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Ask Slashdot: Where Can I Buy Legal Game ROMs?

Posted by timothy on from the oh-you-might-be-surprised dept.

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."

52 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. The entire industry is built on piracy by YesIAmAScript · · Score: 3, Interesting

    EOM

    --
    http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
    1. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    2. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by countertrolling · · Score: 2

      The entire system is built on piracy. Might makes right

      --
      For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    3. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by HalAtWork · · Score: 2

      Many games will never be released for purchase because all of the various copyrights/licenses cannot be tracked down, or the companies are simply defunct. The only legal way to get them is to wait until they become public domain.

      --
      Twinstiq, game news
    4. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By which time you will be dead..

      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As will your children. And possibly your grandchildren.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    6. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by greg1104 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The reason piracy is the rule here is that it's almost impossible for a single home user to acquire the rights to use these ROMs. There are a few game vendors who have packaged up their ROM files to sell in that form. But those aren't normally aimed at an individual to buy; they're only packaged as a set of raw ROM files ffor resale as part of something else.

      If you buy a fully legitimate arcade console with licensed games, what they will typically do is negotiate licenses to several sets of these packaged games from multiple manufacturers. For example, X-Arcade Machine includes 205 licensed games, for the most part collections such as Namco Muesum and Midway Arcade Treasure's Titles where the manufacturer has gone to the trouble of packaging the game ROMs for distribution--and therefore licensing. (Note that the quality of the joystick and buttons used in the X-Arcade hardware is considered low compared to what most DIY consoles aim for; don't consider the above a recommendation for buying one of them, they're just a good example here)

      Packages such as Namco Muesum are available to buy on a wide variety of platforms. When you buy those, you're not directly given the ROMs though; you just get the right to play them as they are packaged for that platform. What I do to try and keep myself morally clean here is purchase any such collection that's available for the games I play on MAME.

      I buy these collections, I bought all of the games I liked from StarROMs when they were available. But the ROMs I play on MAME, those are coming from the bootleg distributions; like a lot of things, the pirates provide the easiest to use packaging of the software. Until companies like Namco and Atari start selling ROM licenses directly, I don't know that it's possible to be legally clean here, unless you buy one of the packaged cabinets from a manufacturer who is big enough to have negotiated a resale license.

    7. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    8. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      There should be rules stating that if someone has made an reasonable attempt to get hold of copyright owner (documentation needed of course) and failed then the software shall enter Public Domain.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    9. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by couchslug · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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".

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    10. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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).

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    11. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by sixsixtysix · · Score: 2

      Media should fall into the public domain once the original authors stop selling it.

      exactly. i 've always thought it should have to be made available to be protected. it'd also help do away with back-in-the-vault shenanigans. there is plenty of media that will never be released because they are not commercially viable, but will they just sell me the fucking .iso download (at a rate that makes up for the removal of all third parties. sure bandwidth costs something but is nothing compared to packaging/shipping/retail) and make their cash? noooo. people WILL get what they want, one way or the other.

      --
      ...
    12. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      One step further, since you own the physical cart ( and license to use it ) i don't see a problem with downloading it. It's only 'piracy' if you don't own a license.

      Right. I've heard Penn Jillette say several times he doesn't mind if you download BullShit! from Bittorrent if you subscribe to Showtime - you've already paid for it.

      He probably doesn't own the copyright himself, but he's got the moral equation worked out properly.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    13. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

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

      Anyone acting this way is just ignorant of political philosophy beyond a fifth grade level. Heck, Augustine wrote "an unjust law is no law at all" in the 4th Century. Note to Catholics: that's the teaching of a Saint.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    14. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by DavidTC · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This.

      There is a valid argument for saying 'People should not have to pay to register every single thing.'. But the fact is, at this point in time, there's absolutely no reason why anyone should have to pay just in case.

      The government could simply have a website and hand out unique IDs whenever anyone wanted. You produce something you suspect might be worth copyrighting, you get a unique ID for that thing for free and stick it in the copyright notice.

      Then you have three years to actually fill out a copyright registration for that ID and pay $25 or whatever, or it's considered abandoned and thus public domain.

      That seems to get rid of any of the so-called reasons we started issuing copyrights automatically. It gives people plenty of time to see if the registration is worthwhile, it helps people who might not have thought that specific thing was worthwhile, yet doesn't result in every single damn thing ever written being copyrighted.

