Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

70 Long-Lost Japanese Video Games Discovered In a 67GB Folder of ROMs On a Private Forum (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the do-not-upload dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Until yesterday, rare Japanese PC game Labyrinthe, developed by Caravan Interactive, was long thought to be lost forever. That is until the almost mythical third game in the already obscure Horror Tour series was found on a 67GB folder of ROMs on a private forum. Other rare games from the folder are expected to become public soon. According to a YouTuber called Saint, who posted a video of him playing the game and a link to download it on Mega, Labyrinthe and as many as 70 other rare or never-before-released Japanese titles have been circulating in a file sharing directory on a private torrent site.

Labyrinthe, alongside other rare titles including Cookie's Bustle, Yellow Brick Road and Link Devicer 2074 were in a folder called "DO NOT UPLOAD." Members of the private forum hesitated to upload Labyrinthe in the fear that the private collector would take down the folder and leave the collection out of reach once again. This hesitation demonstrates the often tense relationship between game preservationists and private collectors. According to a screenshot uploaded by Saint, the private collector threatened to pull the entire folder of content from the directory and stop uploading games altogether if anyone leaked Labyrinthe. In uploading the game to Mega, it's possible the folder will be pulled from the internet. But in doing so, the person advanced the interests of game preservationists worldwide by leaking the this game and others.

158 comments

  1. Happy Friday From The Golden Girls! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you for being a friend
    Traveled down the road and back again
    Your heart is true, you're a pal and a cosmonaut.

    And if you threw a party
    Invited everyone you ever knew
    You would see the biggest gift would be from me
    And the card attached would say, thank you for being a friend.

  2. I will forever remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... where I was and what I was doing when this momentous news were announced.

    1. Re:I will forever remember... by 110010001000 · · Score: 0

      This is the Pearl Harbor of our generation. Something to tell your grandchildren you experienced.

  3. A new kind of imbecile by hjf · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have to be a whole category of imbecile to keep "private" collections of ROMs.
    "Look at me, I'll die the last person to ever play this video game". What kind of virgin feels proud of this?

    Also, are the other forum members retarded? Can't they download the folder themselves in full and repost?

    Imbeciles, imbeciles everywhere.

    1. Re:A new kind of imbecile by GuB-42 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No matter how old lost and abandoned these games are, sharing the ROMs is still piracy. And the Japanese in particular take piracy very seriously, so much that while we had torrents in the west, Japan used TOR-like anonymized P2P networks like Perfect Dark.

      It is understandable that collectors want to keep a low profile.

    2. Re:A new kind of imbecile by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is understandable that collectors want to keep a low profile.

      By uploading they've already failed to do that. Other people downloading and re-upping the files elsewhere won't change that at all. They've already taken the action of uploading them, the smartest thing for them to do is to never touch those uploaded files again. Therefore, they are either a staggering idiot (of which there is no shortage) or just refusing to share their toys with the other children, which is pathetic and childish.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and they call themselves "incels". Seems pretty fucking voluntary to me

    4. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is a certain appeal to being one of a small group with secrets. For a game collector, it's not about being the last to ever play the game, but simply to have something that nobody else does. That's why "collectibles" are numbered and often have limited production runs. That rarity is what the collectors value, not necessarily the game itself. That's also why having collections in unopened boxes is valued - being unopened is a rare feature that can't be restored once lost.

      As for re-uploading, throwing around a 67GB file is still not trivial, especially when it carries a (small) legal risk for being copyright infringement. Somebody still owns the copyright on those games, whether they realize it or not, and it's entirely within their (legal) rights to sue someone for redistributing the games, when they'd rather see them completely disappear - perhaps to re-release a "discovered" copy found in a corporate vault.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    5. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      The collector uploaded them to a group of associates, who presumably all face similar legal risks. They're safe as long as nobody outside knows they infringement happened, so they want that group of associates to stay closed and small. Once the group leaks, however, news articles like this one happen, and others will come poking at the group to see what else falls out... then everyone's fears are realized, and they're left scrambling to erase any evidence of illegal activities.

      As Ben Franklin is supposed to have said, "three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    6. Re:A new kind of imbecile by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Have you never seen any hollywood movie? Once the bad guys download your data, it's gone from yours!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    7. Re:A new kind of imbecile by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 0

      If it's abandonware, how can it still be copyright infringement?

      Abandonware means there's no owner anymore so there's nobody to "steal" from.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    8. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I used to pirate FLAC albums. There is a lot of value in having a rarity to trade. In fact, I would guess that there are many people out there that only trade rare for rare. It sounds selfish (because unlike a dollar bill, copying a file leaves the original), but it's an economy. It sounds like this guy had REALLY rare stuff and didn't want to lose that commodity.

    9. Re:A new kind of imbecile by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      Abandonware means there's no owner anymore so there's nobody to "steal" from.

      No, abandonware is IGNORED (as in: not supported) by its owner. If the owner suddenly sees some money to be made from it, he'll start paying attention....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    10. Re:A new kind of imbecile by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Culturally, Japanese will be outwardly humble. Bragging about your collection to the public would be in bad taste.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    11. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is no such legal category as abandonware. It's only an ethical categorization.

    12. Re:A new kind of imbecile by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      As Ben Franklin is supposed to have said, "three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

      They're using a broken model. The right way to do it is to upload it to someplace that doesn't lead back to you, and then never touch it again. Then it doesn't require you to try to keep secrets, which have a way of being told (as this story illustrates.)

