Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Buy Legal Game ROMs?

PktLoss writes "I'm interested in building an arcade machine, following the footsteps of Cmdr Taco among many others. Not being all that interested in piracy, I need to find somewhere to buy games. StarROMs used to be the kind of thing I was looking for, though with an incredibly short catalog. The MAME people have a few available for free (non-commercial), but this isn't going to sate my needs. There's an entire cottage industry supporting this goal. People are ready to sell me plans, kits, buttons, joy sticks, glass marquees, and entire machines. That's fantastic, but where can I get the games? I refuse to believe that this entire industry is built on piracy."

Comments

From who?

[TerminaMorte]

Who would you be buying it from? In most cases you'd just be buying a shady company for a pirated ROM regardless. Most of the companies that made these games no longer exist. Any IP is going to be owned by a large corp like Nintendo, who will want you to buy their console and not DIY You are saying you do not want to pirate, while at the same time you want to use this content in an un-authorized/un-approved way. Piracy is your only real option if you want to play "popular" game ROMs.

Re:From who?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most entertaining part of this whole discussion is we're talking about games made in the 80's and 90's.

Whatever happened to the Public Domain? Or have we all forgotten, since there's basically nobody alive who's really experienced works in the public domain, that THE ENTIRE POINT OF COPYRIGHT IS TO ENRICH the public domain?

There are those who argue the age-old publishers cry "we need to protect scientific and cultural advancement" I say, without the public domain, there's no incentive not to reproduce the same things that were in the past, or not to sit on your hides renting technology. Such hypocrisy; to build off the technology of the past in order to monopolize the present. Publishers will never stop arguing "longer longer" and the people, well, they're the only reasonable one in the discussion.

Sony doesn't want you buying FF7 for the same reason Best Buy doesn't want a Sony TV on their shelves that is more than a year old. They don't want to dissuade your dollars from buying the new shiney. Although I do have to ask what kind of market it would be, especially for gaming, if the current cookie cutters had to compete with the old cookie cutters.

  I say, if there's works created in my lifetime will never enter into the public domain, then there is no point in participating in copyright.

Re:From who?

[Moryath]

Thanks to Disney and the corrupt shills that have taken over the government, games made in the 1980s won't "expire copyright" and return to the public domain until sometime after 2100. If there isn't yet ANOTHER "Mickey Mouse Protection Act" copyright extension passed in the meantime.

Part of the problem is that copyright doesn't take into account the life of the medium any more. Imagine what happens when most books are only available on e-readers and most e-readers no longer read the format the book was put out in (not so hard to imagine: think of some of the books that only exist on B&N Nook format and imagine that B&N goes under and nobody bothers to code a translator because "well most of it is on Kindle anyways", followed by B&N's servers shutting down and nobody having a remaining copy of the book anywhere).

The longer copyright terms are, the more information we LOSE to bad circumstances and bitrot. For one of the most famous cases, consider the missing episodes of Dr. Who - the BBC now has a comparatively huge bounty out for anyone who has them, even if it's a really crappy telecine.

not going to find it

[Trepidity]

The only real non-pirate way to get a significant number of ROMs is to buy the physical games and the equipment to image a ROM from them.

A few university libraries have started digitally preserving culturally significant games, and that's what they end up doing, because they can't really pirate the ROMs, yet can't buy legitimate digital copies either.

Re:not going to find it

[davester666]

It depends entirely upon the patch of ground you happen to be standing on and the relative quality of your lawyers as to whether it is or is not "legal".

Re:What is this "piracy?"

[jonbryce]

You have to buy a legitimate copy of the ROM, and then you can maybe exercise your fair use rights to format-shift it. However finding a legitimate copy is going to be pretty difficult, and I guess ebay is pretty much the only option.

Virtual Console...

[Windwraith]

That's the whole idea behind them, selling you ROMs and a license to use them.

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[somersault]

Yeah. Asking a question and ending with "I refuse to believe the truth!" isn't the best way to go.

If these are ancient games, and there is no other way to get them, then they're "abandonware". Just grow a pair and download them. It might be illegal, but I don't see how it's immoral. If the company that made the game is even still around, you could try contacting them for a license as AC suggested.

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[somersault]

By which time you will be dead..

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[Samantha Wright]

As will your children. And possibly your grandchildren.

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[Bert64]

Which is a waste of time, copyright terms are unrealistically long so anyone who remembers these games will be long dead by the time they fall into the public domain.

Just goes to show that copyright terms are far too long. Anything that falls into the public domain will be long forgotten. Media should fall into the public domain once the original authors stop selling it.

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[couchslug]

Always remember that law is not more or less than an arrangement of convenience for maintaining social order.

We choose which laws we obey based on the cost/benefit perception we have of the results.

Don't act as if law is sacred and that all law should be obeyed because it's "law".

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[dgatwood]

No, there should be a registration requirement, without which you cannot claim damages, and you should be required to update that registration in a timely manner. You know, like the way things used to work before we went all Berne-Convention-y in the 1970s.

The burden should be upon the copyright owner to facilitate contact by potential licensees, not on the potential licensee. After all, it is the copyright owner who stands to gain, not the licensee (who could almost invariably just ignore the copyright, and the licensor would never know).

Re:The entire industry is built on piracy

[AmiMoJo]

And so will the ROM. Early arcade ROMs are already becoming unreadable due to bit rot. Some companies (Sega) even installed "suicide batteries" that wipe a necessary encryption key when the battery goes flat, and typical battery life was less than 10 years.

Some modern games require a network connection so they can download an encryption key. Once those servers are turned off the game will be lost forever unless someone manages to find the key. DRM is ensuring the loss of our cultural heritage.