Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood? 171
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.
Doesn't change the law (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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"
Depends on what kinds of games [atarihq.com] you're into.They already got money from used games (Score:2)
I still don't understand how they can honestly get upset. I don't see car dealers going after used car dealers.
Re:They already got money from used games (Score:2)
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.
Re:They already got money from used games (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:1)
You mean besides the fact that one is illegal and the other is not?
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:1, Interesting)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
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?
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
Also, he did explicitly say MAME may be a different situation. The except
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly there are a great number of people downloading a great number of ROMS
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
But that's a point for another discussion
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2, Interesting)
Just a hint, drag the bodies into your house and make sure
Hardly... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Hardly... (Score:2)
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
Re:Hardly... (Score:1)
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)
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.
Re:sure. (Score:2)
Copyright (Score:2)
Don't buy from Buy Rite games! (Score:2)
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)
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:Not new though. (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:1, Informative)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2, Insightful)
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
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
Except for those of us who had already paid for those games ages ago, there are no moral issues. They got their money.
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't change the law (Score:2)
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)
Re:You show me where (Score:1)
Ok, I'll show you where! (Score:3, Informative)
$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!
Re:You show me where (Score:1)
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)
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
Re:You show me where (Score:1)
hmph (Score:2)
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)
Re:let's not delude ourselves here... (Score:1)
Why don't they just sell them? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 MAMEboy (Score:2)
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.
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:1)
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
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:1)
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.
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:2)
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.
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why don't they just sell them? (Score:2)
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)
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*.
Re:Natural response to ridiculous copyright length (Score:1)
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)
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?
Re:Paul's dead (Score:2)
Re:Natural response to ridiculous copyright length (Score:1)
Why ROMS? Because sometimes modern games suck (Score:2)
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)
Re:Captain Pedantic Strikes Again! (Score:3, Funny)
Nintendo's issue (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nintendo's issue (Score:1)
Re:Nintendo's issue (Score:2)
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
Re:Nintendo's issue (Score:1)
Someone's not paying attention (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:1)
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:2)
Huh?
What?
Where?
How?
Really, how? I'd buy AC if I could play Zelda on the GC...
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:5, Informative)
www.animalxing.com/nesgames.php [animalxing.com] has a list of the NES games in Animal Crossing and some info on how to get them.
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:3, Informative)
So if some kind soul with Animal Crossing and an Action Replay were to pick a town and character name and post the code for Legend of Zelda (and/or other NES games) you could start the game with the proper names and use the code. Possibly someone has already
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:2)
Oh for the love of Pete, would it hurt Nintendo too much to release an original [gamefaqs.com] game [gamefaqs.com] for a change?
I thought after they released Yoshi's Island they'd be out of games. Well, I guess after 3 they really are out... what then?
Probably figure out how to jam Mario 64 onto the gameboy, although it might actually be easier to bother to write a new game at that point...
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:2)
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:1)
Re:Someone's not paying attention (Score:2)
Of course. The NES is still around 18 years after release, and games for the original GameBoy are still supported by new hardware 14 years after it's release. I think there will be GBAs, GBA SPs, and/or GameBoy Players 10 years from now.
Civil Disobedience (Score:1)
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)
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)
Pac Man programmers are not starving (Score:2)
Nintendo "branding" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nintendo "branding" (Score:2)
Well, if *I* can't have you, no one else will!! Muahahahaha...
Copyright beyond life of original work (Score:2, Insightful)
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)
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.
Re:Collecting and playing are two different things (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Collecting and playing are two different things (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Collecting and playing are two different things (Score:2)
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)
Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood? (Score:1)
Yes.
arg (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget the portable systems! (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever noticed... (Score:2)
... 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)
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)
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.
Are you cracked? (Score:2)
Re:Are you cracked? (Score:2)
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.
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
Yes, but... (Score:2)
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
Re:The thing about ROMs and "piracy" (Score:2)
Straw man. For most products, it's difficult if not impossible. Scouring eBay for a few rare table scraps is NOT "a way" by any reasonable distinction.
Straw man. This in no way counters the fact that the IP for most of those games aren't in use. The argument that maybe someday a handful will be put into use doesn't change that.
Re:Isn't this just to keep the copyright valid? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't this just to keep the copyright valid? (Score:2)