looking for free legal games

A Former User

3 Words: The Public Domain.

meleu

@pau you can't sell a SD card with all the software that comes in the RetroPie image provided in the website, even with no games.
Check it out: https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/

[EDIT]
Corrected the info as pointed out by @markwkidd .

markwkidd

No one has compiled a good website about this issue unfortunately. You'll have to put some time into research.

All Vectrex games are in the public domain.

You could also sell copies of any 'port' games which have a GPL license or other licenses which accept commercial use.

markwkidd

@meleu said in looking for free legal games:

@pau you can't sell retropie itself, even with no games.
Check it out: https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/

Edit: my final thought on the license to the OP. Like any business venture, make sure you understand the legal aspects to software licenses before you get too far into this.

BuZz

@markwkidd No - and please stop confusing the issue. I thought I explained this clearly on the other thread.

That page is accurate - the RetroPie-Setup SCRIPT is GPL. That has nothing to do with the licences of the other software included on the image. RetroPie-Setup is just an installer/configuration tool.

markwkidd

@BuZz as always respect for your work. But here again you have someone who does not post that they want to redistribute the RetroPie image but they are responded to as if they were planning that thing.

It is totally legal to sell RetroPie. It is not legal to sell that specific image or others which include non-commercial software. When someone gets a one-liner response that conflates the two, and says it's all illegal with no other context, I'm honestly going to be very tempted to post to make the distinction.

I'll try to keep honing my messages if I keep posting on this topic so that what I post can be more accurate and useful. No affront intended to @meleu -- another great resource to these forums -- but meleu's message was far less accurate and complete than mine.

BuZz

@markwkidd You didn't really make the distinction - you just confused matters, by saying our legal page was out of date - it isn't.

It is legal to sell the RetroPie-Setup script. But most people think of the image as "RetroPie". When people talk about it as in this thread, they are referring to the pre-installed / running image.

Selling RetroPie-Setup itself is pointless though. I am also not going to support/help anyone that wants to do that.

A Former User

What you should do is sell the raspberry pi.
Then ask the seller later once they have gotten the Raspberry Pi if they want a free copy of RetroPie.
If they say yes, just ship it to their address.
If not, then keep it.

That way, you're not selling it or being illegal.

meleu

@markwkidd you're right, my answer was incomplete. I've edited my previous post. Thanks for pointing it out.

@BuZz am I right if I say "you can sell a SD card with Raspbian and RetroPie-Setup script, but none of the software installable via RetroPie-Setup can be pre-installed"

BuZz

@meleu That would be technically legal, but I don't want to encourage it (I sometimes regret that we relicenced RetroPie-Setup to GPL from the original non commercial licence).

Also people use the fact that RetroPie-Setup is GPL to pretend their "sales" are legit, despite them selling a preinstalled images (often with games too, even though some claim otherwise).

meleu

@BuZz Got it!

thedeathstar

@BuZz Please explain what is commercial and what is not. I believe they call this trying to have your cake and eat it too.

markwkidd

My understanding of the legal page chronology was incorrect, which does make a difference in the narrative of what the 'legal' page means today. I removed that stuff from my post.

--

Some weekend I will give in and start creating a list of freely distributed ROMs (making distinctions between noncommercial and commercial of course). Most of the emulation community is built on noncommercial copyright violations for ROMs, and that is what it is, but I bet a pretty good 'base system' could be put together with enough "free legal" ROMs to have a good time.

RetroArch has started adding some free ROMs as optional downloads directly from its GUI, but there hasn't been a lot of effort put into making the library comprehensive yet.

That would be a lot more interesting than cataloguing what emulators and ports are GPL'd or not, which I'll leave as an exercise to the OP or someone else.

A Former User

@itsnitro said in looking for free legal games:

What you should do is sell the raspberry pi.
Then ask the seller later once they have gotten the Raspberry Pi if they want a free copy of RetroPie.
If they say yes, just ship it to their address.
If not, then keep it.

That way, you're not selling it or being illegal.

So you can't do this?

dankcushions

@thedeathstar said in looking for free legal games:

@BuZz Please explain what is commercial and what is not. I believe they call this trying to have your cake and eat it too.

all of the software is on github etc. go look at the various licenses there. asking the project leader how you can best monetise their work isn't really on!

dankcushions

@itsnitro said in looking for free legal games:

@itsnitro said in looking for free legal games:

What you should do is sell the raspberry pi.
Then ask the seller later once they have gotten the Raspberry Pi if they want a free copy of RetroPie.
If they say yes, just ship it to their address.
If not, then keep it.

That way, you're not selling it or being illegal.

So you can't do this?

no. this is all covered on the legal page.

thedeathstar

@dankcushions Right, I don't think anyone is doing that, and that certainly wasn't the topic in this thread. I guess you'll say it's not your job to explain, but how is accepting donations for the image which packages non-commercial items different than selling a project made from that same image? It seems to me that Buzz is really upset that their work is being monotized, but saying it's because of the non-commercial emulators. Hence, having your cake and eating it too.

BuZz

@thedeathstar said in looking for free legal games:

@BuZz Please explain what is commercial and what is not. I believe they call this trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Don't see the relevance of your remark.

I don't have time to do a detailed list - licence info is in the retropie-setup scriptmodule sources at the top. But basically non commercial stuff includes most ES themes (any that are based on the simple theme), all snes emulators, all the older versions of mame, all versions of fba, genesis plus, and others.

BuZz

@thedeathstar said in looking for free legal games:

@dankcushions Right, I don't think anyone is doing that, and that certainly wasn't the topic in this thread. I guess you'll say it's not your job to explain, but how is accepting donations for the image which packages non-commercial items different than selling a project made from that same image? It seems to me that Buzz is really upset that their work is being monotized, but saying it's because of the non-commercial emulators. Hence, having your cake and eating it too.

We accept donations for our work on RetroPie-Setup etc - nothing to do with selling other peoples software. We don't sell anything.

I am not happy about people breaking licences, and associating RetroPie with piracy which is happening all the time. I don't have to help anyone sell RetroPie "legally". Why should I ?