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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

No Excuse For Less-Than-Legal ROMs Anymore? 73

Posted by simoniker from the or-atari-ones-at-least dept.
jvm writes "As per a previous story, you can now buy some Atari ROMs legally from StarROMs. I've selected 14 games, easily paid for them, downloaded the ROM images, and then played the games. For completeness, I even confirmed with Atari that StarROMs is legit. Now, I've posted on why it's time to pay up or admit you're a pirate."
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No Excuse For Less-Than-Legal ROMs Anymore? More

No Excuse For Less-Than-Legal ROMs Anymore?

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  • Now if they did that for older PC games... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FileNotFound ( 85933 ) on Friday October 10, 2003 @02:56PM (#7185093) Homepage Journal
    Now if they did that for older PC games that can't run on todays hardware.

    For example, Motorhead. I miss that game but I can't run it on anything over 98 and it doesn't play well without the Voodoo Glide drivers.

    Better yet, Transport Tycoon. I think that game was way ahead of it's time and for some reason largly ignored. Still building a really intricate train system that linked into your truks and air transports was great. Too bad the AI competition was pathetic.

  • Pirate? (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 )
    Arrrrr matey. Fetch me some booty, ye swashbuckler!

    Ye want a pirate keyboard [pirate.org] to go with yer roms?

  • I already purchased a few of these (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In different versions, like the Atari anniversary pack for the Dreamcast ( and playstation 1 too, I think) - surely I already have a 'license' to use these roms.

    What about my actual collection of Atari Lynx games? Am I entitled to play the arcade version of APB if I own the Lynx version? In a way, it's format shifting like CD->MP3, but in another way it's really not.
    • I don't care what any RIAA lawyer or rep says to insure they can sell you the same thing repeatedly.

      A copyright holder cannot copyright media, and cannot license it, they can only grant license to what they have copyrighted... the lyrics themselves, the actual combination of notes. This is what they have a copyright for and therefore what you have a license for.

      However a port of a game from one platform to another is a bit different, what is copyrighted is the code and the code is not the same.
      • I guess you want to destroy cover bands.

        And what about photographers. Is a photograph not copyrightable?
        or a painting of something.
        Both paintings (still lifes) and photographs are copies of something out there, not truly original in the same sense as a newly created songs. Yet if a photographer brings their own perspective (or luck) to a scene and gets the perfect shot that has to be worth something, I I doubt anyone would argue that anything more then the most trivial painting has alittle bit of the pai
        • yes I imagine in this way a particular "performance" would legitimately copyrightable. There are more components then I initially stated it's true.

          However, the same mix, of the same song, from the same recording, = ONE copyright, recorded onto a cassete tape, those big black round things, a cd, or an mp3 is ALL the same license. It's the same recording, it's the recording to which they hold copyright, not the recording on x media.

        • I guess you want to destroy cover bands.

          Pretty please?
  • ...if the game is not yet available for legal download. Then, pirate away, mateys!

    I'm building a MAME machine just for using these legal ROMs - their collection is still quite small, but there _are_ some real classics in there. They just need to add to their collection, big-time. I can't _believe_ that Red Baron is on their list - too cool!
  • and I will be buying some but the games I really want aren't on there. My old favorites are:

    Dig Dug
    Mr. Do!
    Qix
    Donkey Kong
    Star Castle
    Pacman
    Ms Pacman

    Hopefully, others will follow Atari's lead.
    • Microsoft has the license to distribute at least half of these games (or at least they did.) Dig Dug, Ms Pacman, Pacman and several other were released several years ago in a "Classic Arcade Game" compilation (there was also a revenge of arcade compilation). Apparently official website is here [microsoft.com].

      I recently (6 months ago?) purchased for my wife a MS compliation that has Dig Dug, Pole Position, Ms and regular Pacman, Galaxian (i think), and maybe a couple other games in it.

