Retrode 2, a way to get legal ROMs
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@agtrigormortis That certainly isn't the case in the USA. It can vary a bit depending on what media is being backed up. DRM and license agreements alone make it different even from one video game to another.
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@themazingness There are DRM free sources however, GOG being one of them. You can legally make backups of games even in the US which you can then transfer from one PC to another, provided the copy isn't given to somebody else.
Also some DRM free sources exist on Steam, such as Sega Genesis Classics Collection, so clearly Sega doesn't mind you making backups of your own ROMs which you purchased from them as long as you follow the same no copy for somebody else rule.
If Sega took issue with you copying cartridges in your own home, don't you think they would've taken action about it already? Nintendo has a DRM policy with their virtual console games, but their DRM means you can only use their ROM's on the system you purchased them on, even when backed up on PC.
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@agtrigormortis Yeah, there are a lot of ROMs you can get on Steam and GoG as well. There's a whole thread about that here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10918/where-to-legally-acquire-content-to-play-on-retropie/288
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@themazingness Thanks, I wouldn't have thought the piracy laws applied to things like cartridge dumps for personal use though, if they did then why is no one getting sued for selling devices that let people make copies of their own legal, original carts at home?
It might be different in the USA of course, but here in Europe it appears to be a safe haven from overly authoritarian copyright measures. I literally just got a device from France that is made for copying Genesis games and by the looks of things he (or she) has been in business for at least a year, Retrode has been around longer than this.
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@agtrigormortis said in Retrode 2, a way to get legal ROMs:
@themazingness Thanks, I wouldn't have thought the piracy laws applied to things like cartridge dumps for personal use though, if they did then why is no one getting sued for selling devices that let people make copies of their own legal, original carts at home?
I can think of some reasons for this apparent discrepancy:
- Most of us don't know about each and every court case on the planet, so we simply have no clue about how many people are actually being sued for such things.
- It may be for the same reasons as for why you can find out-of-the-box arcade machines on Amazon, with thousands of games that the seller could never have aquired the necessary licenses for, at least not for the retail price of these devices. – The copyright holders just can't sue every of these illegal sellers, so they may pick the more profitable and/or media-effective ones like big rom sites, with the occasional poor small-time sod caught in the crossfire (but may still be media-effective enough to deter other small-time sods).
- In some countries, the selling and ownership of rom dumping devices may be legal, but not their actual use.
As for Europe being more safe, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Although some countries here have legal protection for private copies like the Privatkopie laws of Austria, Germany, and Swiss (which don't apply to software anyway), they in turn lack the legal concept of Fair Use that the US have.
edit: Another infamous fact is the colloquial "Abmahnindustrie" (industry for cease and desist letters) that's based on copyright-holder-friendly laws in Germany, so they and their lawyers can charge a significantly higher amount for these letters than in other countries. See Abmahnung: Möglicher Missbrauch and Abmahnvereinabout that (there is nothing about this in the English Wikipedia, so you may have to translate the German articles online).
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@clyde not much compared to what happened in the US state Arizona case where a couple got sued and had a settlement of 12 million dollars with Nintendo for hosting LoveROMs and LoveRetro.
While Nintendo were within their rights to enforce protection of their intellectual properties, the problem is this isn't a case of people profiting off of work that didn't belong to them, there was no money being made, it was a free website hosting old games.
Given the facts I'd say the couple had been dealt a financial heavy blow. I do agree the couple should have received a fine, but I still think the amount they were forced to pay by the court was harsh and excessive, and the argument that the couple had allegedly caused Nintendo millions in damages is a flawed one, because many of the people who had used emulation had previously owned legal copies at some point or obtained them legally them later on, either through Virtual Console, Switch Online (rental service for classic games), or through Nintendo NES mini or SNES minis etc.
Even if there are laws against dumping ROM's for personal use in some jurisdictions, they don't appear to be anywhere near as risky or severe as distribution of illegal copyright material, which does make sense.
I don't agree with said laws anyway, because backing up material you already paid for legally should already be protected in every nation and if it isn't then Nintendo and any other copyright holder are being jerks about it in my opinion and people need to protest to change the laws to stop them being abused.