      Likewise, if someone attempts to contact the person listed, and they can not be reached, they should be able to send a notice to the copyright office, which will then mail an official letter giving them a year to fix their registration, or it's public domain. Any idiot can type in the unique ID and see the copyright status, and where to send the info to. (We could even charge people for questioning the status. You try to contact a copyright holder, you can't, you pay $1 to have the copyright office send an official postage-paid letter that they are require to respond to.)

      And we need to go through the older stuff and slowly start requiring that done to them, also. The older stuff actually _does_ have registration, as you pointed out....but we need to put the contact information online, so we can say 'Hey, those people don't exist', and get the copyright office to remove the copyright after a year or so.

      As for the newer stuff, that's harder to figure out, but I think giving people ten years or so to locate it and register it would be reasonable.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    15. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by bored · · Score: 2

      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.

      And that, I think is the point. The media companies are having enough problems selling you their latest trash. The last thing they want is to have to compete with free public domain content. There are enough books on Gutenberg project at this point that I could _NEVER_ expect to read them all in my lifetime. When that starts to happens to audio and video, the industry will be in for big changes. So the best plan is to lock it in the vault for the last 50 years of copyright so that no one has a copy by the time the copyrights expire. At which point the media is simply gone.

    16. Re:The entire industry is built on piracy by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. From who? by TerminaMorte · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:From who? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:From who? by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:From who? by Smallpond · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This raises an interesting legal question. If I have a copy of a missing TV show episode, what claim would the copyright owner have if they don't have a copy? If I distribute it I'm violating the copyright. But I'm not taking anything from the owner because they can't do the same. The whole point of copyright is to preserve the right to distribute for the owners. In particular, it's NOT to prevent old episodes from being watched so that people will watch new episodes. Copyright is only for protecting that work, not other works using the same trademarks or characters.

    4. Re:From who? by jedidiah · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The idea of abandonment comes up because some of us rightly point out that this concept exists for real property. So when we see people try to conflate creative works with real property, we bring this idea into the discussion. Media moguls want all of the upside of property as a natural right but none of the possible downsides of it of course.

      So things like taxes and squatting are left for the rest of us to consider.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. not going to find it by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    1. Re:not going to find it by Trepidity · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you legitimately own a copy on some medium, medium-shifting to another one is legal, just like you can rip your own music CDs to mp3s.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
    2. Re:not going to find it by Spazmania · · Score: 2

      You don't have to buy the entire game, You can generally find the boards that were removed from the cabinets when the cabinets were upgraded to some other game. Prices range from $20 to several hundred dollars depending on the popularity of the game.

      The legal status of copying those roms on to modern hardware is in doubt. The moral status is more clear: of course you can put the board in the closet and do the minimum it takes to run the software on modern hardware.

      --
      Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
    3. Re:not going to find it by davester666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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".

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    4. Re:not going to find it by mysidia · · Score: 2

      If you legitimately own a copy on some medium, medium-shifting to another one is legal, just like you can rip your own music CDs to mp3s.

      Yes... but is it legal to buy the CD and then download the MP3 version of the same thing from someone else who doesn't have a right to upload that MP3 to you?

      Seems like buying a legitimate copy of the media and then obtaining the ROM from someone not authorized to give it to you would be similar. Unless you are going to, er, try and dump the rom yourself from your own media....

    5. Re:not going to find it by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      DMCA. Repeat after me, DMCA. The fact arcade games are in proprietary ROMs or even soldered to the mobo, you removing them to "archive" or medium shift, it illegal in the US

      Except that an Exception to the DMCA was made:

      37 CFR 201.40 Exemption to prohibition against circumvention

      1. Compilations consisting of lists of Internet locations blocked by commercially marketed filtering software [...]
      2. Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete. [...]
      3. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
      4. Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling of the ebook's read-aloud function and that prevent the enabling of screen readers to render the text into a specialized format.
    6. Re:not going to find it by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 2

      Apparently Slashdot has decided Informative is Funny?

      I give up moderating.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    7. Re:not going to find it by crankyspice · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you legitimately own a copy on some medium, medium-shifting to another one is legal, just like you can rip your own music CDs to mp3s.

      Incorrect, at least under U.S. copyright law. RIAA v. Diamond, 98-56727 (9th Cir., June 15, 1999) (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1054784.html), the seminal case on the issue, found a fair use in "space shifting" music to MP3 players, but did so under the auspices of the Audio Home Recording Act (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap10.html), which carves out specific exemptions applicable to sound recordings. No such provision(s) exist for video game ROMs, in any jurisdiction I'm aware of.