      It's both a selfish model, and an unrealistic one.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    13. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What kind of virgin feels proud of this?

      Appeal to sexual experience fallacy. Comment ignored.

    14. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Megane · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At least this one had copied them from the original media. There are collectors with games on actual physical EPROMs who refuse to have them dumped at all. Bit rot is a thing, eventually after enough time the charge will leak away and the chip will erase itself bit by bit. It just takes longer without being exposed to light. CD-Rs also have similar degradation with time. They would rather sleep on their dragons hoard while the actual game vanishes and becomes almost worthless, than take the chance that someone else having a soft copy of it might cause more than a penny of its value to vanish.

      And I say this as someone who has found at least one game that nobody else has ever found, and I dumped and shared that sucker right away.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    15. Re:A new kind of imbecile by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      So what do you call something which no longer has an owner?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    16. Re:A new kind of imbecile by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Piracy is massive in Japan, just like everywhere else. In fact their ultra high speed internet connections are perfect for it.

      There used to be magazines on sale in major book shops that were nothing but 100 pages of how to pirate stuff. Lists of web sites, translations of the word "download" into Chinese, Korean and English, how to set up various P2P apps, how to avoid malware and scams... I think I still have one somewhere, I should scan it.

      The main worry is getting caught, which would be extremely embarrassing. Hence the desire to use anonymous P2P systems, coupled with high upload speeds making them feasible. This was back in the early 2000s. In the west a lot of downloaders feel the same way, but use VPNs to achieve the same result.

      The industry has largely moved away from going after individuals though. There is little legal basis for doing so under Japanese civil law anyway, and a few cases where the police became involved ended up being PR disasters for the copyright owners. They have instead turned to site blocking court orders, similar to misguided media companies in the west. In fact only a few weeks ago one of the biggest pirate manga sites (using BitTorrent) was blocked on the country's largest ISP.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    17. Re:A new kind of imbecile by tepples · · Score: 1

      I imagine the exact name for such works depends on the exact chain of facts that led to a work's no longer having an owner.

    18. Re:A new kind of imbecile by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      Because copyright as it currently exists is fucking stupid.

    19. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

      also old arcade games have batterys that can leak out and destroy the boards.

    20. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > You have to be a whole category of imbecile to keep "private" collections of ROMs.

      A lot of collectors sorta have this mentality. It's not super common across any actual community of people who do something that involves collection (emulation, magic the gathering), but it seems that way among the hardcore collectors.

      The idea is that there's a few prizes that are withheld from public knowledge or consumption and only reserved to the few that are all about it (and involve requisite standing within the community- note that the collector DID make it available to the rest of his elite peers) is reasonably common in there.

      >"Look at me, I'll die the last person to ever play this video game". What kind of virgin feels proud of this?

      Eh, I think it is more like "Look at US, we're the only people elite enough to have this experience together, the less dedicated will never even understand how awesome this mutual experience is because they will never have it."

      When viewed from the lens of "this community", it should make more sense. It's still pretty obsessive though.

    21. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's abandonware, how can it still be copyright infringement?

      Abandonware means there's no owner anymore so there's nobody to "steal" from.

      Abandonware doesn't mean nobody owns it. It means the people who do own it are doing nothing with it, but that doesn't make you entitled to it.

      No longer actively marketed or sold doesn't equate to "no owner therefore mine for the taking".

      Rest assureds, someone still owns it, and owns the copyright to it ... and you can still get into shit for distributing it.

    22. Re:A new kind of imbecile by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      The piracy argument is bullshit in this context.

      We are losing our digital heritage and culture due to some idiotic blind worship to "It's the law" excuse. If a game is no longer being commercially sold it should revert to the public domain. And I say this as a game developer who has shipped around a dozen games.

      Instead we get some collector (hoarder) trying to maintain an artificial monopoly on a digital supply.

      In the Apple 2 world some of these games would be completely lost were it not for the crackers removing the copy protection

      The law, like most computer laws, is out of touch with reality.

    23. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Japan is the country where you can rent CDs and buy CD-r in the same store.

    24. Re:A new kind of imbecile by houghi · · Score: 1

      Imaginary (Well, for code for the next foreseeable future + 70 years)
      The original owner would have been able to give it to somebody (e.g. a company or to the public) If he did not, he is still the owner, even if you can not find him.
      If he died, it will have gone to the people that inherited the rest of his stuff. So most likely kids, parents, siblings or the state.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    25. Re:A new kind of imbecile by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

      No, what is bullshit is people like you thinking you're entitled by divine right to the work of others.

      If someone produces something, and decides not to release it, for whatever reason, that does not entitle you to have access to it. The same goes even if it was released. It's not yours, you're not entitled to it, nor is the public entitled to it.

      You claim to be a game developer but don't understand this simple concept. If you didn't produce it, it's not yours. End of discussion.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    26. Re:A new kind of imbecile by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      Says a person that has never made anything of consequence in his life.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    27. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So when will we start taxing copyright holders to fund their legal protections and law enforcement??

    28. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, are the other forum members retarded? Can't they download the folder themselves in full and repost?

      I too was confused by that. But then I continued reading TFS and discovered this bit:

      According to a screenshot uploaded by Saint, the private collector threatened to pull the entire folder of content from the directory and stop uploading games altogether if anyone leaked Labyrinthe.

