Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners

RedBatman

https://hothardware.com/news/emuparadise-rom-site-shuts-down-following-nintendo-legal-actions

ClassicGMR

Also - as part of the topic - if you read Nintendo's statement on their website they also would love to target emulators. However I doubt highly they could win those cases in court. I could be wrong here but I think this has come up many times and essentially there's nothing copyright or proprietary about them (unless we're talking about the BIOS too).

https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emergence

We've all discussed to death whether ROMs are good or bad, pure or evil, valuable or harmful but it seems that a lot of sites are just deciding it's not worth it to carry them anymore. That was my initial point. What do you all think of the sites that, after decades of fighting in a lot of cases, suddenly deciding they're just not going to bother anymore. I honestly believe it has to be because N has gone from letters to lawsuits

I do agree with @BuZz though - EMUParadise had a cruddy layout and is loaded with advertisements. I use AD Block Plus in Firefox so I don't see most of them but they're always begging me to turn off my blocker when I visit sites like that. Hell, Yahoo is now popping up a window asking me to do it when I check my email... but that's another rant for another thread. 😉

mediamogul

@classicgmr said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

they also would love to target emulators. However I doubt highly they could win those cases in court.

Winning the court case is rarely important in these situations. Companies like Nintendo go to court all the time over cases that they know they can't win. It's often just used as a tactic to eliminate adversaries who don't have the money to fight for all the years it would take to do so. Sadly, if Nintendo were to decide to take action against RetroPie for example, it'd probably just be the end of RetroPie, whether they actually had a leg to stand on or not. That's why I also collect dolls from many lands as my backup hobby.

lilbud

@mediamogul said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

That's why I also collect dolls from many lands as my backup hobby

I got woodworking and occasional electronics work. I have a few backups in case Retropie were to go the way of the dinosaur due to Nintendo.

Or the way of Emuparadise. you decide.

mediamogul

@lilbud

Hopefully it'll never come to that. I'm not ready give up never beating 'Ghouls and Ghosts' any time soon.

thelostsoul

@mediamogul Nintendo is aiming the roms and as you said, there is nothing in emulators illegal about. Spreading roms was illegal from day one, so it's no wonder what happened. RetroPie doesn't contain anything Nintendo could do against. Some of proprietary content like images of an actual SNES console could still be a problem, but in a waaaay lower priority than a rom site. I just don't fear anything here.

Clyde

@lilbud I also understood your term "more will pop up" as a reference to new sites, so thanks for the clarification.

But without new sites, the number of the existing ones will dwindle with every legal blow from the IP holders. Thus, there will be less and less sites available to step up for closed ones.

edit: And the remaining ones may drift more and more into shady businesses, because only staunch criminals will be willing to take the growing risks.

mediamogul

@thelostsoul said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

RetroPie doesn't contain anything Nintendo could do against.

If they so chose, they could always make the claim that RetroPie and projects like it facilitate piracy. Thankfully they do seem to be preoccupied with ROMs at the moment, so let's hope their lawyers don't learn to multitask. The only truly definable area where we arguably infringe in any way is through the unlicensed use of their logos. Sometime in the future that may need to be reconsidered if it's ever contested to be outside of fair use.

thelostsoul

@mediamogul The logos was my first thought too. In the US there is a fair use rule for that, unless you earn money by using it, fan sites should be allowed. Wouldn't be it make a sense to host it in the US? Besides that, all these files could be downloadable by included scripts. Some Linux based operating systems are doing this with copyrighted and proprietary stuff too. Just in case we/you get in trouble.

mediamogul

@thelostsoul said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

Besides that, all these files could be downloadable by included scripts.

It's a good thought, but I don't think there's a perfect solution that would be legally clear in all regions. For example, making material available as a separate download is considered the same as including it outright in the UK and probably other areas. Make no mistake, I'm not advocating that anything be done about this at the moment. It's not even completely clear that there's a violation at all. With any luck we'll never have to worry about any of this.

Shizzmoney

download and archive as much as you can, while you can, folks

edmaul69

I actually really liked emuparadise. I never had popups using chrome. Ads all over the page yes but no popups. Loveroms on the other hand was full of popups of a malicious flavor. Then having to find little places where they had tiny text to keep clicking on to get to the next page to eventually get to the roms was annoying.

KN4THX

I know we don't post links or sites in regards to certain types of files, but when speaking about archiving and preservation, what about the one that rhymes with shark hive spot borg? They seem to remain untouched in general over the years and you can find everything from Windows versions to commercials. Does anyone know the history of this site or if it is deemed non-threatening since it's goal seems to not be geared towards profit?

mediamogul

@thedatacereal said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

Does anyone know the history of this site or if it is deemed non-threatening since it's goal seems to not be geared towards profit?