      --
      geek. lawyer.
  4. What is this "piracy?" by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Keep in mind that every unofficial copy of a protected work isn't necessarily copyright violation. Look up fair use, and consult a lawyer for its application to a given field. You can also ask that the library of Congress put a DMCA exemption on a particular use, IIRC, although that would be more for the field than for your personal use.

    http://transformativeworks.org/projects/vidding-press-release-DMCA-EXEMPTION

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    1. Re:What is this "piracy?" by jonbryce · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:What is this "piracy?" by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fair use is a defence. It doesn't come into play until after lawyers are hired and court is attended. A DMCA exemption also doesn't automatically make something legal - it's only an exemption from the DMCA, not plain old-fashioned copyright law.

  5. Re:I am not a lawyer, but... by Stormthirst · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If you are using the backup for something other than as a backup, then it's not a backup.

    Depending on which country you are in, however, you might be permitted to format shift. The UK that's not legal, even though everyone (and probably their grandmother) is format shifting their CDs into MP3s these days. The UK government have started looking at this ridiculous position with a view to changing the law. Lets hope they have an attack of sense, and decide that because 90% of the population are doing it, that democracy should prevail and legalise it. Especially considering I've never heard anyone being prosecuted for ripping their CDs, ever.

  6. Virtual Console... by Windwraith · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  7. Re:ROM Marketplace? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    ROMs don't automatically mean emulator. ROMs aren't illegal. Please, quit this thinking.
    And on that topic, emulators aren't illegal either. Not even in the most retarded countries when it comes to IP law.
    Companies want you to THINK it is illegal (like the recent Atari who still think they hold control over the Atari trademark), but it isn't.

    If you want actual games from companies, you are going to have to go through a strict process with the developers of those games, be it Nintendo or some random company.
    You have to get a licence. You get the game, quite literally in ROM modules form sometimes, you plug it in to your hardware that they have to inspect and approve of (or a 3rd party approval process who manages the arcade cabinet industry members), and that is it.
    Note the hard, strict, and additionally that you'll likely not be approved if it is for personal use unless you offer to pay out of the ass.

  8. factor 5 has some stuff out by infurnus · · Score: 2
    Bonk/BCKid, Katakis, and R-Type:
    http://www.factor5.de/downloads.shtml

    Factor 5s first game as a free download for everybody who loved the Amiga or just plain historical interest – also known in other parts of Europe as Denaris. 50 frames per second of high-adrenaline shooting action very reminiscent of R-Type.
    Note: This only works 100% with the UAE emulator .
    Katakis, R-Type and BC KID are not provided for the public domain. You are entitled to download and use these games only for non-commercial purposes. All copyrights are retained by their owners. Any distribution of this data through any medium unless specifically permitted by the copyright owners is not allowed.

  9. Not happening... by AngryDeuce · · Score: 2

    The only way you're going to get any games is piracy. Even if the original IP holder is still around (which many of them aren't), there isn't enough interest for them to offer a commercial product. They're not gonna be satisfied servicing the desires of a figurative handful of DIY'ers making MAME cabinets, the only way to see these in commercial release is through emulation on a console so they can ensure they get their $10 or whatever out of it. Frankly, the MAME emulation scene just isn't popular enough to ever really see even that come to pass, except for those select few titles like Centipede or Breakout that have stayed relevant in the popular consciousness.

    You have to move up to the 8-bit home consoles like the NES and Sega Master System, and beyond, if you're looking for actual legal re-releases, and you will NEVER see that happen in ROM form. If you want a legal way to play old arcade games, go buy some old arcade games. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel too bad about piracy when it comes to this stuff. They have no legal alternative.

  10. Re:ROM Marketplace? by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Informative

    There is no model for legal roms.

    Sure there is. Just buy PCBs for the games you're interested in. Non-working PCBs will do.

    --
    No sig today...
  11. Re:ROM Marketplace? by hedwards · · Score: 2

    Indeed, that's what I do. The trick is getting an appropriate device for dumping the ROMs. I personally use the www.retrode.org, but there are other devices on the market. The great thing is that one doesn't need to worry about being busted, as it's completely legal. Plus, they don't have any way of knowing that one is dumping carts to disk.