      So yeah, maybe read the entire thing before commenting next time?

    29. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Copyright violation is not piracy. Larceny is not murder. Loitering is not tax evasion. Speeding is not vandalism. Violence against a minor is not fraud. It's okay to call crimes what they really are.

    30. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, these games are actually widowed and need all the support and attention we can give.

    31. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the same infantile behavior seen among those who collect audience recordings of music ("bootleg" recordings). There are those who love the thrill of having the only known copy Wes Montgomery rehearsing never-published jazz tunes, or Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney playing Beatles songs, etc. (I'm making up those examples, just to get the point across.)

      In the publishing world, it's akin to having the only known copy of a never-published book by a famous author.

      I do not understand this.

    32. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Linsaran · · Score: 1

      Absolutely correct, although I'd like to add to this that many cases of abandon-ware are situations where it's unclear who owns it. Generally I'd say the risk of repercussions of sharing abandon-ware is low; and ethically I think it is a moral imperative to share such content for the sake of our shared digital heritage.

      --
      In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
    33. Re:A new kind of imbecile by samwichse · · Score: 1

      What game was that?

    34. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not new. In the 90s we already had a name for that kind. They were called "ROM Hoarders"

      The problem stems from the difficulty/expense of obtaining the original and the expertize/risk(of destroying the original in the process) of dumping the ROMs.

      Obviously, rarely the owner end dumper were the same person. There were owners that would lend the original to the dumper on the condition that the files would not be released to the public, thus the ROM hoarder type was born.

    35. Re:A new kind of imbecile by cellocgw · · Score: 1

      Considering the number of so-called "private collectors" of fine art who happily buy stolen paintings or sculptures valued in the millions, then store them in secret vaults, I'm not in the least surprised that there are similar assholes in the software world.

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    36. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, but "Copyright violator bay" sounds weird.

    37. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Copyright is a left over dangerous relic from a time when women were considered property.

    38. Re:A new kind of imbecile by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      If it's abandonware, how can it still be copyright infringement?

      There probably aren't very many legal examples of abandonware. The way copyright law works in many countries, at least in the 21st century, is that a work doesn't passively cease to be covered. You may not know who owns it anymore, but that doesn't mean it is abandoned.

      Abandonware means there's no owner anymore so there's nobody to "steal" from.

      When businesses go under, their assets are purchases. Theoretically the rights to all works gets transferred somewhere along the way, and it is horribly complicated in my opinion. Also when a person dies, their estate gets the right unless their will explicitly says otherwise. You can be fairly certain that nearly everything has a legal owner these days, even if that owner is inactive or difficult to track down.

      Now I'd like to say that I'm not happy with the current situation. I think it's ridiculous that you can come up with an idea and then benefit from a government protected monopoly for a hundred years. We literally send paramilitary police forces into people's homes for copyright violation. Copyright violation is something that I consider to be more appropriately handled as a civil case rather than equivalent to an armed police raid against a violent criminal.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    39. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You said "entitled", the magic word that shows your self-righteous attitude and makes anything in your post irrelevant.

    40. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Commander Keen.

    41. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember using WinMX and there was no problem finding every Japanese game under the sun.

    42. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the positive, there is some collaboration with collectors to safely retrieve information. Recently with the rare N64DD carts, and the on going rare chips in the arcade world with the caps0ff team!

    43. Re:A new kind of imbecile by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > what is bullshit is people like you thinking you're entitled by divine right to the work of others.

      Uhm, Hello McFly. Why do books enter the public domain after artificial copyright expires?

      > If you didn't produce it, it's not yours.

      Except we have 200+ years of copyright that shows you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

    44. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      That is one of the moral arguments behind requiring registration (with a fee) for copyrighted works. The counterpoint is that copyrights are something that is justified by default, and it's only the enforcement that the government provides. As with other enforcement, it should be funded from the general treasury.

      It boils down to whether "certain works" or "all works" are expected to be copyrighted, and in turn that becomes a debate between whether "certain people" or "all people" can afford to produce protected works. While it's tempting to support charging Disney for every new book, movie, or character they spew out, the same laws would impact every new version of open-source software, every author's latest short story, and every photographer's perfect shot. It would be a poetic injustice to fight commercialized art by forcing all art to be commercialized.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    45. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Ah, but that destroys the value in collecting such a thing in the first place. If indeed these games were considered completely lost, then finding a new copy to sell somewhere would be quite valuable indeed.

      Sure, it's a selfish model, but capitalist economies kinda work that way.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    46. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Lanthanide · · Score: 1

      There are cases when even the people who own it, aren't sure who actually owns it.

      One case is No One Lives Forever, and old critically acclaimed game. There is a company who resurrects old games and gets them to run on modern OSes who wanted to resurrect NOLF. The publisher couldn't work out which companies and individuals actually owned the property, and didn't consider it important enough to bother doing the legal archeology to find out, and so NOLF is now in abandonware - of the owners can't even be bothered to agree to 3rd party developers paying them money, it seems unlikely they'd ever try and asset Copyright against individuals.

    47. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is the same reason why my 486DX-33Mhz computer running a copy of OS/2 version 3.0 will be worth millions one day.

      Nathan

    48. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I imagine the exact name for such works depends on the exact chain of facts that led to a work's no longer having an owner.

      Murderware?