I'm sure that any means of getting ROMs by a simple Google search will eventually be dealt with by Nintendo and perhaps even other interested parties as the commercial viability of retro games increases. The exposure of putting ROMs on a website was just never a good idea to begin with and all those roads were inevitably going to end here.

I'm an active proponent of film preservation, going so far as to master, restore and even compile and produce additional material for films that have never seen a commercial release. My goal is to give these movies the full treatment that official releases have seen. However, my work has always been released carefully to semi-private channels and most importantly, to like-minded people who truly care for the material and have taken the time to seek it out. As a result, these films are now sufficiently preserved online, as well as with a few thousand private collectors who, in most cases, aren't looking to just add the one millionth movie to their collection that they'll never watch. Best of all, I have never seen my work pop up on Ebay, a comic book convention or even so much as a public torrent site. If the worst thing that happens to game preservation is that people have to become more careful and knowledgeable to take part in it, then I can't help but see that as a positive.

youxia

What's the point of "preservation" if nobody is going to see these movies bar a few thousand? I see this elitist approach all the time on underground trackers - it's the same regarding rare videogame material - and I could never fathom this kind of mindset. Never even mind that it's not preservation at all, since all it takes is for such "semi-private channel" to disappear - happens all the time - and then it's all for nowt anyway. It's quite simple: if people responsible for MAME employed similar logic, we'd never have our weekly contest here (and millions of people around the world would only have some vague memories of their arcade days instead of being able to enjoy all these games now)

In my opinion there should be a limited copyright period on all cultural works, say 20 years or so, so the artist/companies can make their money and after that it should be released into public domain. So the people inhabiting this messed up planet could enrich their lives without others endlessly seeking to commercialise and monetise everything.

In this particular case of Nintendo using awful strongarm tactics, reminiscent of dark days of RIAA witchhunts, it's bitterly ironic since it has no doubt a lot to do with the recent success of their Mini consoles and increasing popularity of retro-gaming, which in turn also fuels sales of their classic titles. Now, that would not be possible without those awful rom sites/torrents and emulator devs, who kept the retro gaming hobby alive during all the years when nobody from the industry gave a toss about it.

KN4THX

@youxia I'm torn on the "expiring" rights of products. If I created something magical or even crappy, but I put my hard work and heart into it, I don't want to just have the rights stripped from me.

That said, all media including video games have copyrights that DO expire after after an extended duration, at least here in the States. That being said, someone can purchase them I believe, and renew the rights.

What I would agree with is that if the rights expired, whoever chose to purchase or renew the rights should be allowed to do so, provided they put forth a recognizable effort to use/distribute/sell said copyright in order to keep the product in the public's hands and not simply keep it in a closet just because they can.

Again, I am torn, because a person did create this product, and while the author is still alive I feel they should have the rights out of respect. Corporations on the other hand, I could be a little less forgiving towards

mediamogul

@youxia said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

What's the point of "preservation" if nobody is going to see these movies bar a few thousand?

Preservation is not mutually exclusive to our ability to experience the preserved item for free and at our beckon call. When a movie is released on Blu-ray in a limited pressing of a few thousand through legitimate retail channels, there's no question that it's now preserved in that form, regardless of exclusivity. Also, while I'm comforted to know that close to 50 Gutenberg Bibles are preserved throughout the world, I don't feel entitled that I should be able to thumb through one whenever I want. I would have to go seek one out and put time and effort into arranging a viewing if it truly meant something to me. Still, despite my immediate lack of access, they are none the less preserved.

In my opinion there should be a limited copyright period on all cultural works, say 20 years or so, so the artist/companies can make their money and after that it should be released into public domain.

Other than a minor difference of opinion over the term length, I wholeheartedly agree with every fiber of my being. Unfortunately, it's just not how things are. If I could change the laws myself, I promise you that I would.

In this particular case of Nintendo using awful strongarm tactics, reminiscent of dark days of RIAA witchhunts...

The RIAA was going after little Timmy and grandma for downloading a handful of songs, which does indeed seem to be an overreach, not to mention a big waste of time. Nintendo, on the other hand, are going after some pretty big entities that are profiting off of their intellectual property and limiting the audience that would otherwise pay to an uncertain, but very real degree. The only consequence for us is that we can't download 'Super Mario Bros.' from a website. However, the same is true for most any other commercial media out there. ROMs were previously an odd exception to this, but that appears to be changing whether we like it or not.

Clyde

Commercial break: Nearly five* entertaining yet instructive minutes about the history and criticism of copyright laws.

(* The video shows a length of 6:27, but the actual content only is 4:50 long.)

edit: typo

thelostsoul

@clyde Copyright is the right to copy. :p

Sano

@mediamogul said in Nintendo's got everyone scurrying for dark corners:

The RIAA was going after little Timmy and grandma for downloading a handful of songs, which does indeed seem to be an overreach, not to mention a big waste of time.

Mandatory IT crowd reference here