Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie
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Many EULAs come into effect by buying, installing or using the software. For examples, see those of GOG, Nintendo, and Capcom.
Software licensing is at least as old as classic video games, so I highly doubt that classic video games don't have an EULA or other form of legal terms that prohibit any kind of use that's unwanted by the copyright holders.
Backups may or may not be allowed in a license as freely as any other term, although a country's laws may provide a general "right to private copies" like Germany, Austria, and Swiss do (see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatkopie, which however do not apply to software).
IANAL, this is just my knowledge from using software and sometimes even reading its EULA for about four decades by now.
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Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is free on Steam right now. It comes with the ROM, and the Steam Workshop has lots of mods (hacked ROMs) for it too.
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@mitu said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
No, they've been tested alright
Why the hell is it always the Ninth Circus handing down these idiotic decisions? I feel like we should just nuke the entire West coast. "By clicking OK, you agree to surrender your first born child to be devoured by Satan" is legally binding now. Brilliant.
Ultimately, everything anyone ever does is illegal. All human activity is against some law or other somewhere, just in different degrees.
We're going to assume that copying the data from games you own (under Natural Law, using the definition of ownership from Locke's second treatise on government) from one device you own (same definition of ownership) to another device you own (same definition of ownership) within your own home isn't illegal enough to be a concern, even though it, like all human activity without exception, is illegal to some degree according to some law or other somewhere.
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@BenMcLean said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
@mitu said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
No, they've been tested alright
Why the hell is it always the Ninth Circus handing down these idiotic decisions? I feel like we should just nuke the entire West coast. "By clicking OK, you agree to surrender your first born child to be devoured by Satan" is legally binding now. Brilliant.
Ultimately, everything anyone ever does is illegal. All human activity is against some law or other somewhere, just in different degrees.
We're going to assume that copying the data from games you own (under Natural Law, using the definition of ownership from Locke's second treatise on government) from one device you own (same definition of ownership) to another device you own (same definition of ownership) within your own home isn't illegal enough to be a concern, even though it, like all human activity without exception, is illegal to some degree according to some law or other somewhere.
Sigh, I wish it were all cut and dry to be honest. All I want to do is be legit. I wish there were just some nice "hey, you can do x, y and z but not a, b, or c." Courts can't even agree with courts and some companies won't even agree with solid court decisions (I'm looking at you, Nintendo). I really wish we could have a discussion like this without having to worry which copyright god we've offended because it doesn't feel like any part of the pantheon can be truly appeased.
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@themazingness I don't think it is that complicated for our everyday life, or in this case, using software. Just read the license that you agreed to in order to use the software and for the most part you should know what you're allowed to do and what not. If you don't like the terms, you're free to not buy or use the software.
That said, I also don't think that exaggerating terms like @BenMcLean's Satan comparison or your "copyright god" are helping any attempt of a rational discussion.
As for courts, they're composed of humans and as such not infallible, and may judge over similar cases differently. That's why most (all?) countries have developed a system of juridical instances.
Ultimately, I think one major problem is that humans seem to have an inherent imbalance between (insisting on) their own rights and (respecting) those of others. I wouldn't call that "evil", but rather our very own "natural law".
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@Clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
Ultimately, I think one major problem is that humans seem to have an inherent imbalance between (insisting on) their own rights and (respecting) those of others. I wouldn't call that "evil", but rather our very own "natural law".
I completely agree but that's a topic for another time and probably another place.
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@Clyde Any suggestion on how to access EULAs you've already agreed to? I rarely see them available in a text file (seems they're buried instead, unavailable to read once I've already agreed to it). I agree with you by the way. I'm just also frustrated with the barriers as somebody who wants to do things 100% legitimate.
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@themazingness said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
@Clyde Any suggestion on how to access EULAs you've already agreed to?
As a Linux user who prefers free software (contrary to a common misconception not neccessarily cost-free, but free to copy and modify, aka "free as in free speech"), I understand your frustration very much.
