Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie

SgtJimmyRustles

Heads up, I found the Sega Genesis bundle back for $10.

https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/sega-megadrive-and-genesis-classics-bundle?utm_source=Fanatical+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2e552441c8-SEGAd_03_16_2018&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3437eaaeba-2e552441c8-431067757&mc_cid=2e552441c8&mc_eid=a56592a707

hooperre

@sgtjimmyrustles Thanks! Got it.

SgtJimmyRustles

@hooperre

No problem!

hooperre

I'm gonna shotgun this out to everyone for feedback. I don't want to start my own thread, but at the same time don't want to hijack this thread.

I'm a business owner in the States and would like to provide my patrons with a throwback arcade style system to play with until I'm ready for them. I have acquired a bunch of ROMs from places like Steam and freeware ROMs so I assume it would be 'legal' for me to have them on a system as long as I'm not collecting money from it for plays or anything? Just thought it would be fun to share my love for games and nostalgia with patrons. I think it will be a hit.

markwkidd

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

I'm gonna shotgun this out to everyone for feedback. I don't want to start my own thread, but at the same time don't want to hijack this thread.

I'm a business owner in the States and would like to provide my patrons with a throwback arcade style system to play with until I'm ready for them. I have acquired a bunch of ROMs from places like Steam and freeware ROMs so I assume it would be 'legal' for me to have them on a system as long as I'm not collecting money from it for plays or anything? Just thought it would be fun to share my love for games and nostalgia with patrons. I think it will be a hit.

Edit: more thorough answers below.

herb_fargus

@hooperre none of us are lawyers, so in order to get a definitive answer in your country you'd have to speak with a lawyer there.

I had a dentist that had a RoboCop cab on Freeplay, and another one that had an Xbox. Where the legality of it all lies idk, same idea as showing movies, the technicalilty may deem it illegal but is rarely enforced for such small venues

dankcushions

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

I'm gonna shotgun this out to everyone for feedback. I don't want to start my own thread, but at the same time don't want to hijack this thread.

I'm a business owner in the States and would like to provide my patrons with a throwback arcade style system to play with until I'm ready for them. I have acquired a bunch of ROMs from places like Steam and freeware ROMs so I assume it would be 'legal' for me to have them on a system as long as I'm not collecting money from it for plays or anything? Just thought it would be fun to share my love for games and nostalgia with patrons. I think it will be a hit.

i think technically it's illegal: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/07/why-nintendo-can-legally-shut-down-any-smash-bros-tournament-it-wants/

mediamogul

@hooperre

Many people ask a similar question, looking to find whether they're in the right or wrong. What most don't consider is that even if you're in the right, anything can be taken to court if an offended party feels otherwise. In those cases, the winner is usually whoever has the deeper pockets. Having purchased the games legitimately really only affords you a defense should it ever go to court, in which case it would need to be examined whether or not the license covers public use, or if it's transferable to other methods of playback. That being said, legal action would be a worse case scenario and a cease and desist order would likely come as an initial response to which you could simply abide and hopefully be done with it. Personally, I would adhere to the age-old advice of "Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'".

hooperre

@mediamogul @dankcushions @herb_fargus Thanks for responding and I am, as always, grateful for your efforts and hard work. I'm certainly not trying to skirt any legal grounds here as it's not worth harming my business, but I assumed as long as I'm not making money off of it legally purchased games would be a fair go. Back in the day I had an orthodontist with Donkey Kong Country on SNES. My girlfriend is actually a lawyer here, and said she would do the legal research. She's not into gaming whatsoever, so I'd have to push for it. Maybe there will be a time in which I'll ask her to do it.

Now back on topic. Ha.

Clyde

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

I assumed as long as I'm not making money off of it legally purchased games would be a fair go.

Some of the problems with that are that you only acquired a license for private use by yourself, and that the copyright holders could argue that they lose income if people play games freely at your place instead of buying them.