What's the point in paying for a copy of entertainment content if the copy doesn't actually belong to you? it's like paying for an antique item but the store owner still gets to decide to tell you what to do with it after the fact.
in fact this has been one of the main and quite valid criticisms against DRM digital distribution.
If copyright holders expect us to respect their intellectual property rights they must first agree to a common ground and where to draw the line of fair use, otherwise it's hypocrisy.
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@agtrigormortis you've sort of made the points for the companies yourself without realising. You bought one copy of the game, 'copy'right is supposed to stop people making further copies of it because remember you only paid for one copy. Only the owners of the copyright are supposed to have the right to copy it. If you bought a Super Nintendo back in the 90s Nintendo probably didn't want you making backups, but why worry because apart from some expensive and not very common devices that let you do it to floppy disk it wasn't really prevalent.
Laws change over time and so they should with changing technology, an example given of ripping audio CDs in the UK is a perfect explanation of this. With the rising popularity of the iPod and other MP3 players the law couldn't stay what it was for these items to really be fairly used by owners. Imagine having loads of CDs but being required to purchase the MP3 versions for them all. These cool new products would've flopped. Audio is a funny one too because when a songwriter signs a song to a label, they will pay for them to go in a music studio and record the song. The songwriter, unless the deal specifically says otherwise, will always have copyright to their song. However the studio usually owns the copyright to that recording of the song. Copyright laws are simply not that obvious and straight forward. If you don't want to break the law then you need to check your own local laws and make no assumptions. I agree personal backups that only you keep and use should be allowed, long as you never sell or give away the original version. It does however enable piracy, so I also understand why it's such a grey area and why companies don't like it.
Also I'd point out that most 'free' rom sites make money from advertising. They will usually say it's for site running costs and while that is true I've heard they do a bit better than that. Besides fines are not just a punishment but a deterrent. You want other site operators to worry you bankrupt the ones you can. You might close more than one in the process.
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@agtrigormortis said in Retrode 2, a way to get legal ROMs:
Given the facts I'd say the couple had been dealt a financial heavy blow. I do agree the couple should have received a fine, but I still think the amount they were forced to pay by the court was harsh and excessive, and the argument that the couple had allegedly caused Nintendo millions in damages is a flawed one
I think you're basing your verdict too much on speculation again. As @BadFurDay said, many of these "free" rom sites actually earn money with advertisements. We don't know if or how much the people behind LoveROMs made from it. Besides that, even a rom site that's entirely run from the funds of the operators can cause heavy damage to others.
In this respect, I also think you're placing too much faith in the honesty of your fellow humans. Given the fact that many people openly use entire romsets of many different systems, I think a big download site like LoveROMs easily prevents enough people to buy the stuff if they can get it for free, even though illegally.
The 12 million Nintendo and LoveROMs settled on (read: agreed to) can easily be reached by assuming that 120.000 people were discouraged from spending $100 for games, or 12.000 people $1,000 each, which isn't that much in my experience with the gaming community.
As for speculation in the other direction, the copyright and filesharing publication site TorrentFreak suspected that the official number of 12M may be mainly meant as a deterrent for other rom sites, whereas the actual expected amount may be much less, like in a similar case cited by TorrentFreak.
So again, I don't think that we know enough details to reach a definitive assessment.
I don't agree with said laws anyway, because backing up material you already paid for legally
Here, we are on the same page. Backups should be possible in any form the user (i.e. licensee) deems necessary, as long as they aren't achieved by sharing the content with others.
should already be protected in every nation and if it isn't then Nintendo and any other copyright holder are being jerks about it in my opinion and people need to protest to change the laws to stop them being abused.
Here however, I think you're unfairly overstepping your demands on the copyright holders, and mix their responsibilities with those of the national legislators. To expect that every nation have to have laws to your liking until you are willing to respect others rights puts an almost unaccomplishable requirement on the other side. This is a rather jerkish move in my eyes.
An IMHO more mature and democratic way to protest would be to influence your country's legislators to change the laws in accordance to your wishes, either by contacting them directly, by supporting appropriate campaigns or activists groups, or simply by voting accordingly at the next election.
What's the point in paying for a copy of entertainment content if the copy doesn't actually belong to you? it's like paying for an antique item but the store owner still gets to decide to tell you what to do with it after the fact.
