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[Mephiska]

copyright laws are always iffy.

some cases you are allowed to keep a backup.  
i know with nintendo you cannot.
read the back of any nintendo manual. anything from nes-gamecube.

QUOTE (Any Nintendo Manual)

"WARNING: Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international intellectual property laws. 'Back-up' or 'archival' copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software."

but then again, even nintendo isnt going to come after someone for having a few backups on their pc. they would rather go after distributors.

pretty much the way i see it is this: the only way to be TOTALLY legal in the emulation scene, use/play nothing but PD roms.

[deathx88]

wow! those PD roms are the best    


but you'll always say to yourself, whos gonna know  

[VampX]

QUOTE (deathx88 @ Aug 26 2004, 06:15 AM)

wow! those PD roms are the best

Dont diss the PD roms!

there was this one pd rom that was like a bridge over a river and there was
this guy who looked like Links retarded brother,
and you could like walk over the bridge, and then you could walk back.

so i went like "over the bridge" and... Back again!

aah fun times.

[chilin_dude]

QUOTE (hollow @ Aug 26 2004, 01:56 AM)

Well before I start may I say hello and this being my second post, I hope no-one misunderstands me, But I was curious about the following, and was wondering if anyone knew. Can I legaly own a back up of a game I used to own but for whatever reason am not able to lay hands on it? You've paid for the right to own a back up copy havent you? Say you live in two places in the world and said game is in one place and you are in another.

Yes I believe that is correct!

[VampX]

QUOTE (hollow @ Aug 26 2004, 04:56 AM)

Can I legaly own a back up of a game I used to own but for whatever reason am not able to lay hands on it? You've paid for the right to own a back up copy havent you? Say you live in two places in the world and said game is in one place and you are in another.

If you sold your lets say "FF7 psx game" then you are not allowed to play a backup of the game,
however if you lets say "moved from america to france" and your ff7 is still stored at lets say your parents house, then you are allowed to use your backup.

however you are not allowed to download a backup of FF7, because that would mean you'd be using a backup someone else made.

you are however allowed to make a backup of your own discs and bring those along with you,
as long as you dont let anyone else play them since its not their legaly made backup

furthermore i am not a lawyer so dont listen to anything i say in this thread..

[Griffen37]

There are a lot of half-truths above, but the bottom line is that ROM legalityIN THE UNITED STATES depends on the copyright principle of fair use.  Reading the back of an NES cartridge that says you can't make a backup does not take a backup out of the realm of fair use.  It is not fully settled law as to whether you are allowed to make a backup of a copyright material for personal use, but courts are likely to allow it.

That said, they won't allow it if you sell/give away the original, in that case, you've passed on your right to have the copyrighted work and thus the back up as well.

None of this has anything to do with how you obtain your backup copy.  As far as I know there is no law or court decision that has passed on the idea that downloading a backup of a game you own is any more or less legitimate than backing it up yourself.  That does not necessarily make it legal to make your own backup copy available to others, but it certainly means that if you can make your own backup, you should be able to download one without running afoul of the law.

So basically, if you own the game or if you've paid for the game and you obtain a backup, that should be covered by fair use.  If you give the game to someone else, it is not fair use for you to have the backup.  This SHOULD be true even if you lost the original or if it was stolen.

Bottom line, 1) This hasn't been fully tested in court, so be wary, don't flaunt it, and stick to games you own; and 2) it is unlikely that anyone will prosecute you for downloading games you own (whether you can prove it or not) unless you are trading them, profiting off of them, or making them available to the public.

[Griffen37]

Sorry Tous, you've got it wrong on two fronts:

1) yes it matters because members of XS may actually want to obey the law regardless of the chance they will get caught.

and

2) No, a warning label on a video game box is not a law.  The hook for nintendo would be that playing the game constituted a binding contract consisting of the terms of the warning label.  The enforcability of this contract term in civil court is questionable depending on whether the term was readily viewable prior to purchase, etc.  Breaking a contract, though, is something that can be remedied with a civil suit.  It is still not a violation of the law.  You can't go to jail or be prosecuted for violation of a contract term.  Game creators can NOT make laws.  Legislators make laws, courts interpret and apply laws.  Game creators make games and can write contract terms.  Big, big difference.  Finally, I should point out that Nintendo's statement that copying is in violation of the law is their interpretation of the law.  Luckily they are not the judge.  Copyright laws are subject to fair use.  Backing up purchased materials is arguably fair use and despite legislation and court decisions that lean both directions, the law is not fully settled.