  12. OP's post is proof... by blahplusplus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... that copyright laws are fucked up and piracy is the necessary response. The fact that he's trying to submit and "be moral" to a bankrupt system of laws is the first problem. There is no ethical quandary here. Software licensing for unlimited time due to copyright has has always been a scam it prevents old software from being modified/studied/updated as well as preserving older applications. Companies would like to just sit on/throw away or control works for eternity.

    The fact is you already live in a tyranny when you need "permission" to do things with things you already own or that should have legitimately become public domain after all these years. I'm not a believer in eternal rights for corporations and 'business people' that's our fundamental problem of this age - everyones sucking corporate capitalist dick and needs to get their heads read.

    Did we not learn anything from DRM and stallman's prescient "Right to read"?

    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

    The next time you are thinking of "doing the right thing" by submitting to laws made by lobbyists and corporations and their supporters just remember this video about the secret (at the time) trillion dollar give-aways by the fed reserve to the banks and other corporations who had huge investments:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJqM2tFOxLQ

    These people don't give a shit about anyone but themselves they are greedy bastards.

  13. Pretty much by definition by suomynonAyletamitlU · · Score: 2

    The various media industries, when they're being selfish, say "Piracy" to mean "You made a copy when we asked you not to." Generally, the courts force this to only be a crime if you then share it with others. The existence of ROMs at all, even ones you dump yourself, are nevertheless piracy in that definition.

    Now look at the logistics of it. At this point, they're not manufacturing these products anymore. Unless they remade games for a new device, there is no product you can buy from them anymore--you can only buy secondhand games and secondhand systems. You say you don't want to pirate, which for games that are currently being sold is marvelous. But when they aren't selling products to you, they aren't losing money if you pirate instead of buying secondhand. Understand, if they ever decided to release ROMs, they would release them along with first-party, copy-protected emulators, and that's an investment of time, manpower, and money in and of itself. (It does happen; the PSP for example emulates PlayStation games, which you can get from their store, if you can stomach going there after the security breach nonsense.)

    If you want to support game developers or the industry, buy new products, whether it's games or licensed T-shirts. There's precious little to be found in emulation that could possibly help their bottom line.

    1. Re:Pretty much by definition by realityimpaired · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you want to support game developers or the industry, buy new products, whether it's games or licensed T-shirts. There's precious little to be found in emulation that could possibly help their bottom line.

      I presume you've never owned a Nintendo Wii then?

      In response to the originally asked question, the only way to have a legal ROM without buying it directly from the publisher (which isn't going to happen) is to make your own ROM. Get something like this: http://hackaday.com/2009/06/19/usb-reader-for-snes-game-carts/ and make your own. And don't distribute them.

    2. Re:Pretty much by definition by Fallingcow · · Score: 2

      That makes you legal at the price of some money and a good deal of inconvenience, none of which helps the original creators or anyone making games now.

      Unlike recent games, where the used market at least supports the higher new-game price, buying a cart of Super Mario Bros. and dumping it is just a silly ritual some people do to make their activities technically legal (the best kind of legal, I admit) and let them lord their imagined moral superiority over other people online.

      The MAME folks seem to be especially bad about this. "I bought a broken, bare board for $5 on Ebay and dumped the ROM with uncommon, narrowly-purposed hardware, so now I can sneer at all those dirty pirates on Internet message boards while I play Dig-Dug in another window. Man, I'm so much better than those freeloading assholes!"

      Just pirate the damn things. If you feel like someone deserves compensation for that, sending money to the individuals behind the games or buying newer products from the companies that published them would either one be more productive all-around, plus more morally praiseworthy, than buying 20-year-old carts and some obscure Chinese ROM-dumping hardware and pretending that does anything but make your activities more legal than regular-ol' pirates.

      Note that I'm not saying pirating games that old is immoral, just that buying old-ass carts and dumping them isn't somehow significantly more moral than whatever moral weight one places on piracy.

  14. Virtual Console by Yvan256 · · Score: 2

    AFAIK the easiest way to be legal about the whole thing would be to get a Nintendo Wii, wire your own arcade controls from a GameCube controller and get games from their Virtual Console service. The selection is extremely small if you compare to just finding ROM files from some place, but at least there's 29 Neo-Geo games and 19 arcade games in the list.

    Oddly enough, there's the SEGA Master System and the Turbografx-16 versions of R-Type, but not the original arcade version.

