Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie

mediamogul

@herb_fargus said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Imo as far as US law is concerned 70 years is far too long considering the obsolete mediums of many technologies used

In the early days of copyright when terms were shorter copyright was , in my opinion, better balanced to help encourage the creation of new work.

Almost no thought goes into US intellectual property protection other than how much money can be made from term extensions. I'm a big proponent of public domain laws and the potential benefits they have to enrich a shared culture in ways we can't immediately imagine. However, I constantly find myself discussing the value of legitimately limited protection with both creators and consumers alike. The creators perspective I at least understand, but when talking about something like the endless extensions Disney is afforded, consumers often seem to have a favorable bias to such companies and will argue that similar entities should be protected in perpetuity for no other reason than sentimentality. The narrow view on this can be frustrating and a smart company can even use this public opinion to sway lawmakers.

One of my hobbies is remastering, restoring and even releasing in a free and limited capacity, films that have never and most likely will never be released in a consumer-ready format for one reason or another. While my efforts and those like me are admittedly illegal, the alternative is that these films will be lost to time and erased from our shared culture forever.

BenMcLean

@clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Yes, but that's not analogue to what you said about rights.

Yes it is.

Please demonstrate why artificial rights can't be derived from other natural resources.

Oh, that's because of David Hume's is-ought gap. There is absolutely no way to logically deduce any moral conclusion using only non-moral premises. In order to get any moral conclusion, you will need a moral premise. So natural rights are the only kind of thing which artificial rights could be constructed out of, since anything else would violate this rule.

Next to proclaim natural laws a priori on the basis of a creator god "giving" the world to humans.

That's the only grounds on which I'd be willing to listen to a defense of copyright, since I do believe in God and I would reject any atheist alternative.

So, you're breaking the social contract of your society. By what right?

I think rights are arranged in a hierarchy, with individual natural rights at the top and artificial rights coming along later. What we've gotten in our society is an "intellectual property" regime so extreme that it ends up undermining other rights which are much more basic. (higher in the hierarchy) Specifically, it's putting companies above people to their benefit and our detriment.

I don't respect copyright in the abstract just because a piece of paper or some company says so. I respect creators and try to support good ones where I can. But I don't let silly, stupid "laws" written by lobbyists undermine individual freedom to think, create or experience history.

markwkidd

How about we add some Intellivision titles? :)

Open source, Creative Commons, and other permissive licenses:

Christmas Carol vs. The Ghost of Christmas Presents (Pseudo-PD) -
http://www.carolvsghost.com/pg_game.html#download-rom
Space Patrol (CC-BY-NC-ND) - http://spacepatrol.info/
4-Tris (GPL) - http://spatula-city.org/~im14u2c/intv/4-tris/

Modern freeware ROMs:

Choplifter - http://intellivision.us/intvgames/chop/chop.php
Stonix - http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/stonix/stonix.php
Hotel Bunny - http://sebastianmihai.com/main.php?t=115&n=Intellivision-development-Hotel-Bunny
Ultimate Pong - http://intellivisionrevolution.com/ultimatepong
DK Arcade - http://www.carlmuellerjr.com/2016/12/d1k-arcade-rom-download-page-dk-arcade.html?m=1
Ms. Pac Man - http://www.carlmuellerjr.com/2016/06/ms_22.html?m=1
Meteors! - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273509-meteors/
Stunt Cycle - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273481-download-stunt-cycle-still-in-development-digital-game-rom-free/
Princess Lydie - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/264032-new-intellivision-homebrew-princess-lydie/

BillyH

That's a cool Mega Drive collection, if I don't notice any problems with the emulator on RetroPie then I'll definitely buy that collection when it goes on a sale again.

meleu

http://www.gradualgames.com/2017/12/free-roms.html?m=1

Free NES Homebrews games from Gradual Games!

SgtJimmyRustles

Isn't the One Must Fall 2097 declared freeware now?

Clyde

@sgtjimmyrustles said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Isn't the One Must Fall 2097 declared freeware now?

It is, but I think it's for Windows only. I don't know if the open source port (also linked in my link) would run on the Raspberry Pi, though.

SgtJimmyRustles

@clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

It is, but I think it's for Windows only. I don't know if the open source port (also linked in my link) would run on the Raspberry Pi, though.

Pretty sure I remember One Must Fall being on DOS.

Edit: Yeah it's MS-Dos, not windows.

Clyde

@sgtjimmyrustles You're right, my mistake. But the TO @BenMcLean doesn't include DOSBox games here:

@benmclean said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

I am categorically excluding DOS games because the library of games which DOSBOX supports and which will run just fine through RetroPie is so staggeringly huge that we have no chance to even start on it. So when it comes to DOS games, I am only including DOS games which have modern source ports that run on RetroPie.

edit: So, the question remains if OMF's open source port runs on Retropie.