    49. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dude, calm down, maybe his waifu is in that game or in that folder, maybe he doesnt want others to jerk to her extra thicc 2 dimensional titties

      that could be the reason

    50. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a certain appeal to being one of a small group with secrets. For a game collector, it's not about being the last to ever play the game, but simply to have something that nobody else does. That's why "collectibles" are numbered and often have limited production runs. That rarity is what the collectors value, not necessarily the game itself. That's also why having collections in unopened boxes is valued - being unopened is a rare feature that can't be restored once lost.

      There is also a certain appeal to finding a small group with secrets and then putting their precious fucking secrets to the torch. Wakanda's time is coming.

    51. Re:A new kind of imbecile by fafalone · · Score: 4, Informative

      The entire concept of copyright is to grant limited protection in pursuit of enhancing the public domain. Creators rights are balanced with the rights of the public; it's not for their exclusive benefit to do whatever they want in perpetuity (or at least that wasn't the original intent). The trade-off that if they're not selling it, it loses protection, is entirely in line with the purpose of creating an economic incentive to *create*. Copyright maximalists like you are wallowing in unmitigated greed. If you're done realizing the economic benefit of the limited protection of copyright, damn right the public domain is morally entitled to that work, especially if it's older than 28 years (which the games here most are), even if corrupt legislators have allowed the original limited term to be changed to effectively unlimited.

    52. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Sarten-X · · Score: 1

      Potentially. We have some folks paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for other peoples' old trash, just because they say it's "the archaeological find of the century".

      I understand those sort of folks also say things like "that belongs in a museum" and "no ticket".

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    53. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I was a young adult, I was part a group that administered a forum that controlled a serious secret list involving big $ transactions that had to be protected from public knowledge, since public knowledge all but guaranteed police involvement and long sentences. Good god did we ever have fun picking and choosing who got invited and what they had to do to get in. Even made agreements with topic-related public forum admins to let them in the club if they kept the secret info off their sites and identified posters. It was a whole lot of fun when I was a lot less mature; and that was certainly the driving force behind it, though we certainly claimed the legal risks to us were it.

      (No this wasn't anything evil like cp; it was, in the days long before Tor existed, the list of contact points for people who sold the most restricted drugs like opiates and amphetamines, and sometimes street drugs, over the internet; they needed to be kept under wraps from the normal internet pharmacy forums that had normal places selling less restricted items. And not scams either; all verified to deliver)

    54. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      It is understandable that collectors want to keep a low profile.

      "Collectors" or "pirates"?

    55. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >If you didn't produce it, it's not yours. End of discussion.
      *laughs in Acquisition*
      *vulgarly insults in Inheritance*

      >and decides not to
      so, a living person on top of being someone actively not abandoning

      Bullshit is people like you thinking you're entitled by divine right to the imaginary control of an "original" rope knot (also an imaginary construct) everywhere in the universe at once, forever.

    56. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the annals of copyright, it is called an "orphan work."

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_work

    57. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why "collectibles" are numbered and often have limited production runs.

      Like those hideous "limited edition" collector plates with the pictures of kittens and flowers and more kittens and possibly a royal or two all in some genuinely awful shade of fuscia? The ones which, ironically, will be worth a lot less than the plates so common now that we barely register their existence and will toss in a few years but will, in 25 years or so, "define" the 2010s and hence trigger the whole retro/nostalgia/must-have-now-at-any-price response in susceptible individuals?

    58. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummm... I know you're joking, but having just sold a late 80s computer (microbee) on ebay for over $1000... well, you might want to keep an open mind.

    59. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      I disagree. Copyright is a temporary exception to the default, which is the public domain. I'm all for people being able to make money on their creations. I'm not particularly happy with the current version that sets terms much longer than historical ones. I think there's a gigantic gaping hole in the concept when it comes to abandonware and other similar issues.

      When copyright was 12-24 years and applied to physical media, odds were good anything interesting could be still around after it expired to be reissued or reproduced if there was demand. Working from the current 95-year system, it is extremely easy for even interesting things to be lost to the ages by the time copyright expires. Nowhere is this issue more apparent than in computing, where the pace of technology is such that products generally become stale within the span of years, and often nonfunctional in less than a decade. Copyright is making it somewhere between difficult and impossible to preserve some of these efforts, and if there's going to be a chance of my grandchildren experiencing part of the computer world that I lived through, the only way that can happen is through illegal means. Remember that illegal is not necessarily unethical, and in the case of archivists, I'd say my sympathies lie with them, and against the law.

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    60. Re:A new kind of imbecile by sixsixtysix · · Score: 1

      Once something is published, availability should be a requirement of copyright, especially in this digital age.
      Artificial scarcity is the enemy of the consumer.

      --
      ...
    61. Re:A new kind of imbecile by blahplusplus · · Score: 1

      No matter how old lost and abandoned these games are, sharing the ROMs is still piracy.

      Like the law matters when it's bought and paid for by corporate shills. You really need to stop sucking corporate cock and start to get a clue. IP wasn't there to grant eternal property rights to destroy human culture. It was there so human cultural works like games and books would eventually become public domain and go into libraries. So "It's still piracy" brigade can go get fucked until public domain and reasonable IP law is restored instead of out of control eternal copyrights (aka nothing ever passes into public domain in a reasonable amount of time).

