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Post by surnshurn on Sept 28, 2015 12:33:23 GMT -5
I understand there's a question of legality in downloading ROM's from wherever on the internet. Is there a point where it's illegal? Is it legal to download titles that are no longer in production? Is it legal to download titles that are still in production? Is it legal to download titles from producers that are no longer in existence? Is it up to the discretion of the producing entity, or is it technically a free-for-all?
I'm curious, because it's trivial to find titles for any system before the current gen minus 3 years or so. I read up on this about 15 years ago, around 2000, when the general message from production companies was that any unauthorized distribution of software should be illegal, not that it necessarily was.
What's the current legal climate like on distributing ROM's for various systems? What about the legality of system emulators?
I think this should be a serious concern for anyone who participates in emulation.
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Post by zerker on Sept 28, 2015 16:14:27 GMT -5
I assume you are asking if there a point where it is LEGAL? (your question is backwards).
It is only legal if the owner of the game officially released it online, or the rights to the game somehow reverted to public domain. No other time.
That said, games have a LONG time to go before they are public domain for copyright expiration. Producers that are no longer in existence are 99.9% bought out by someone else, so the rights transfer accordingly. As a result, the public domain case is practically nil.
Games that were never released MIGHT not be under copyright, so dumps of prototypes MAY be okay. Hard to tell without a lawyer.
Emulators are generally agreed to be fine unless they include copyrighted code themselves. That's why emulators that require BIOS data need you to provide the BIOS data yourself. Unless you have a ROM chip dumper and did the backup from your own system (even that is questionable depending on where you live), you can't legally use such an emulator.
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Post by moran on Sept 28, 2015 19:16:27 GMT -5
IIRC, older hardware has become somewhat public domain. That's why the Retron and other similar systems are legal.
As for ROMs, its technically illegal and considered software pirating. There are loopholes though, I read a long a time ago that as long as you own an original cart you can legally own the ROM as well. I know that there is an emulation group online that got in trouble with Nintendo for releasing playable ROMs online, but was informed that as long as they own the official NES cart they could continue to offer the ROM online.
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Post by ReyVGM on Sept 28, 2015 20:29:59 GMT -5
No, you can't spread or offer roms just because you own the original cart. Nintendo is really strict when it comes to that, so I doubt they got off whatever Nintendo came after just because they owned an original cart.
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Post by moran on Sept 29, 2015 7:44:44 GMT -5
They don't offer or distribute the roms, but allow you to play them online off of their server without downloading.
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Post by zerker on Sept 29, 2015 16:14:12 GMT -5
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Post by strizzuth on Nov 8, 2015 22:09:39 GMT -5
I understand there's a question of legality in downloading ROM's from wherever on the internet. No. There is no question. The list of public domain ROMs is very small.
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Post by elektrolurch on Nov 11, 2015 9:09:00 GMT -5
And what about the phenomenon of Abandonware? I mean I don't know about home consoles, but for DOS or home computers in general, there is lots of it which is perfectly legal, right?
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Post by Elvin Atombender on Nov 11, 2015 12:42:21 GMT -5
And what about the phenomenon of Abandonware? I mean I don't know about home consoles, but for DOS or home computers in general, there is lots of it which is perfectly legal, right? AFAIK Abandonware simply means that a game is unsupported by its software house, which means that unless stated otherwise downloading games labelled as "abandonware" is still illegal.
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Post by Weasel on Nov 11, 2015 12:55:45 GMT -5
And what about the phenomenon of Abandonware? I mean I don't know about home consoles, but for DOS or home computers in general, there is lots of it which is perfectly legal, right? "Abandonware" is a thing that doesn't have a legal definition. Its interpretation varies wildly across the internet, and it remains a grey area for a lot of places, because in a lot of instances, the companies responsible for enforcing their copyrights either don't know about the infringements or are no longer in business. There are a fair number of abandonware sites that have had large chunks of their library taken down - The Macintosh Garden in particular is not allowed to carry games by Sierra, Activision, or Electronic Arts, IIRC. As far as posting abandonware on these forums, well, it's true that we already allow ROM links here, so what I'm going to suppose is probably the case is that abandonware links would only be allowed if: 1. You can't get them on a digital distribution service like GOG or Steam 2. The copyright holder isn't still very much in business 3. The product in question was made free at some point, or is one of those really old shareware games. 4. It isn't a really, really new thing. I'm not going to assign an arbitrary date to it, but just don't go putting up stuff like the Doom 3 alpha, I guess.
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iYamWhatIYam
New Member
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Post by iYamWhatIYam on Nov 11, 2015 17:10:36 GMT -5
If you're talking legality here, there's a lot of issues.
First, one has to consider whether the law defines video games as art. Since the current copyright laws stand at 70 years after death (since 1 January 1978), this would mean that this issue would be between who is the "artist" or the big cheese behind it all. In the US, video game code is protected as literary work (classified as art). Therefore, no released game in the US has fallen out of copyright yet (unless there are seperate laws warranting how video game copyrights are handled).
So no, getting ROMs technically isn't legal, but I do it anyway. Although I would think abandonedware would be public domain.
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Post by starscream on Nov 11, 2015 21:06:59 GMT -5
And what about the phenomenon of Abandonware? There are a fair number of abandonware sites that have had large chunks of their library taken down - The Macintosh Garden in particular is not allowed to carry games by Sierra, Activision, or Electronic Arts, IIRC. Afaik it's only Electronic Arts, you can get old Sierra and Activision stuff at the Mac garden. Interestingly, Amiga sites have secured permissions to host games from all of these companies in the past.
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Post by lanceboyle94 on Nov 25, 2015 18:12:59 GMT -5
Afaik it's only Electronic Arts, you can get old Sierra and Activision stuff at the Mac garden. Interestingly, Amiga sites have secured permissions to host games from all of these companies in the past. World of Spectrum has a similar situation, as the site's owner has contacted a lot of companies along the years asking for permission to make the games available. Many have said yes, but there's a few that have denied permission for distribution of them there, such as Activision, Capcom, Codemasters and Rare.
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Post by surnshurn on Dec 7, 2015 2:49:15 GMT -5
If you're talking legality here, there's a lot of issues. First, one has to consider whether the law defines video games as art. Since the current copyright laws stand at 70 years after death (since 1 January 1978), this would mean that this issue would be between who is the "artist" or the big cheese behind it all. In the US, video game code is protected as literary work (classified as art). Therefore, no released game in the US has fallen out of copyright yet (unless there are seperate laws warranting how video game copyrights are handled). So no, getting ROMs technically isn't legal, but I do it anyway. Although I would think abandonedware would be public domain. I am talking legality. Copyright law is a strange thing. For example, if a company designs and publishes a game, that copyright belongs to the company, not to the 'artist' who created the code. It's really about money, who is profiting from sales of the game, and who is infringing on that right to coin by uploaders/downloaders who are distributing said product without permission. Abandonware is generally referring to products which have become unprotected because interested parties have dissolved. Companies that have been acquired by corporations will usually transfer their rights of sale to the parent corporation. When a company declares a product that they own the rights to as freeware, it becomes so; this can be revoked. But, legality is terrible. The best reason to pay for games that you want to play is to support the developers who made that product.
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Post by Allie on Dec 7, 2015 14:02:23 GMT -5
IIRC, older hardware has become somewhat public domain. That's why the Retron and other similar systems are legal. The protections on the original NES/Famicom hardware (only hardware) ran out in 2012 (I believe). This is why they can't do anything about the Analogue NT, which is using up some of the few remaining 2A03 (or tearing apart old NES systems to get at them, I don't know which) chips left.
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