Fruitybit

@markwkidd Very good list, I've been looking for a decent version of Pong for so long! However, when I download it, it has no suffix or file type. I tried calling it .int and .bin, and dropped all three into the pi but none will work with jzintv. I want to put Freeintv on but don't have the wherewithall to achieve that yet!

Hmm, I tried DK arcade and can’t get that working either, all my other Intellivision roms work fine, all bios sums are correct. Are these working on the pi for anyone else?

Clyde

Nothing for the list, but King of Fighters 2002 is available for free on gog.com until tomorrow. See here how to extract the bios and rom from the gog installer.

https://www.gog.com/game/the_king_of_fighters_2002

markwkidd

@fruitybit said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

@markwkidd Very good list, I've been looking for a decent version of Pong for so long! However, when I download it, it has no suffix or file type. I tried calling it .int and .bin, and dropped all three into the pi but none will work with jzintv. I want to put Freeintv on but don't have the wherewithall to achieve that yet!

Hmm, I tried DK arcade and can’t get that working either, all my other Intellivision roms work fine, all bios sums are correct. Are these working on the pi for anyone else?

FreeIntv is being considered for inclusion in RetroPie-Setup in the Experimental category. Hopefully the next update will streamline things for you.

Fruitybit

@markwkidd I saw this on github, good news:) as for Pong- This thread 1st April, a lot seem to think it’s a joke. Seeing as it hasn’t got a file type I fear Freeintv won’t make any difference!
Edit: at the end of that thread it mentions using .rom file type. The only one I hadn’t tried. Will update later!
Edit: you can hear “D’oh” echoing off my walls

caver01

@benmclean While moving content from my Riven CD-ROMs (that I have had packed away in a box for decades) into SCUMMVM, I noticed a bunch of free and legal titles avaiable for download here. The accompanying detail is as follows:

Game downloads currently include eight freeware games 'Beneath a Steel Sky', 'Dreamweb', 'Flight of the Amazon Queen', 'Lure of the Temptress', 'Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back', 'Soltys', 'Sfinx' and 'Mystery House'.
Also, you can find cutscene packs recommended for use when playing any of the Broken Sword games or Feeble Files under ScummVM.

This would make a good addition to the initial post.

BillyH

@billyh said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

That's a cool Mega Drive collection, if I don't notice any problems with the emulator on RetroPie then I'll definitely buy that collection when it goes on a sale again.

Well, I got a Steam mail that items on my wish list were on sale.

The Mega Drive collection is on sale now for just under €15 (otherwise known as a 75% discount) and I did manage to try the Mega Drive emulator so I guess I'm buying the collection now and putting it on my RetroPie.

mitu

@billyh Nice catch !

EDIT: Seems the Steam has a sale at the time, the MegaMan Collection is also 60% off (like 6 bucks now).

BillyH

@benmclean said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam gives you a folder called "Uncompressed ROMs" which contains DRM-free ready-to-play ROM files for many SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis titles including the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Uhm, just a quick note: I bought this and of the 59 games in the collection, only 6 are ready-to-play, the others are *.68K and *.SGD, which the emulators from RetroPie can't handle.

~~Of course, owning the collection does make it legal for me to download and use *.smd ROMs, which is exactly what I will do now, but~~ I just wanted to let people who want the collection know in advance that it's not just pay and play.

Edit: a search for a way to convert the files made me stumble over a Steam post where someone apparently just renamed the files.

Tried this myself and can confirm: all the *.68K and *.SGD files can be renamed *.smd and they'll work with RetroPie, I now see the whole list at least and the few that I tried worked fine. So there's that.

That leaves Sonic CD out in the cold then, which is the only one that doesn't have an uncompressed ROM (or a ROM at all, for that matter).

mediamogul

@billyh said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Of course, owning the collection does make it legal for me to download and use *.smd ROMs

It really only means you'd have a defense to work with if SEGA ever wanted to take you to court. It's not probable that they would go after individual users, but if they ever did, they would likely argue that the original license, or that of the Steam collection only covers expressly intended use as being acceptable.

BenMcLean

@mediamogul said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

It really only means you'd have a defense to work with if SEGA ever wanted to take you to court. It's not probable that they would go after individual users, but if they ever did, they would likely argue that the original license, or that of the Steam collection only covers expressly intended use as being acceptable.

The Steam installer creates a folder literally called "Uncompressed ROMs" for your convenience. SEGA is doing the right thing here.

mediamogul

@benmclean said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

SEGA is doing the right thing here.

It certainly does seem so. It's nice to see a game company allowing a little legal breathing room in good faith.