Quick Fixes For Those Pining For A 6-foot Cabinet

Joe Barr writes "Over at Newsforge [part of OSDN, like Slashdot], there's a look at the arcade/system emulator movement and two Linux-based Live CDs designed to put you in touch with your inner Donkey Kong: KnoppixMAME and AdvanceCD. I'm happy with gameplay under both. I only wish I knew more about the legality of using them." S!: We previously covered release details on KnoppixMAME and AdvanceCD last year, and also mentioned the categorically legal, if limited StarROMs site on Slashdot Games a few weeks back.

Not to troll..

[Anonymous Coward]

But why is KnoppixMame so big? AdvanceCD is around 10 MB, while KnoppixMame is around 116 MB, leaving a lot less room for games.

StarROMs is more than just limited.

[JessLeah]

StarROMs is a fucking joke. Let's not beat around the bush. If they really want to combat piracy, then they need a much, much bigger selection. A more sane pricing scheme (e.g. a sliding scale based on the age of the ROM-- 1970s and early 1980s ROMs like Pong and Pac-Man for $5, late 1980s ROMs for $10, early 1990s ROMs for $15-- with all prices decreasing as time goes on) would help too.

Mame use shouldn't be illegal.

[ajutla]

In a perfect world, I mean. I use MAME, and I use it to play really old arcade games. Yes, I realize that this is almost certainly illegal--Nintendo would probably sue my ass off if they knew that I played Donkey Kong with my setup. But why? Look at it realistically; Donkey Kong is freaking old. Even if Nintendo were to rerelease it for, I dunno, the GBA or something--hell, they might have already done this--how well would it actually do? Most people who play games today would take one look at it and say "Eeew! That's crap!" based on the graphics / difficulty and go away. The only people who would actually buy a rerelease of Donkey Kong would either be people who played it in arcades long ago or those or who, like me, played it via MAME. MAME is therefore actually a good thing--it spreads around old games and gets people excited and interested in them, thus boosting sales if those games are ever rereleased. Changing the subject slightly, look at Super NES emulation. Tons of people use things like ZSNES to play old RPGs like Final Fantasy VI. When Square actually did rerelease that game, it sold pretty well, but it arguably would not have sold nearly as well if the ROM trade hadn't made games like that popular among "pirates." Hell, I played that game on an emulator and then gladly purchased the rerelease when it came out; had I not played the game before in ROM form, there's no way I would have done that. Emulation, especially for older/obsolete game platforms, is a Good Thing.

Re:Mame use shouldn't be illegal.

[Grishnakh]

As far as I'm concerned, playing roms older than 13 years is fully justified and should be legal. The original copyright term in this country (USA) was 13 years; after that, everything went into the public domain. This was further backed up by the Constitution, which said Congress could enact legislation to protect the arts for "a reasonable term". Only lately has Congress passed laws extending this term to infinity (every time Steamboat Willy is about to fall into the public domain, Disney gets Congress to pass another law extending copyright). The way I see it, these copyright extension laws are all unconstitutional. Therefore, if you're feeling guilty about playing a game that's more than 13 years old and not paying for it, don't.

Re:self-delusion

[AtariDatacenter]

> MAME user: I wish the law wasn't so ambiguous about playing ROMs.

I wish the law just made sense when it comes to playing ROMs! I mean, by the strictest of interpretations, if I physically move the ROMs off of my boardsets and plug them into the computer where they are read (and not cached) as the game is played, then it is probably legal.

But if I emulate Pac-Man with a copy of the ROMs on my computer and not on the actual ones in my game room, then I'm a criminal. Oh. And I'm stealing from Namco, too.

Re:A thought

[zakezuke]

Sure, it's a copyright violation, but is it really hurting the distributor, since they aren't even trying to make money off of it?

I couldn't agree with you more. I've always felt that the term on software should be shorter then the term of other forms of published works simply because the only way to access abandoned media is by getting a copy from amature libraries. I remember actually *trying* to get a copy of Agent USA or M.U.L.E the legit way in the 21st century. It can't be done.

Re:A thought

[Junior J. Junior III]

They'll come back at you with the argument that every minute spent playing a free game of Pac Man or Bump N Jump is a minute spent depriving their currently-marketed games of revenue.

Re:A thought

[zerocool^]

Yes, it's illegal. I agree with you, though. At netmar, we had some guy who set up basically an abandonware server. We noticed it because of the huge jump in bandwidth, and we looked - all the stuff was like DOS versions of lemmings and stuff.

So, we called the feds (who have a computer crime department), and we started trying to get in touch with publishers and distributors for the games.

Know what?

No one cared.

We're still waiting for a call back from the feds, 2 years later. They told us to fill in a submission form on a website, which we did. And we never got any callbacks from any distributors or publishers either.

This is what makes you jaded to things like abandonware. If the company still owns the copyright, but isn't selling the product, what do you do? What if the company is unwilling to protect their copyright? What does that say about the laws?

~Will

Re:A thought

[dirk]

While in general you aren't hurting anyone, this isn't always the case. Sometimes these games are bought by companies who plan to release an update version, including a version of the original as well. Or they are planning to release a compilation of old games. There are at least a few compilations packs that include things such as Pacman, DigDug, Asteroids, etc. So while you may think you never hurting anyone, that isn't always the case. Just look at the current "control games" that have become fairly popular. There is an Atari 2600 one with 10 or so old Atari cart games on it and an arcade version with 6 old arcade games. Certainly your hurting the sales of these type of devices.

Re:Mame use shouldn't be illegal.

[/dev/trash]

So you support companies taking 'old' Linux code and using it in closed source products?