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Borrowing ROMs
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like Console Classix is trying introduce a new old concept to the world of P2P file sharing, at least as it applies to NES and SNES ROM images. You download their client program, and then you can "borrow" one ROM image at a time from their site, play it, and then release it for someone else to use. There are a finite number of ROM images on the site, each one ostensibly dumped from a legitimate and unique cartridge. I wonder if this will allow an end-run around some of the questionable legality of file-sharing... and I wonder if this could work for MP3s, movies, and other forms of media?" I think its pretty reasonable, but I doubt that the industries will agree.
This sounds sort of similar to the MP3 locker program that mp3.com had a few years back, except more stringent. I don't think it'll fly, and if it does, it'll be AFTER legal battles.
How long beforce some one figures out how to bypass the locking and keep the ROMs on local machine? My guess 48 hours.
I proposed something very similar for mp3s about a year ago on kuro5hin. There were some good comments on the idea's merits and drawbacks.
Here is a link.
So if they physically have the ROM and can provide a good checkout system, then how could this be any different than renting the game at blockbuster? Even if the ROM could be copied...the same argument could be said about renting the game at a video store. Besides, SNES and NES games are getting to the point that they aren't selling hardly at all.
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
I don't think Nintendo would like this one bit. They state quite clearly that they are against ROMs, Emulators, and the like. I'm pretty positive Nintendo would come down hard on anyone who would try such a thing. I even know of "underground" ROM sites that don't put up any Nintendo ROMs for download for fear of being shut down by Nintendo. They're highly agressive with their IP.
Last time I checked I was no longer able to buy brand new original 8-bit Nintendo cartridges.
I still own a brand new 8-bit Nintendo.
It works fine.
I am prevented, from a legal standpoint, of any easy way to back up or restore games to and from cart's, as far as nintendo is concerned.
Nintendo may have this right, but in reality nintendo does not provide replacements for the cart's themselves, how do you deal with that?
What rights to software owners have when software is abandoned?
None?
It's one thing to pirate music you can go buy from a store, I tend to beleive it's another thing alltogether when you download a replacement copy of software you honestly do own -- but even if, the law has made it difficult to put the game back into a cart for play on the original system, so when you talk about roms+emulators, then everyone automatically assumes you stole XYZ and your a damn dirty ape just because that's what corporate america has spoon fed them.
Mabye you should start thinking more about freedom and less about being pissed at people who cry wolf early and often to preserve your rights.
Before you go making forcefully declarative statements about Copyright Law, maybe you should actually read it.
While I agree with your assessment that 24 hour trial periods are not legal, the other activities you decree against the law are under no such prohibition. For instance, the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 specifically allows consumers to make backup copies of any digital media they purchase for the purposes of archival and protection against media damage.
I also don't see what possible legal arguments can be constructed against "Borrowing". U.S. Courts have consistently held up the "First Sale" doctrine for copyrighted works. When you purchase copyrighted work on any media, you are legally free to dispose of that particular copy of the media in any way you choose, save distributing multiple copies. You can give it away, loan it out, rent it, lease it, or sell it to a third party. Studios, and later game companies tried to sue video rental chains for renting movies and games when that practice first started, and the rental outlets won. This is really not much different, although a savvy IP lawyer might argue that the vaguaries of "ephemeral copies" made in internet transmissions make this a totally different ball-game. It is uncertain, sure, but hardly the cut-and-dry sort of case you're claiming.
Another question I have is how is emulation on shaky ground due to reverse engineering? Reverse-engineering has been held to be perfectly legal in hundreds of court-cases, at nearly all levels of the judiciary. Even video-game emulators have been held to be a legally permissible product of reverse-engineering technology for compatibility purposes, in the case Sony vs. Connectix Software. Case law is firmly on the side of reverse-engineers in this regard (unless of course patents are infringed upon, in which case there is no need for reverse-engineering anyway, since the patent definition is a publicly available spec of the technology in question).
You seem to have a strong emotional feeling on this issue. I don't care to argue the philosophical or moral issues involved in freedom of information, or the balance of the right to share knowledge against the benefit of providing knowledge generators with a socially useful reward for their activities, because your tone indicates you are not capable of conducting such an argument in a rational and civil manner.
I will, however, happily correct your glaringly false statements about the law regarding these issues, as it has nothing of the black-and-white clarity you seem to think it has.