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Is ROM Collecting Wrong, or Just Misunderstood?
An anonymous reader writes "Game Bunker has posted an interesting article on whether you should own roms or not. With the latest piracy concerns, I think it's a good topic to bring up." The various writers at Game Bunker do a good job of showing the different sides of this issue, with some siding with industry while others, like most of us, merely want to play old games without having to dig up an ancient console.
A few opinions on the subject doesn't change the law. Copyright violations are illegal. Morality is a different issue.
Many people mistake copyright as being about money--it's not. It's about control. If a company doesn't want people playing their games anymore...well they can't stop those who have already purchased legitimate copies of those games, but they can stop future people from buying the games by stopping production. That doesn't give the public the right to pirate the games.
That said, I don't think anyone has any moral problem with pirating NES roms since, frankly, you can't get the games anymore. But older, classic games being included in newer products (the original Metroid on the Metroid Prime disc, for example) and even Atari games being bundled with a controller that plugs directly into a TV's AV inputs really prove that there is still money to be made with these old games, and it muddies the moral dilemma.
If you can show me where I can buy an original Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man arcade game in mint condition, I wouldn't need to use MAME.
regardless of the arguments for roms, the fact remains that they are illegal under our current laws. since I find it highly unlikely that anyone can justify their rom collection as some sort of silent protest against the tyranny of copyright holders who withhold their creations, people have two choices: don't collect roms or collect them under full knowledge and acceptance that what you're doing is illegal and, if discovered, will justifiably be punished.
Why don't these ROM companies have a site that lets you download them for 99 cents each; an Apple Music Store sort of thing?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It is perfectly clear that the US public doesn't accept the traditional period of copyright + IP ownership. mp3 sharing is a big thing--people have no moral qualms about doing it. The laws should reflect the morals of the people. Why is murder illegal? Because most people consider it immoral.
The issue with these video games is that the company that produced them already made their money 20 years ago. The fact that people now expect to be able to do whatever they want with the rom images (and proceed to do so) indicates the public's moral opinion that the original makers have already made enough money on their original works, and that the information should now be public domain.
The Beatles came out with lots of albums in the 60's that were very popular--they became rich on their work. 30 years later I still have to pay someone in order to legally listen to Beatles music. This is ridiculous. The original creators of the music have already reaped fantastic financial rewards. Now society is better off if the information is free and available. And suprise, everyone agrees because almost everyone who is able to is perfectly willing to swap mp3 files.
Copyright lasting until 50 years after the author's death? Software patents on obvious ideas that have lots of prior art? Get a clue.
The public's actions determine what can reasonably be enforced. Patent and copyright law are becoming irrelevant to life in the real world today, and I say *BRAVO*.
This article isn't about collecting ROMs (which is of course entirely legal), it's about collecting copies of the data from other people's ROMs.
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I think is that they are recycling much of the NES/SNES era stuff on the GBA. So I suppose they could have a valid argument that if ROMs keep floating around a GBA port won't sell. And lagally they are in the right as well. I don't happen to agree in many cases, but they are right.
One thing I'd like to see, but I doubt it will happen is Nintendo throwing the entire NES/SNES library on a GameCube disc for like $50-100, and you could play them all, just choose your game from a menu. That alone would make the 'cube worth purchasing.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
It would be a shame if, 10 years from now, no one has the chance to play great games like Mario Bros 3, The Legend of Zelda, or Metroid.
Mario Bros. 3 will be re-released as Super Mario Advance 4, the Legend of Zelda is available on Animal Crossing, and Metroid is available on Metroid Prime.
Are we starting to understand why Nintendo doesn't like ROMs?
Actually, you can still find a lot of actual NES games out there; I got a copy of Final Fantasy I from my local game store not too long ago, and they have a wide selection. And if you don't have something like that nearby, there's always the web, right?
The problem with the copyright issue is that it can provide the original company with monopoly powers that are simply too broad, as the dissenting opinions in Eldred state. I see nothing wrong with letting companies keep their successful copyrights, but I feel they should have an obligation to "use it or lose it"; that is to say, companies should not be able to use copyrights to *suppress* works that could otherwise be in the public domain. They should theoretically have an obligation to sell things at a fair market price, but with copyrights, they don't have to. There's no check against their monopolistic behaviors.