      So when videogames people paid for start going into libraries like what the constitution says if you are from the US, then we can take your claims about piracy seriously. Until then disobeying unjust laws written by corporate lobbyists for the benefit of their criminal friends on wall street is laughable. Software licensing as applied to games was always a scam because games are used and are products. The whole concept was invented by a bunch of corporate lobbyists.

    62. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep licking the Man's boots.

    63. Re:A new kind of imbecile by dinfinity · · Score: 1

      E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

    64. Re:A new kind of imbecile by BillTheKatt · · Score: 1

      My kingdom for mod points!

    65. Re:A new kind of imbecile by sd4f · · Score: 1

      For most of copyright history, infringement was a civil matter, where the owner had to take the infringer to court for damages. It's only recently where governments have taken it upon themselves to turn it into a criminal matter and create exorbitant statutory damages. I guess money talks...

    66. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Megane · · Score: 1

      Technically it wasn't a game, but it ran on a Vectrex. It was a coin-operated "color choices reveal your personality" kiosk, which amazingly was 32K, most of it tl;dr ASCII text displayed in raster mode.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    67. Re:A new kind of imbecile by novakyu · · Score: 1

      It's called "public domain." We are about to get some of it back soon.

    68. Re: A new kind of imbecile by novakyu · · Score: 1

      No, orphan work is just a synonym for abandonware ("abandonware" being a more software-specific term). You are looking for "public domain."

    69. Re:A new kind of imbecile by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      That is one of the moral arguments behind requiring registration (with a fee) for copyrighted works. The counterpoint is that copyrights are something that is justified by default, and it's only the enforcement that the government provides.

      The seemingly obvious answer is to provide copyright protection for a short term for free, and for longer periods with registration. Am I missing something? I mean, putting aside human greed and the lobbying power of the mouse, of course.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    70. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be a biggest form of brain dead. It says right in the /. post that if people share these games with OTHERS (not in the PRIVATE FORUM) that he won't post any MORE!!!

    71. Re:A new kind of imbecile by ComputersKai · · Score: 1

      That's also why having collections in unopened boxes is valued - being unopened is a rare feature that can't be restored once lost

      This is actually a thing?
      Maybe someone should create a product with the same packaging, but filled with the equivalent mass in sand. If it's not going to do anything except sitting around and looking pretty, maybe it might as well be something that doesn't end up as another polluting plastic gizmo.

    72. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >What kind of virgin feels proud of this?

      A typical /. Millennial.

    73. Re: A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a company who resurrects old games and gets them to run on modern OSes who wanted to resurrect NOLF.

      That's Nightdive Studios. About NOLF, from their wiki:

      they had indeed been working on trying to acquire the publishing rights for both No One Lives Forever and its sequel, to the point where they had the original source code to construct a remake of the title, but could not get the three companies with stake in the games' IP, Activision, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros., to negotiate the rights

    74. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Cederic · · Score: 1

      The .com and .org are both available though.

      Could be tricky though arguing in court that the primary purpose of the site is the sharing of Linux distributions.

    75. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Although in this case wider dissemination of digital media previously thought lost forever is a great way to prevent anybody torching it forever in the future.

    76. Re:A new kind of imbecile by koomba · · Score: 1

      2D > 3D for sub8 genetic failures with negative kanthal tilt, fivehead who lost genetic lottery. Let them keep their 2D goddesses because everyone knows the government will soon start rounding them up for execution, have some sympathy!

    77. Re:A new kind of imbecile by LocalH · · Score: 1

      Those wishing to preserve games for future generations are entitled?

      --
      FC Closer
    78. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yup, capcom cps2 boards are guilty of this. the roms are encrypted and the decryption key is in limbo with a 3.3 volt battery.

    79. Re:A new kind of imbecile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For all non-ancient works, there's generally no such thing as "no longer has an owner" but instead "no longer has a clearly identifiable owner", i.e. orphan works. For example, there are literary works where the inheritance issues of their rights have not been resolved. In this case, you may be prohibited to do stuff without the permission of the owner, and since you can't easily determine who the current owner is, you're unable to gain permission - so that's it, no one can do it until the heirs care enough to resolve it, which might never happen.

      The same applies for corporate-owned rights, where after a series of mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy sales of rights, etc it may be unclear who the current owner is, making it clear is expensive, and so no one will bother unless the expected revenue from these rights is significant enough.

  4. This article needs a minor fix. by bistromath007 · · Score: 0

    The correct term for a private collector of things with no monetary value is "asshole."

    1. Re:This article needs a minor fix. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The correct term for a private collector of things with no monetary value is "asshole."

      So, my collection of fridge magnets from everywhere I've ever been makes me an asshole?

      Sorry, you're a moron.

    2. Re: This article needs a minor fix. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Know, your an moron!

    3. Re:This article needs a minor fix. by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      The correct term for a private collector of things with no monetary value is "asshole."

      Actually, we do actually have a correct term for them, and it is hoarder. We make television shows so that we can point and laugh at these people.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re: This article needs a minor fix. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Hey you guys! Look at my name and do that!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    5. Re:This article needs a minor fix. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference between a "hoarder" and a "collector" is the collector has enough money and space for their items. Kinda like the difference between "crazy" and "eccentric". If you're rich you're eccentric. If you're poor you're just crazy.

    6. Re: This article needs a minor fix. by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      What is a Moran?

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    7. Re: This article needs a minor fix. by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  5. ROMs? by rossdee · · Score: 0

    Since when were PC games on ROM ?