[Griffen37]

QUOTE (Lucied @ Aug 27 2004, 08:16 PM)

Yes, and I suppose that modding your console to either exploit and/or modify copyrighted data, or make hardware modifications to bypass copyright protection, is perfectly legal If we're here, and running emulators on the XBox, we're already doing illegal stuff. But like others said, they aren't going to go after you for the thousands of ROMs on your hard drive.  They will go after you, however, if you put up a website that has those thousands of ROMs available for download. You can argue all you want.  But, honestly, who is going to know or care?  I don't see the MPAA or RIAA going after people who have downloaded or purchased pirated material.  They're going after those who are uploading or selling it.  Just as Nintendo isn't going to sue you for that collection on your hard drive, unless you go out and publish the collection on a website for all to download. Is it illegal?  Very touchy subject, but as far as I'm concerned, if you own it, you can have a backup.  Not everyone can create a backup.  But, most backups are identical, anyway, so I really don't think that matters.  After all, it's not like people are able to stick their signature on the file to clarify that it's their backup and not yours.

QUOTE

Yes, and I suppose that modding your console to either exploit and/or modify copyrighted data, or make hardware modifications to bypass copyright protection, is perfectly legal

You are not making any sense.  This is precisely the question that is at stake here.  From a legal standpoint, it is not clear whether bypassing copyright protection for personal backups is against the law.  It runs afoul of the plain language of the DMCA, but it is arguably fair use.  The courts still need to sort it out unless the legislature fixes it first.

[woo]

It very much depends on your OWN countries interpretations of copyright law.  Remember that not everyone in the world lives under the draconian rules of the United States.

Nintendo can put whatever they like about roms being illegal on their website/game manuals, etc.. but, Nintendo aren't law.

Rom images are illegal in the US, I believe, when they change the format. ie, from cartridge to a file on your HDD.  However, I think there is some scope for it if you're backing up to cartridge to play on the original, intended device.  There are then other principles, such as it must be a byte for byte duplicate of the original.. etc...  

At the end of the day, it's imposisble to debate fully on something which is so much of a grey area.  There is no court case to refer to, regarding backup games in any country that I know of.  Prosecution under the law is zero.  It has not happened and is probably not likely to happen any time soon.  For private, personal use, a backed up copy is not going to raise any eyebrows.  

If like me, you're a filthy rom hoarding bastard (or simply are interested in games preservation), then you still have nothing at all to fear from the laws of your lands, so long as you don't enter into making it a commercial venture.  ie..  Don't try and make monetry profit!!!!....  

So, is it legal?  Probably not, but nobody has ever been in any trouble, anywhere, for this.  If you want to stay legal, forget about backups, forget about anything except for PD software, which by the way, is illegal still on platforms like GBA, because the software requires an illegal rom header for the GBA to recognise it heh

[Zero]

If you download games you don't own the cops will come to your house and send you to the federal pound me in the ass prison.

[xb0xb0y]

My 2cents worth.  From what I read on copyright laws.  It's the distribution of copies (monetary or not) that will get you into trouble, not making the copy itself.

Forgot where I read this but it was applied to Music CDs.  You can legally make a copy of your CD for personal use, you can even give your CD to a friend and he/she can make a copy for his/her own personal use.  However you can NOT make a copy for him/her to use, and you CANNOT give him/her your backup to make a copy of.

Yes it sounds really retarded, but that's the example that I read.  I wish I could remember the original source.  I think cuz there's such a GRAY area about fair use, the BIG Companies won't waste their times persuing ppl unless they know they can win in court.  So cuz it's the distribution that gets you in trouble, ppl DL material aren't the ppl who are gonna be chased after by the BIG Companies, it's the ppl distributing/sharing.  And that's pretty much what you see in the news.