This comparison doesn't fit very well, as you just don't "own" the software and assets of a "bought" game. You just acquired the right to use it in a certain way. This important difference is based on the basic properties of software and said antique, as you can't just copy the latter and upload it on the internet with a couple of mouse clicks. If at all, I would rather compare it to renting a physical object.
If copyright holders expect us to respect their intellectual property rights they must first agree to a common ground and where to draw the line of fair use, otherwise it's hypocrisy.
To me, hypocrisy is to base your respect for other's rights on their concession to your terms.
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@clyde There is no moral defence that can be made for outlawing personal backups though, copyright holders should never have the right to dictate what you already paid a legal license to have for personal use, in a similar manner to CD ripping devices used to copy your own music collection to your hard drive using your computer at home, dumping devices should be allowed, this is a fair and reasonable expectation to make, what's immature is making poor defences for a copyright holder who is clearly abusing said rights in cases where piracy was not involved.
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@badfurday The law for this also extends to backups of other material not just music, and it probably already covers ROM dumps for personal use in the UK. There was a problem with backups before this law came into affect over here but the government here already fixed this problem, I live here.
even if it didn't, I have my doubts that such a low profile case is going to get me sued, my ROM dumps of Sega Genesis games aren't being distributed, they're being kept on my own PC, furthermore the dumping device I purchased was used to make backups of games that aren't being illegally distributed by me,
and some haven't been recently resold by copright holders, either by Sega in the case of Cyborg Justice, or third parties that have no longer supported their games, remember Cool Spot?
and I don't care what the companies have to say about it,
if I'm not distributing them and keeping the backups to myself, which is what I use a cartridge dumping device for, then I'm not doing anything wrong.There is a difference between making copies of games you already own and bought legally to back them up in case of damage from accident or wear and tear, and torrenting them or downloading them off Emuparadise, this is a fact the companies are going to have to accept whether they like it or not.
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I'm guessing you won't read this as a "former user" but I'd like the chance to respond to anyone who does read this thread. You say it "probably" covers ROM dumps. I'd say you should check for certain before doing it if you want to be sure you're not doing anything illegal. You talk about it a bit too blasé, as if the companies don't get a say, well they do if they made the product and especially so if they are arguing it with governments and through the courts. I own intellectual property, screw anyone that says my opinion on what I produced doesn't matter.
Honestly, if you're so hell bent on doing it regardless then don't post about it, just do it. Illegality and morality are not the same thing, always remember that. There are countless things at home (the UK for me) and around the world that I wouldn't class as immoral but they are illegal and vice versa, I won't mention any as of course those are a different argument not meant for this forum.
The daftest thing of this whole thread is that both myself and Clyde agree personal backups should be allowed, we're just trying to explain why the law isn't as black and white as you think it should be. Backups enable piracy, while piracy exists you will have companies fighting against backups. The same argument has been going on over custom firmware too.
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Hi @mitu, you seem to have restored all of the posts that @agtrigormortis deleted on his way out, but you may have missed this one. Care to restore that one too? Thanks!
Like @BadFurDay, I want to respond to the last post directed at me, without any intend to add insult to injury:
@A Former User said in Retrode 2, a way to get legal ROMs:
@clyde There is no moral defence that can be made for outlawing personal backups though, copyright holders should never have the right to dictate what you already paid a legal license to have for personal use
Like I said above, I'm with you in that backups schould be allowed if they remain in the licensee's possesion, but I think your second clause would be such an extensive and one-sided interference in the constitutional concept of the freedom of contract that I strongly doubt that it will ever be part of most countries' legislation.
As always with such wishes, keep in mind that you may be on the other side of these laws someday, and how you'd feel then if the state denied you the complete control over your own work (or others' work that you aquired).
That said, fare thee well, fellow retrogamer. We may have different opinions on some aspects of our mutual hobby, but the rest binds us together in a way that many other people don't share or wouldn't understand.
edit: some typos
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Sega released 50 titles for the MegaDrive/Genesis emulator on Steam. For quite a fair price.
It is possible to use these ROMs in other emulation evironments. -
@molokkoplus This notice would be better placed in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie.
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[just whispering and OT]
@clyde And the Sega Megadrive & Genesis Classics where already mentioned/discussed in that thread more then once :P maybe it would be time to split that one into "collection of sources" and "announcements for sales" for items from "sources" %^] -
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