No Excuse For Less-Than-Legal ROMs Anymore?

jvm writes "As per a previous story, you can now buy some Atari ROMs legally from StarROMs. I've selected 14 games, easily paid for them, downloaded the ROM images, and then played the games. For completeness, I even confirmed with Atari that StarROMs is legit. Now, I've posted on why it's time to pay up or admit you're a pirate."

Comments

Now if they did that for older PC games...

[FileNotFound]

Now if they did that for older PC games that can't run on todays hardware.

For example, Motorhead. I miss that game but I can't run it on anything over 98 and it doesn't play well without the Voodoo Glide drivers.

Better yet, Transport Tycoon. I think that game was way ahead of it's time and for some reason largly ignored. Still building a really intricate train system that linked into your truks and air transports was great. Too bad the AI competition was pathetic.

Righteous Twit

[the_skywise]

I'll be happy to buy the roms. It's a reasonable price.

But how much money has he donated to the MAME project? Time/Effort? Webspace?

How does he think those ROMS got their value back? Magic?

How much intrinsic value is there in these games? It's nigh impossible to find these games in their native format. And without MAME these games would've been long forgotten and written off. You can't market them by current standards because Atari Football looks pretty sad compared to Madden 2003.

How much of a market *IS* there for games without OUR (the gamers) effort to keep them alive! And how much intrinsic value is there in OUR effort to maintain a piece of video-game history that would've been happily relegated to the same junk heaps of E.T. 2600 if suits had had their way. (Except for the occasional, hey let's release Tempest again along with some other classics, but not Major Havoc because Nobody remembers that game)

Is Atari going to compensate the developers of MAME out of these ROM sales? I mean, how else am I supposed to play these games?

But no no... keep throwing names like "pirate" around...

Re:Righteous Twit

[mlzman]

Here's an interesting if vague quote from the StarROMs website:

"StarROMs believes that emulators play an important role in the preservation of classic video games. A portion of StarROMs annual profits will be donated to projects that help support the legal emulation of classic video games." Here's the link.

So Atari won't be compensating MAME anytime soon, but ROM redistributors just might.

Right of First Sale

[Shooch]

When I first saw StarROMs mentioned on slashdot, I went to their site and looked for info about my right to resell the ROMs once I bought them. I couldn't find any info, so I emailed their legal department (they had a handy email address on the site) asking them about this issue.

The reply came two days later, and was very clear that the right to the use the ROMs was non-transferable, meaning that according to the company, anyway, you can't actually sell the ROM to somebody else. (Obviously, I'm not talking about selling an illegal copy, but rather the original ROM that I downloaded - of which I would not keep a copy.)

This seems like iTunes all over again.

Piracy vs. Sharing

[alatesystems]

Now, I've posted on why it's time to pay up or admit you're a pirate.

Arg Maties!! If ye be perpetuating the myth that boarding a ship and stealing booty(physical, tangible goods) is the same as copyright infringement, then you are mistaken.

I am so sick of hearing people say that "it's just like shoplifting". If I wasn't going to pay for it, and I didn't deprive anyone else of the opportunity to purchase it, where is the monetary loss? I fail to see it.

If I couldn't download roms to play, that doesn't mean I was going to go out and purchase a Neo Geo machine, a bunch of pinball machines, and a Mortal Kombat 3 machine. Not only can't I afford several thousand for each of those, but I have no room for it.

Copying bits is not stealing physical property. It is sharing, and companies do not like people to share.
Chris Benard