    Of course its probably am error in translation

    1. Re: ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      DVD and CD are ROM.

    2. Re:ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CD-ROM?

    3. Re:ROMs? by eggstasy · · Score: 1

      It's not hard to put a PC game in a folder that otherwise consists of 67 GB of ROMs. I imagine a Japanese game collection could mostly consist of old-school console ROMs with some PC games in the mix.

    4. Re:ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      rossdee you fucking moron.. .you just pwned so god damn hard. this is like comment raped in your asshole till its a loose purple distended flopping hole. you god damn fucking idiot.

    5. Re: ROMs? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 0

      They're read-only, but they're not classified as memory.

      Memory has data and address lines.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re:ROMs? by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Informative

      In the world of game emulation, the binaries are known as "ROMs", regardless of their original medium.

      The term originates as "ROM dumps", which is exactly what you'd expect - extracted contents of the ROM from old console systems and cartridges. Notably, that's the part that is actually covered by copyright laws, with the actual execution details (originally in coprocessors, and now handled by the emulator itself) more often covered by patents, trade secrets, and simple secrecy.

      As distribution technology has progressed such that games no longer have their data on read-only memory, and more importantly as those games have entered the emulation scene, the term hasn't changed. Now, "ROMs" include any game data not directly part of the emulation.

      It's worth noting that legally there is very little risk from developing or distributing an emulator, but significant risk in distributing the ROM data. There have actually been some open-source or public-domain ROMs produced from scratch, but of course the biggest trade in them is in redistributing commercial software.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    7. Re: ROMs? by Wulf2k · · Score: 1

      My DVD-ROM and CD-ROM will be upset to learn that they've been mislabeled all these years.

    8. Re: ROMs? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

      Me am a moran.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    9. Re:ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PC Jr had cartridge slot?

    10. Re:ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I imagine a Japanese game collection could mostly consist of old-school console ROMs with some PC games in the mix.

      No no no. You clearly don't know much about japanese culture. Most of those 67GB would be dating and rape simulators, with some JRPG in the mix.

    11. Re: ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      u r

    12. Re: ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're read-only, but they're not classified as memory.

      So you're saying that they don't store data?

    13. Re:ROMs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the world of game emulation, the binaries are known as "ROMs", regardless of their original medium.

      And that's kind of confusing.

      I recently started exploring the PC-98-era games, and the first game I chanced upon was called a "ROM" by someone.

      Later on, I learnt that the "ROM" was actually a hard disk image, with a bare installation of DOS on it and an autoexec.bat that booted straight to the game.

  6. Linux port? by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

    Just had to ask.

    --
    http://www.acetonestudio.com
    1. Re:Linux port? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the front. The Windows port is up the rear.

  7. Just reupload it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fear that the private collector would take down the folder

    Really? What's so hard about download the whole archive first and reuploading it to a public tracker, or MEGA, or any other file sharing method? It's not like that collector owns the rights to these games.

    1. Re:Just reupload it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the cache is mirrored simply by someone downloading it
      but yes, local stores aside also mirrored publicly
      not sure what kind of stupid wrote that noise
      maybe they think killing the first zombie cures all the others

  8. Lots of morons on /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Since when were PC games on ROM ? - rossdee
    DVD and CD are ROM. - Anonymous Coward - this is the best kind of pwnage because it's so fucking obvious

    The correct term for a private collector of things with no monetary value is "asshole." - bistromath007
    I guess most moms are assholes too, since most of them collect shit from their children that have no monetary value... for them the value is sentimental.

    You have to be a whole category of imbecile to keep "private" collections of ROMs. - hjf
    If it's not publicly available its ... "private". The vast majority of data people have is private. You have to be a whole category of stupid to think your point was even remotely valid.

    Seems slashdot is full of retards that just want to screech about stupid shit. You people are fucking garbage, your points are stupid as fuck and anyone that's spent even a second reading your retardation is worse off for it.

  9. Re:Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck the common good! Extend copyright and patents to 10000 years!

  10. When by dohzer · · Score: 2

    When were these ROMs developed and lost?! How long were they lost for?! Key information left out of the summary!

    1. Re:When by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The game mentioned in the summary (Labyrinthe) was released in 1998.

      The others I don't know of.

      Not NEC PC-98 era long lost, but still pretty old.

    2. Re:When by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

      From what I gathered, the ROMs were developed in a dark room in 1830, lost around 1945 and then found again last week in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard".

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    3. Re:When by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I don't think these games were really "lost", just not dumped by anyone else yet. The first one, Labyrinthe, is a PC CD-ROM game and is actually listed on Amazon. Copies appear on auction sites from time to time. I wouldn't be surprised if a copy was available on the Perfect Dark P2P platform, but no-one on this forum bothered to check.

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

    "This hesitation demonstrates the often tense relationship between game preservationists and private collectors." I'm sure I'm a out of the loop idiot on this topic but really? There is "often" a "tense relationship". Exactly how often, twice in history? How many private collectors of games are out there and what exactly are they collecting? If they have pirated the software initially they won't have the rights to take it down anyway. I'm totally confused and this seems like someone wrote an article to create something rather than report on something.

    --
    Sent from my TARDIS
    1. Re:Tense relationship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually see this a lot with old video game collectors and roms. They're fearful of the value of the 10,000 dollar rare game unreleased prototypes they bought suddenly becoming worthless just because a rom of it got relaeased.