      So I assume other companies won't
      • From what I understand, those were not ROMs for the arcade games emulated, but were re-created versions of those games. I heard somewhere that they had a design document for the original Pac-Man that went into hundreds of pages, documenting the movements of the ghosts so as to recreate the game as close to the original as possible.

        The thing is that they still can't recreate the original in all of it's quirks.
        • How hard would it be to disassemble the ROM's? It can't be more than about 10-20k. I bet you could recreate it just fine with a little bit of reverse engineering.

          I also don't see how a document of hundreds of pages would be required for a game whose entire source code would probably fit on 20 pages.

  • The article makes some points but it misses some points...the biggest idea is that of selection. Most of the biggest hits are already available in various commercial forms. StarROMS has some "second tier" titles, but it's all Atari.

    The other odd part is that in some sense, people might not play the ROMs that much...they just want to see a game that maybe they've heard about, or the title sounds intriguing.

    I agree that if you play a game every one in a while, you should pay up. But, in a big way it's lik
  • I have alot of pirated roms.

    Majority of them are translations of japanese games that were never released here. I am glad that people do these translations since it gives us a chance to play those games that we never had a chance to play before (unless you read japanese and where able to import the game and japanese system)

    I'm not ashamed that I have these games.. alot of them I haven't played much. Theres a few that I go back and finish from time to time (Final fantasy games for example but I have the org

  • Righteous Twit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Friday October 10, 2003 @03:45PM (#7185437)
    I'll be happy to buy the roms. It's a reasonable price.

    But how much money has he donated to the MAME project? Time/Effort? Webspace?

    How does he think those ROMS got their value back? Magic?

    How much intrinsic value is there in these games? It's nigh impossible to find these games in their native format. And without MAME these games would've been long forgotten and written off. You can't market them by current standards because Atari Football looks pretty sad compared to Madden 2003.

    How much of a market *IS* there for games without OUR (the gamers) effort to keep them alive! And how much intrinsic value is there in OUR effort to maintain a piece of video-game history that would've been happily relegated to the same junk heaps of E.T. 2600 if suits had had their way. (Except for the occasional, hey let's release Tempest again along with some other classics, but not Major Havoc because Nobody remembers that game)

    Is Atari going to compensate the developers of MAME out of these ROM sales? I mean, how else am I supposed to play these games?

    But no no... keep throwing names like "pirate" around...

    • Re:Righteous Twit (Score:3, Informative)

      by mlzman ( 318971 )
      Here's an interesting if vague quote from the StarROMs website:

      "StarROMs believes that emulators play an important role in the preservation of classic video games. A portion of StarROMs annual profits will be donated to projects that help support the legal emulation of classic video games." Here's the link [starroms.com].

      So Atari won't be compensating MAME anytime soon, but ROM redistributors just might.

      • A portion of StarROMs annual profits will be donated to projects that help support the legal emulation of classic video games.

        The problem with this sentence is, it's as good as a politicians statement or any CEOs statement nowadays. a portion is anything from 99.9% down to some cents. And even worse, they wrote annual profits which can be increased and decreased nearly at will by using tax things like 'one-time-expenses', 'cost of stock options for CEO', 'savings for later' etc. (I know that company is n

  • who ever was so delusional as to not think themselves to be pirates? I've got ROMs, including some for games I don't own. I know I'm a pirate.

    Perhaps some people use the euphamism "abandonware," but the legality is no different and the crime is the same. But show me one person for whom legality defines all morality. What kind of person would download illegal ROMs and then wrestle with themselves over the moral implications? Either download them, or avoid- I doubt many people rationalize and hallucinat
  • ...even though I still cannot buy the rom images for the VAST majority of the games I want to play. Show me a Darius rom I can ligitimately buy and I will. I have also bought roms from StarRoms the day it was posted here. The problem with your little over encompassing rant about admitting to be a pirate is the fact that there are MANY games tat Atari did not produce. It is great I can go out and buy roms. I even bought the little namco TV game which has 5 namco games in the joystick that you plig direc
    • I highly doubt they'll be getting a license to distribute any Capcom roms anytime soon. So it seems I've got little recourse but to hoist the Jolly Roger when I'm hankerin' for a few levels of Powered Gear, Tenchi wo Kurau II or Alien vs. Predator (the beat-em-up, not the shooter by the same name).