Fruitybit

It’s a shame ppl and prs can’t make this easier. We have both (soon to become one) at work, so can play any other media pretty much. It would make sense (but only if it were the kind of thing likely to be enforced- who checks what games you’re playing at work!? (Other than my boss of course;))

Clyde

@fruitybit What people often ignore or don't understand is that you don't "buy" software like you buy physical things. You acquire a licence to use the software in a narrowly defined way. As a rule of thumb, everything not explicitly allowed is forbidden as long as it's not fundamentally allowed by applicable law.

So, if the licence allows providing the game to your patrons, you can legally do that. But as far as I know, most games' licenses only allow personal use, not sharing it with other people. Software production is a business like any other, the producers calculate (predicted) income versus expenses and shape their contracts accordingly. How generous they are in doing that varies from company to company like in every other business.

You as a customer have the legal options of either not closing contracts whose terms you don't like (an option that, alas, too few people take in my opinion), or trying to negotiate special terms with the providers. Everything else will be illegal or at best a legal grey area.

edit: typo corrected

hooperre

This post is deleted!

rpieguy

@dankcushions The link that you provided is about public performance rights. I don't think someone playing a game in an office waiting room is a public performance but that would be up to a judge. Even if you were to charge money, it wouldn't violate copyright law. In the old days video game rentals were common. If something is specified in the licence agreement than that should be followed; doesn't mean just because it's in a license agreement that it's legally enforceable.

hooperre

After this discussion I tried to find the End User Agreement from Steam (where I acquired a lot of the ROMs from):

(a) without written permission from Square Enix, use, advertise or exploit in any manner the Game Software or any of its parts commercially, including but not limited to use at a cyber (Internet) café, computer gaming center or any other location-based site;

BenMcLean

The answer to every intellectual property law question is "No" regardless of context.

I'll try to update this thread sometime soon, but there's been so much backlog that it looks like it'll take some work, which I'm not up for right at this moment. Thanks to everyone who has found cool new stuff, especially the NES homebrews.

I am a big fan of One Must Fall 2097 and I'd be very happy to find out that a source port of One Must Fall 2097 will run on RetroPie but I won't list it if we're running it through DOSBOX, not because there's anything wrong with DOS games (they're some of the all-time best) but because MS-DOS has such a vast library of excellent free games that it would need it's own thread. Thanks to a numerically superior library of titles enabled by a free market open platform with near total backwards compatibility across the decades, the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race reigns over all console peasants with an iron fist and it always has, even back then.

Clyde

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

I don't think someone playing a game in an office waiting room is a public performance but that would be up to a judge. Even if you were to charge money, it wouldn't violate copyright law.

Under the U.S. Copyright Law, Chapter 1, Section 101, "publicly" means

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered

That sounds to me like most workspaces. Further on, Section 106 states that

the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
[...]
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

There is no mention of charging money; the mere performance seems to be protected.

Thus, I as a legal layperson think you're very likely wrong on both accounts – at least in the U.S., but I suspect that other countries' laws are similar in that regard more often than not.

@hooperre Mind that all our opinions here are no professional assessments. If you want to be sure, you'd have to ask a lawyer, preferably one specialized in copyright law.

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

The answer to every intellectual property law question is "No" regardless of context.

How about "will you continue to refuse intellectual property law?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist. O:) I concur to your decision not to list MS-DOS games here.

Triquick

This Guide: https://eltechs.com/retropie-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-machine/

Shows how its possible to get older GoG games playing on a raspberry Pi with Retropie. Its requires buying the ExaGear Desktop through and a bit more setup to get PC games running.

Drakaen391

A good spot I get my PS1”roms” is off the PS1 disk... but haven’t found a way to have the pi read the disk...

Guessing I have driver issues...

If only I could share my saved between my Pi and PS1 memory card

Shadowron

Don't know if posted before, but i wanted to share this website with you guys.
http://nesworld.com/index.php

It contains a large database of homebrews (no hacks). Some are free to download, some are demo's and some you need to buy in order to play. The website doesn't only contain NES roms and information, but also for other Nintendo consoles.

To admins: if you think the link is inappropriate, please notify me.