      The game collectors like that look at their collection like an investment. And view rom dumping as something that will greatly devalue it. So you can bet they'll be as negative and hostile as possible when people try to release a rom of something they have.

    2. Re:Tense relationship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The guy updating thief and system shock 2 obviously has the source code and doesn't seem to be eager to share. Can you think of any reasons why that might be? The original source would be of great historical interest.

  12. Incoming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Incoming DMCA letter!

    "You don't have rights to this property!"

    Obviously, he is stealing income from the rightful rights holder (who just lost the actual data...).

  13. If Only I Could Read Japanese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Turn it, I can. I am right now. Imagine that.

  14. Re:Filthy Pirates by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    There should be a law that if the original publisher no longer exists their titles should be released as public domain.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  15. not just about what was shared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If he has access to these roms he probably has other rare titles that he won't share now.

  16. Nobody is asking the right question by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    How many of these games are hentai pr0n and where can we get our hands on them?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  17. Re: Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Finally. This guy gets it.

    These works were created for profit, not some fairytale common good pipe dream.

  18. Rare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These must be top notch games for them to be rare, particularly when taking the cost of copying 1s and 0s into account.

  19. some assholes like to quote copyright law when ask by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    some assholes like to quote copyright law when asked to dump them.

    I asked some one on youtube about dumping an old and rare (now days) arcade game I think it was pc based and they wrote back with an copyright law quote. And other guy with an rare undumped prototype game roms (the full game was made but the prototype has different things in it) said they have to ask there boss about it.

  20. Re:Filthy Pirates by The+Fat+Bastard · · Score: 1

    Who makes that determination? The Atari IP porfolio has floated around the industry for years as it was bought and sold by different video game companies. The current version of Atari has nothing to do with the origianl Atari of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

  21. what about right to repair? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    Say I own the game but need the rom images / HDD image to fix it?

  22. and when the roms bit rot or the HDD fails?? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and when the roms bit rot or the HDD fails?? Without an dump they are dead.

    well they should not get full rights to sue someone for redistributing the games. As when redistributing = just giving out an restore image that still needs the arcade hardware to run.

    1. Re:and when the roms bit rot or the HDD fails?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The collector has a right - one might argue the responsibility - to maintain (a) backup(s) of rare items so the inevitable failure of some storage device doesn't destroy the code forever. Really, it's the publisher's responsibility to do that, but if the publisher actively abandons the product and destroys the code somebody else who legitimately has a copy can keep it viable. OTOH there's copyright - but if somebody legitimately has a copy I don't see where copyright can allow the publisher to compel destruction of the legitimate copy, unless of course there's something in the TOS or contract along those lines (e.g. the way Amazon can reach into your computer and delete e-books even if you've paid for them). Redistribution is another matter: the collector has the right to keep their copy, but not to make (or allow to be made) more for others until many decades have passed. So I do see a copyright issue with these ROMs being visible at a public site, even if accidentally. If they were actually on a private site that was accessed by hacking, it becomes a discussion of whether adequate security was in place (if not, the collector might still have copyright exposure) or whether true theft has occurred (in which case the collector's position is ambiguous but the thief's is not).

  23. The collection isn't special if everyone has it by skam240 · · Score: 2

    It's the collector's mind set in action. While this person is the only / one of the few people to have these ROMs, their collection is special and unique. Once everyone has access to the ROM there's nothing special about their collection any more.

    I get the mindset a bit as this person likely went through a bit of trouble to get these ROMs but ultimately I agree with you that it's pretty petty.

    --
    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
  24. It's got nothing to do with pride by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    you use rare games in your collection to trade for rare games in other people's production.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  25. BS on that one buddy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I got my B.S. in game preservation

  26. "Pirating" is good-the "owners" are lousy stewards by Catbeller · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Jerry Pournelle, the late science fiction author, said on a TWIT podcast that his publishers had, really! lost a number of his books that had not been in print for many years. Libraries didn't have the books, NO ONE had the books. But, TA-DA, book scanning "pirates" *had* scanned the books and gladly zapped him the copies, which he put back on sale and were making him a nice bit of income.

  27. And. by ledow · · Score: 2

    Invariably, they will be the worst games ever, with literally nothing going for them, and then people realise why they were so "rare" (unpopular) in the first place.

    I've seen the same with everything from books to LPs to consoles to games to artworks to collectibles.

    I get the preservation angle.
    I get the "all the games from my youth" angle (I'm pretty sure I have them all still, emulated or real).
    I even get the "my dad says this was the greatest game ever in his youth, so I want to play it like he did" angle.

    But I will never get the "gotta catch 'em all" angle.

    A friend of mine paid for fortune pre-Internet for a copy of Geoffrey Trease's The Black Banner Players. It was rumoured so rare that even the author couldn't get a copy for himself, and they were changing hands for thousands of GBP (now you can get a paperback for "only" a couple of hundred GBP or a hardback for twice that).

    He managed to find a copy. He read it. He sold it. He says it's one of the worst books he's ever read, and the worst of all the Banner series.

    That said, I am still trying to track down a game from my SNES days that was about flying a little biplane. No it wasn't pilotwings. The problem is that I just don't know the name. It wasn't very good at all, but it would just bring back memories to play it. I certainly wouldn't pay more than a couple of quid for it.

    1. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not much to go on, but is it Wings 2? If not, and it's bothering you enough to go to Reddit, someone on TipOfMyJoystick might know (yes, stupid goddamn name, but the only other place I've seen with this kind of help is scattered /v/ threads.)