  15. Masterbation by spire3661 · · Score: 2

    If you have an ethical dillemma contact the rom copyright holders. If they cant be reached dont add the game or do, according to your conscience.


    The TL:DR here is: The law is murky, there is no true authority to buy the ROMS, any money you pay will almost certainly not reach anyone truly relevant ot the game or anyone that is empowered to license the game.

    --
    Good-bye
  16. How do I dumped cartridge? by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i don't see a problem with buying the game on a cart at your local store ( be it new or used ) then copying the data off to use in your emulator.

    This would appear to be legal under 17 USC 117(a)(1). But good luck finding the copier tools to extract the data from the cartridges. A Nintendo DS or DS Lite with a flash card can dump Game Boy Advance cartridges, but that's about it. For Sega Genesis and Super NES, there was the Retrode, but that's sold out. For NES, there's the Kazzo, but that's hand-assembled in extremely low volumes and apparently not intended for sale to the casual gamer.

  17. Not quite entirely built on piracy by russotto · · Score: 2

    There are two types of people doing emulation. The Ebeneezer T. Scrooge types who think anyone who doesn't have their very own collection of vintage arcade games to reverse engineer doesn't deserve to play them. And the eyepatch-and-jolly-roger set. Personally I find the pirates far less offensive.

  18. The entire rom industry is built on piracy by Cito · · Score: 2
    no need to be "holier than thou" when it comes to it, just download it, all roms are available on piratebay/kat.ph/demonoid.me pick your poison.

    There are no legit rom sellers as the companies folded years ago, too hard to track down each split up company to aquire any legal licensing or whatnot. So the entire emulator/rom industry other than small amount of free ones are all done via pirating.

    We have 3 arcade machines in our office that use pirated roms and takes quarters, so it has that nice retro feel, plus acts as a piggy bank of sorts, There was no way to do it legally, so we pirated the roms and each machine has 25 roms on it.

    just suck it up and download them like everyone else in the world does and stop trying to act like it's some holier than thou or morally right.

  19. Re:FAIL. by tgd · · Score: 2

    As I said in the other reply, your opinion of how the law should work, and how the law works, have absolutely no relationship to each other.

    This article is about someone who wants to (for whatever reason) follow the law. The *fact* of the law is that very few ROMs would be legal to copy and re-use in another system. If you're claiming the original poster should follow your opinion on the law, rather than the law, its a hell of a lot less effort to just grab the ROM images from Usenet. Because the *fact* of law is that those images are just as much in violation of the license agreements *and* copyright as ROMs he/she would format-shift.

    Until the *government* declares that the specific re-use of the specific ROMs is legal as covered by fair use (which has happened with some types of media in limited cases), the *fact* is that it is *not* legal.

    The basic point is simple -- as most of the other posters who actually understand this have said. The emulator industry *is* built in piracy because the fact is, the copying of the ROMs to the emulator violates the license the original purchaser of the machine agreed to -- and the resale of the machine (legal or not) does not break the chain of license to the new owner. So, the original poster should suck it up and do what everyone else does -- either refurbish the original machine, or just download the ROMs and not care. If he's not re-selling anything, no one will know but him, and as others have said, no one is getting hurt because there is no other way to get the ROMs legally.

    I don't get the need to pretend to be following the law, instead of just being honest and admitting you're not.

  20. Officially released on CD by El_Oscuro · · Score: 2

    Both Williams and Atari released PC collections with emulators and the ROM's of the original games. I am not sure they can be extracted for MAME use, nor if it is legal, but it does provide another option. Many other old games have been released in some fashion with the ROM's included.

    --
    "Be grateful for what you have. You may never know when you may lose it."
  21. I paid for the games already by RadiusQ · · Score: 2

    Between the ages of 5 and 14, 100% of my disposable income was spent playing these ROMs when housed in their original machines. I'd bet a testicle that not a single developer of any of the ROMs I have downloaded would begrudge my nostalgic trip, and I think that's exactly what it's about to most people. Just a little bit of nostalgia. I don't think there's much of a moral issue here. The only argument I can see for the games industry not being keen of having these old ROMs available for free, is that whilst people are spending hours and hours playing old games via MAME, they may not necessarily be going out and buying new games. I choose to ignore that argument though as I don't really play games much anymore. I don't really play old games any more either. The fact of the matter is when I boot these old ROMs I no longer see the magic. It's gone. Mostly. Robotron is still friggin' awesome though!