Alas, I don't have any special tips in general, apart from searching for the EULA among the installation files, in the software itself, and on the web.
You also could install it a second time to see the EULA, either on another system or in a virtual machine. Since most EULAs come up right after the start of the installation, it may often be possible to see it and then stop the installation, leaving an existing one intact. But I would strongly recommend a backup beforehand.
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Next time you could copy/paste the EULA in a file to easy access to what you have agreed to. This off course requires some sort of self organization, but could be worth it if you care very much about the topic.
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Piko Interactive has published a number of games on Steam (some on GoG too), and I know of at least three of their games that have ROM files available:
Super 3-D Noah's Ark is a SNES game and the .sfc file is available in the main folder.
Water Margin is in the SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Water Margin\res folder, named simply "game" which can be renamed into a .bin file for emulation.
Nightshade also is in the res folder (also named "game") and can be renamed to an .nes file.
They have lots of other games, so there are probably other possibilities.
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@themazingness said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
Piko Interactive has published a number of games on Steam (some on GoG too)
A link to those on GOG:
https://www.gog.com/games?devpub=piko_interactive
(I don't use Steam, so I am not familiar with how to make a similar link there.)
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@Clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
@themazingness said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
Piko Interactive has published a number of games on Steam (some on GoG too)
A link to those on GOG:
https://www.gog.com/games?devpub=piko_interactive
(I don't use Steam, so I am not familiar with how to make a similar link there.)
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@Clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
you agreed to in order to use the software
I can undo it just by sending them an email that undoes it by forcing them to agree to undo it just by reading my email:
READ CAREFULLY. By reading this e-mail, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, onfidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.
But of course, legalese isn't a magic language society runs on. Society runs on the Golden Rule: "Whoever Has the Gold Makes the Rules"
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@BenMcLean said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
I can undo it just by sending them an email that undoes it by forcing them to agree to undo it just by reading my email:
Well, I strongly doubt that this would hold up in court, but as IANAL myself, I would strongly recommend to anyone who also isn't a expert of the legal system in question to consult one before trusting their own layman's guts about it.
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@Clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
I strongly doubt that this would hold up in court
Only because of the "Golden Rule"
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@Clyde Wow, I tried reinstalling the games to read the EULAs a bit, and I'm surprised what I found.
Atari Vault says you can't play it on unauthorized devices. It's one I thought would be perfectly fine since the console ROMs are freely installed on your computer. But then I wonder "well, I'm not installing Atari Vault on another device, I'm just using the ROMs on one." (Not a rationalization so much as wondering how courts would look at that differentiation). Still, surprised it actually had a strict EULA.
Taito Legends 2 was equally strict yet ambiguous whether or not you could use the ROMs elsewhere even though they are installed on the drive as is. It did prohibit decompiling, etc. (though extraction is unnecessary so it's a moot point regarding the ROMs). It allowed for backups but said the backups had to be for archival use or the same use granted in the rest of the license.
Nothing else really had a EULA at installation or in the files (and I have tons of collections like these). Most of them were games you had to extract from rather than the ROMs being included (the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classic Collection had no EULA either though).
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@themazingness Interesting, thanks for sharing your finds.
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@themazingness said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:
Atari Vault says you can't play it on unauthorized devices.
Authorized by whom?
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@BenMcLean Hmm... I tried but I can't get the EULA to show up again by uninstalling and reinstalling. Presumably Atari.
I feel like EULAs should be required by law to be a text file for computer licenses. It shouldn't need to rely on arbitrary installation conditions to access them.
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https://store.steampowered.com//eula/400020_eula_0
You can read for yourself. They're also easier to find than I realized. There is a EULA for every game on Steam as far as I can tell. They're on their store page on the right hand side after the list of features. So my previous post about the games not having EULAs at installation can be true sometimes (there seems to be an algorithm there to detect if you have accepted it recently). But they all seem to be on the store page.
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