      Once they start hosting more titles I have a vested interest in, I'll give them my money.

    • Same here. I have money. I want to exchange them for goods and services. If someone would sell me a polished English Star Ocean 1 rom I'd be throwing money there way. Untill then I'll be playing the unpolished translation applied to an illegally downloaded rom.
  • Number of legally available ROMs:

    Less than 100 (StarRoms isn't the only source. I'm counting things like Sega Smash Pack for the PC. There's still very few).

    Number of games supported by MAME:

    About 2000 unique titles.

    Number of unique PCEngine, Vectrex, Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 and other non-readibly available games:

    A very large portion.

    Seems Slashdot is using an exotic definition of the word "no."

  • Many old PC games don't work on new hardware, for various reasons.

    PC games aren't like Atari games, every PC is different, each Atari 2600 is identical.

    Solution? Buy an older PC on eBay [ebay.com] (486 or whatever you please). Cheap. The shipping will most likely cost more than the computer itself.

    The best part of it is, you can get REAL SoundBlaster sound cards, etc for them, because some of the older games are just too picky to run on todays hardware, even with helper programs and such.

    • Heh. Some time ago I ran Betrayal at Krondor, which was the second PC game I ever got. After minimal AUTOEXEC/CONFIG changes, it actually started up right from Windows98, and my USB keyboard and mouse worked right away.

      The only problem was the soundcard. SoundBlaster setting just didn't work with SBLive!... then I tried the General MIDI support. And my God, that sounded awesome. Samples didn't work, but the music was far more epic than what I got on the ol' SBPro =)

      Just a little bit worried what will ha

  • I was 10 yrs old when Asteroids showed up at the local arcade. Back then I had to resort to slave labor (Chores/Mowing Lawn) to afford the 25 cents to play video games. It wasn't too long before machine would start to eat my quarters. Luckily for me, as a 10 yr old the arcade attendants woulnt belive I lost my money and would just tell me to go away. I started to keep a tally of what machines were eating my money and how many times they ate it. Over the course of 10 yrs, this list was up to 34 dollars.( I o

  • Right of First Sale (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Shooch ( 698599 )
    When I first saw StarROMs mentioned on slashdot, I went to their site and looked for info about my right to resell the ROMs once I bought them. I couldn't find any info, so I emailed their legal department (they had a handy email address on the site) asking them about this issue.

    The reply came two days later, and was very clear that the right to the use the ROMs was non-transferable, meaning that according to the company, anyway, you can't actually sell the ROM to somebody else. (Obviously, I'm not talki
    • The so-called "Right of first sale" doctrine applies to THINGS. If you had bought a physical ROM, you have the right to sell it to someone if you don't want it. The fact that you downloaded a series of bytes does NOT mean that you can necessarily have the right to distribute those to other people, regardless of whether you keep a copy or not. That's just how the cookie crumbles. Copyright law gives the holder of the copyright the right to dictate terms of how that art is copied, and they're free to rest

  • Now, I've posted on why it's time to pay up or admit you're a pirate.

    Arg Maties!! If ye be perpetuating the myth that boarding a ship and stealing booty(physical, tangible goods) is the same as copyright infringement, then you are mistaken.

    I am so sick of hearing people say that "it's just like shoplifting". If I wasn't going to pay for it, and I didn't deprive anyone else of the opportunity to purchase it, where is the monetary loss? I fail to see it.

    If I couldn't download roms to play, that doesn't m

    • If you truly believe what you say, can I please have your credit card number, checking account number, social security number, full legal name and any passwords or pin numbers you use?