However, the illegal copyright infringements of ROMs, of music, etc., etc., has proven to the industry that there is a demand that isn't being filled due to monopoly powers. You didn't see the old arcade games being re-released by the companies and the current swath of remakes we've had until well after the development and popularity of console and arcade emulators. I think it's quite possible that it's now easier to obtain legal ROMs or games because of the interest spawned by illegal ROM copying, and without it, there would be few or no arcade collections released for the PC nowadays.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The coders of QBert are starving right now because evil pirates aren't buying their software!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
It all goes back to the nature of copyright, "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This balances the benefit to the public of having a work in the public domain. I would argue that when a copyright holder is not using their copyright "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts" (i.e., suppressing knowledge instead of making it available) then they are violating that original copyright agreement, and therefore should not get the benefits of its protection.
Note that this would not be as big a deal if other parts of that language were actually enforced as well, such as the "for limited times" part, or the "exclusive right to their respective inventions and discoveries" (emphasis mine) part. This would imply that a person could reasonably expect a copyright (on, say, the song "Happy Birthday") to expire sometime, perhaps not too long after the death of the original author(s). It would also imply that copyrights can't be transferred or sold. But that isn't the world we live in, sadly.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Partially correct. Check out this Snopes page regarding ownership of the Beatles. First of all, to say that Paul owns the rights to songs he did not write is untrue. John and Paul had an agreement and followed it--if either of them wrote a song for the Beatles, it would be credited to both of them. Whether or not Paul actually wrote the songs is just wrong, technically speaking, both John and Paul wrote those songs.
Second, Jackson only owns the publishing rights. He still splits royalties 50/50 with Paul and John's estate (presumably Yoko).
As long as the Beatles' original albums are still available in new formats (or at least in unprotected formats), and Paul is still alive, I'm ok with paying for those albums.
So I guess you want copyright terms to be only last the term of life of the author?
I realize this is semantics to some, but not to others.
I read comic books; I don't give a shit what they're worth, or what they'll be worth in the future.
People collect roms to give themselves a buzz, "gotta catch them all" type shit. I play roms, old things that cannot be purchased anywhere but ebay for outrageous prices due to insane cart collectors. I don't emulate n64; that system is still just about new, for God's sake.
NES games is a different matter, especially famicom games that never made it over. It's fun to play them and see what we missed in the USA, and it's more fun to play a game that is slightly different, like the Japanese Bionic Command, complete with nazi references intact. Master D indeed.
Lastly, translated Japanese roms are awsome. We may not have gotten most of the original Final Fantasy games here to the USA, but now I can play most of them thanks to fan translations.
Legal? No. Perhaps the owners of older games could look at their property and decide if perhaps it might not be beneficial to them to release their old games as roms, aka, let them be freely downloaded.. ah, blah blah, ramble.
... illustrates demand. If interest in a game is being rekindled, why not find a way to productize it?
However, let's look at how ROM "piracy" is different from, say, MP3 "piracy".
1. These titles are not available through retail. - Limiting the discussion to 8-bit and 16-bit era console systems, there is no way to get any of these games through retail in their original form, except used.
2. The vast majority of these games are not available in non-original forms. Certainly, Nintendo and a few others have released a handful of games in GBA form, or bonuses in other retail products. Even a couple of "anthologies" have made it to market (there are many for old arcade games, most of which never had a complete, arcade-perfect home translation, but there are far fewer anthologies of games that were home-console titles). However, MOST titles are not available in any way, shape, or form.
3. Used games are subject to availability, wear/damage, pricing, and profit the copyright holders $0. I walked into FuncoLand a couple of days ago, and saw a used Kid Icarus game in the used "old games" bin. The price tag? $14.99. I have also bought used cartridge games that flat out did not work. And most of the old games I'd like to get aren't available in local used stores. Do I want to go on to eBay and buy a cartridge where the shipping cost would almost double the final price, and I'd still be getting a used cartridge that isn't guaranteed to function beyond today? In some cases, yes, but mostly no. ROMs allow us to play the games without worrying about the integrity of 15-20 year old equipment.
4. The flaw of copyrights - "it's mine and I don't have to use it if I don't wanna". Nintendo, Sega, and all the other publishers of the era do not have to make their old titles available in any way if they don't want to. This is where copyrights are a hinderance. If Nintendo and the others refuse to make use of their copyrighted material, some 3rd party should have the right to be able to license the material for some baseline fee, and use it, whether Nintendo/Sega/etc. like it or not. Allowing copyright holders to sit on their copyrights and do absolutely nothing with them hurts the consumer, and doesn't benefit the holder either.
Barring this, however, ROM use will proliferate.