    2. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Is this it?

      You didn't give much information.

      I wouldn't expect you to have any trouble identifying this one but felt I'd mention it anyway.

    3. Re:And. by AlexeyVolkov · · Score: 1

      You can find a lot of old games on the network, but they are mostly archived in such formats that the computer can not open them. The benefit of using the site here https://wikiext.com/ have solved this problem.

    4. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Aerofighters, mate. Prepare to have your wallet disemboweled.

    5. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're thinking of Wings2, it was fun enough.

    6. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wings 2? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_2:_Aces_High

    7. Re:And. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      rocketeer

      first level is racing biplanes

  28. Re:"Pirating" is good-the "owners" are lousy stewa by ledow · · Score: 1

    I know a guy who's published about 30+ books sold in a multitude of languages for the last 30 years.

    His publishers used to be in the WTC (he was scheduled to visit them on Sept 11!).

    Since then he's taken to self-publishing them all again, which he says keeps him ticking over in terms of pocket money. At least one of them he had to a copy from someone else, having lost the manuscript, and type it back in again.

    He's taken the opportunity to reformat, reflow, re-edit etc. and sell them as Kindle versions, but at least one book would have been gone if he'd left it much longer.

  29. Copyright is a Privilege by FeelGood314 · · Score: 1

    It is something that society grants the creator of a work but there is an expectation that the work enters the public domain after the copyright expires.

    Any entity that loses the ability to distribute the work in a meaningful way should immediately lose the copyright. So the BBC should no longer have copyright on the Doctor Who episodes they lost. Any game made for a now obsolete system that wasn't ported to a newer system should now be public domain. And copyright should be for 5 to 10 years. That is all the time that should be needed to motivate people to create content. Anything longer than that is just hording.

  30. Wonder if they got Polybius by spiritplumber · · Score: 1

    meow.

    --
    Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
    1. Re:Wonder if they got Polybius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      choke on a dick

  31. Hoarding fetishists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's a lot of unpublished games in the world and most of them incomplete and almost all of them are, objectively, shitty videogame experiences.

    I say this as a person who wrote a bunch of games in the 80s & 90's (some of them lost! woe!) and worked in the trenches for a games publisher.

    You might as well go in the app store, find the 20 least-popular clones of whatever's making money this week and hold them aloft as examples of unappreciated folk art.

    Has anyone actually played (say) an Atari VCS game recently? They're not very good.

  32. Re: Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It makes that determination. Read what he wrote Chris.

    If the ORIGINAL publisher. Therefore all old Atari games should be public domain.

    God damn Chris, even you can't be that stupid. Who am I kidding. You are.

  33. Re: Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dave's not here man.

  34. Re:Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure atari reimer, the DMCA is on its way...

    MODDOWN! ; creimer sock puppet post again!

    creimer's child bride retired military buddy suggested to him to "hide in plain site" so creimer picked up "The Fat Bastard" as his new sock puppet user name!

  35. Re:Filthy Pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Chris, my team has just updated me with your new contact info. It is nice to hear from you again and to see that you have managed to get a new Slashdot account.

    *** Chris, contact me ASAP please. I have AI click bots that don't get detected by youtube algorythm! :) -2 subscribers and 10 views a day for you is sad.. -love granny XX ***

    Dear Team Creimer,

    I just noticed that the Humpty-Dumpty video has 435+ millions views, that should make you salivate!

    I have plenty of ideas to make the views on your own youtube channel skyrocket but you didn't contact me yet. Is it because I am a lady? Ethell says that you are sexist but I hope it isn't true.

    Anyway, I will give you a free hint anyway: Dress-up as Humpty in your videos, you shouldn't need that much makeup making this a money saving situation in your own case.

    My YouTube channel has 222K subscribers and many videos with hundreds of thousands of views:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Now, with some slight adjustments, I think that together, we could make the view count skyrocket on your very own Team Creimer youtube channel :)

    Please feel confident to contact me if you want me to coach you, we aren't living so far away from each other so we could even easily meet.

    Love XX,

    --
    -Granny

  36. Re:"Pirating" is good-the "owners" are lousy stewa by Mips+the+Cat · · Score: 1

    About Pournelle's work: some crazy non published books collector could release the conclusion of the Janissaries series, that was left unconclude due to his demise. Just kiding, but someone could finnish the book, it's a serious scar in my bookshelf.

  37. Wrong on so Many Levels by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No matter how old lost and abandoned these games are, sharing the ROMs is still piracy.

    Sharing the ROMs is possibly copyright infringement, not piracy. Piracy involves hijacking, robbery, murder, etc, on the high seas.

    If nobody comes forward to claim copyright infringement, then the shared ROMs are abandonware.

    Due to the international abuse and manipulation of copyright law to extend rights indefinitely, the ROMs probably should be considered public domain by any "reasonable person".

    If the binaries are all that is left, then the codebase is a dead end. This is the ultimate fate of all proprietary software.

  38. Re:Waaah shit is haaaard! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Jesus, I can tell you have a shit job.

    Look. There are these people called Lawyers. They went to school. No, real school started AFTER highschool. Anyways, these people did that and now have real jobs doing real things like IP and Property Law, and they'll be able to take care of all your concerns. Now go back to killing vermin or whatever menial shit job you do, Cleetus.