. The price tag? $14.99. I have also bought used cartridge games that flat out did not work. And most of the old games I'd like to get aren't available in local used stores. Do I want to go on to eBay and buy a cartridge where the shipping cost would almost double the final price, and I'd still be getting a used cartridge that isn't guaranteed to function beyond today? In some cases, yes, but mostly no. ROMs allow us to play the games without worrying about the integrity of 15-20 year old equipment.

    4. The flaw of copyrights - "it's mine and I don't have to use it if I don't wanna". Nintendo, Sega, and all the other publishers of the era do not have to make their old titles available in any way if they don't want to. This is where copyrights are a hinderance. If Nintendo and the others refuse to make use of their copyrighted material, some 3rd party should have the right to be able to license the material for some baseline fee, and use it, whether Nintendo/Sega/etc. like it or not. Allowing copyright holders to sit on their copyrights and do absolutely nothing with them hurts the consumer, and doesn't benefit the holder either.

    Barring this, however, ROM use will proliferate.

    • Part 4 pretty much is a single-paragraph decrying the entire concept of IP. Guess what -- if I own something, because I made it or bought the rights to it, it's my decision if I put it in a box in a graveyard to rot for all eternity. Today's digital age makes it easier to still obtain a copy, but that doesn't make it right, nor does it make IP outmoded.

      • Part 4 pretty much is a single-paragraph decrying the entire concept of IP.

        No. IP allows you to use your copyright, license it to someone else to use, or sit on it and not use it. Paragraph 4 only asks to eliminate the last part.

        f I own something, because I made it or bought the rights to it, it's my decision if I put it in a box in a graveyard to rot for all eternity.

        And that's the problem. If you have no intention of ever using it, you don't lose anything if someone else has the right to pay to

        • "And that's the problem. If you have no intention of ever using it, you don't lose anything if someone else has the right to pay to license it and use it themselves. But the consumers that demand the product do."

          Before you think of the easy justifying scenario, consider the other scenarios. Do you really think people want their new idea for memory managment to be so loose that it can be taken out from under them? How do you define in use? Would there be specific legal restrictions, or would you be wanti

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