[Griffen37]

xb0xb0y - You'vre confusing two different aspects of the copyright law.  It is clearly illegal to distribute or sell copyrighted material without approval to do so in the U.S. (note, I edited my original post to be country specific after seeing threads reminding me that many members and moderators are not from the U.S.).  Circumvention of technological protections of protected works is also a violation of the DMCA.  It is under this reading that using a ROM or creating a rom could be illegal depending on interpretations of fair use.  Making a ROM involves circumventing the technology put in place to protect that copyrighted work.  We need clarification from the courts or a revamp of the law to figure out how fair use really fits in.  Just downloading without ever intending to or generating the means to use the ROM is another matter and gets even stickier, so I will ignore it for now.

[SpudGunMan]

new question on the realm of mame roms


what is the deal with that?

ok there is a MAME rom "web-ring" that will burn the mame rom pack to a dvd for you for free if you provide media.

x-arcade links to this webring xarcade ships the info in email when you buy a unit.

so why are they dooing that?

mame.org been around for years states its not legal but links to sites

PA has been in operation for a long long time providing full romsets yes they are in paris but

there is so much 50/50 is the answer no one gives a fuck so dont worry. I personally dont give a fuck but wonder how x-arcade can push this web ring and not have problems. i wonder if it can be used to beni things like nintendo roms that are tabo.


please note that this is a discussion only if you read this and think i wil PM or ask what the webring or PA is then think again i will not help you with any links you need to learn how to steal on your own. sorry.

[Griffen37]

I think you've hit on the two main issues with enforcement:

1) Foreign jurisdiction.  I have no clue about either of the sites you are talking about, but if they are located in foreign countries, it is much harder to prosecute.  The foreign government has to care enough to cooperate even if a U.S. court would be willing to rule against them you can't just varge into another country and arrest someone.   More importantly, you can't usually sue under U.S. law unless you bring the suit in the U.S. so most civil action is reserved for domestic offenders unless it is really aggregious, but then the party usually tries to get the government involved to extradite to U.S. for a criminal trial as well.

2) It may not be worth it.  From a criminal standpoint, there is prosecutorial discretion here in the U.S.  The government has limited resources to try cases and in the grand scheme of things, the violent criminals, the drugs, and even the movie and music pirates are causing a much greater impact than the MAME ROM pirates.  While it doesn't make it legal, there is a much lower economic impact from pirating old arcade games than many other crimes and the government may not care to go after people for it.  From a civil side, the argument is similar, action is still resource intensive, resources are even lower and if it isn't hurting the bottom-line now, companies may not think it is worth it.  Hence you have Nintendo who does care b/c they are re-releasing these titles without update on a new device.  There is an argument to be made that if plans like this are not in the works then letting your work get pirated and letting hype build up around the name of the company or the game line can be beneficial to future sales.  This doesn't make it legal, but it may factor into the companies' willingness to spend the resources to sue over it.

So, in sum, it is unfair to say that no one gives a *#%!, but it may be fair to say that the concern is low in comparison to other things and the risk of being caught is low.  Pirating, and even what we think is a fair use back-up, may still be prosecuted criminally or brought to trial civilly.  All it takes is a prosecutor or a company to need to set an example.  No one reading this wants to be that example, so everyone should respect the laws and try to work with companies like 3-2-1 Studios (R.I.P.), the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other advocacy groups to get fair use codified in the digital age.  Those who want to download should realize there are risks and should be sure they are downloading games they own so they can make good fair use arguements -- anyone prosecuted or sued for donwloading a backup of a game they own would likely have a bunch of lawyers ready to take on the case for them, still they could be found guilty/liable in the end, so make sure it is worth it to get to play.

[BatTouSai]

QUOTE (SaturnSega @ Aug 28 2004, 06:50 AM)

You don't pay to own the game, you pay for the right to play it on the medium it was sold to you, on the player it was designated to play on.

Sounds like some Bill Gates' logic to me. However, if that's the case, then none of us ever truly "owned" any games, regardless if we still "own" them to date. Shame the rules still apply to outdated consoles, cuz my legit NES titles are so messed up from poor engineering (and, admitingly, years of childhood abuse) that roms may be the only viable way of playing them now. That is if I had any roms...  

Keeping that in mind, here's a question: Why the 2 moritorium on emulating an arcade game, if at the end of the day (or the 2 years), it's all still illegal anyway?

Oh, and hooray for Kobe! I knew that ho was lyin...