      See, I'm not even going to copy any bits, I just want to move some around. You like to share right? So set the information free! Its just bits on some server somewhere not real physical property.

      I'll take the fact that you don't post that information to mean that you are a hypocrite. Please, share with us. You say you l
      • See, I'm not even going to copy any bits, I just want to move some around.
        That's not copying/sharing, that's moving. You fail my analogy.
      • mv vs cp

        I'll explain this as well as I can to someone who fails to grasp the concept.

        lets say we have a file, song.mp3

        if I

        cp song.mp3 songcopy.mp3
        mv song.mp3 /mnt/floppy/
        sync
        umount /mnt/floppy

        I made a copy! I can now give the floppy for a friend and my song.mp3 is STILL THERE!!!! Nothing is missing!!!

        Now if I simply...
        mv song.mp3 /mnt/floppy/
        sync
        umount /mnt/floppy

        And give it to my friend, he now has my song.mp3 file and I have non for myself, we've MOVED it instead of making a copy of it.

        • Actually... song.mp3 is gone. Luckily, you copied it and songcopy.mp3 is still around. I think you meant to cp song.mp3 /mnt/floppy.

          Besides it is much easier just to cp song.mp3 /mnt/floppy/songcopy.mp3. It saves a step. :)

          • lol true true, the first obviously was an error due to typing too fast. The second was simply breaking the steps down so it would be clear enough for him.

            We wouldn't want to go too fast now, just one concept at a time.
  • Who owns these games? I thought Atari (formerly Infogrames) owned the brand name and Williams owned the actual games, but looking at various websites I see that compilations of old Atari games have been released by both Williams AND Infogrames. So who owns what?
    • And most special is probably Pac-Man which somehow is both Atari and Namco, and taking the Williams thread also probably Midway.

      In the Pac-Man case I think they just pay eachother licenses when they release a Pac-Man related game.
    • First a disclaimer: This is my personal understanding of the company history. It's not official Midway comment and it may not be correct.

      Atari Inc was split into two companies in 1984. The home game and computer part, Atari Corp, and the arcade game part, Atari Games. Williams acquired Atari Games in 1996. Atari Corp wound up in the hands of Infogrames via JTS and Hasbro. Atari Corp had the rights to do home translations of the pre-split arcade games but Atari Games owned the rights to the originals. Each
  • I admit it, I have ROMs on my PC. Plenty, and I'm working on increasing the number.

    Some of them, I feel I am justified in having. I purchased the Williams Arcade Classics a while back, which had emulated versions of 6 of their games, and I'd rather have the ROMs and play them through MAME for various reasons. At some technical level, it's probably still wrong (only having "license" to the ones supplied or something like that), but I paid for the rights to play the games. I also plan on getting the Midw
  • Screw that. For $2 each, I'll hit eBay, buy the actual cart, and dl a ROM from somewhere. Nice hard copy backup, and plays real nice on the 2600 I picked up (eBay again) for $15.

    Actually, careful shopping can net you games for less than $2 each.

    Nice idea, however. Now, anybody have a link for a cart reader for those too lazy to Google?
  • At $2.50 a game for old atari games, I'll admit I'm a pirate. Considering that all 12 games you bought would probably fit on 1 floppy disk, you basically paid $35 for &lt of 30 year old gaming.
  • ...am a pirate.
  • Yes, any price is apparently too much for some people, and they'll just go on downloading archives of 2000 arcade game ROMs.

    Just a quick aside: 2000 games? How can anyone possibly justify downloading the ROMs to 2000 games? We're way out of the realm of casual piracy at that point. That's three new games a day for nearly two freaking years!

    It only takes about two seconds to think of the logical reasons behind keeping a collection of 2000 games:
    1. Convenience. If you play a lot of MAME games and talk to a
  • When we are on the Star Trek's Enterprise with their data/energy to matter and such technologies what the copyright laws will be. If you steal a digital copy of Captain Picard's valubles using the terminals, does he put you in the brig for theft, or copyright infringment?

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