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Nintendo To ROM Sites: Forget Cease-and-Desist, Now We're Suing (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nintendo's attitude toward ROM releases -- either original games' files or fan-made edits -- has often erred on the side of litigiousness. But in most cases, the game producer has settled on cease-and-desist orders or DMCA claims to protect its IP. This week saw the company grow bolder with its legal action, as Nintendo of America filed a lawsuit (PDF) on Thursday seeking millions in damages over classic games' files being served via websites. The Arizona suit, as reported by TorrentFreak, alleges "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property rights" by the sites LoveROMs and LoveRetro. These sites combine ROM downloads and in-browser emulators to deliver one-stop gaming access, and the lawsuit includes screenshots and interface explanations to demonstrate exactly how the sites' users can gain access to "thousands of [Nintendo] video games, related copyrighted works, and images." The biggest amount of money Nintendo is seeking comes from "$150,000 for the infringement of each Nintendo copyrighted work and up to $2,000,000 for the infringement of each Nintendo trademark." The company has also requested full disclosure of the operators' "receipts and disbursements, profit and loss statements, advertising revenue, donations and cryptocurrency revenue, and other financial materials."
LoveROMs has since removed all Nintendo-affiliated links, including ROMs and emulators, and the site announced on its social media channels that "all Nintendo titles have been removed from our site." Meanwhile, LoveRetro.co now redirects visitors to a page that reads: "Loveretro has effectively been shut down until further notice."
LoveROMs has since removed all Nintendo-affiliated links, including ROMs and emulators, and the site announced on its social media channels that "all Nintendo titles have been removed from our site." Meanwhile, LoveRetro.co now redirects visitors to a page that reads: "Loveretro has effectively been shut down until further notice."
Cool. So show us where we can purchase those ROMs legitimately.
Thanks.
Amazon has the Nintendo NES and SNES classic editions back in stock. That covers some of the ROMs. Beyond that, as annoying as it may be, they don't have to sell you anything, but still get to keep copyright control. So you can host ROMs or download ROMs, but risk legal trouble if you get caught. But you know all this already.
While I fully acknowledge and support an owner's copyrights, I also believe that in absence of clear, genuine use or capitalization upon a particular copyright, certain IP should enter the a "semi-public" domain wherein limited duration licensing to those copyrights may be sold on behalf of the holder.
Example: If Nintendo is still making money on "Pokemon" in general, good for them. However, if they don't find it financially viable to re-make the original GameBoy Pokemon games and thus choose not to make them available on modern platforms, people should be able to pay a fair value semi-public domain license to replicate or acquire those games for use on any platform. The license could be limited (1 year) and affordable ($2/year) with at least 50% of that licensing going to Nintendo with the remaining going to support this semi-public domain licensing system.
This would be better for everyone. Nintendo doesn't have to ramp up their lawyer pool to squeeze blood from stones (users and distributors of emulators and games) and those "stones" could pay their share in small amounts. Nintendo continues get to get paid and retain control while users get their games and don't get dragged to court.
The same could be done for books no longer in print (I have a couple I'd like to replace but cannot find anywhere) and movies that haven't made the transition to digital media. Hell, I'd happily pay a flat $0.50/DVD to be able to rip them and store them for my own convenient watching while being 100% certain that I can never be sued for having done so (instead of having to argue fair use in court).
You do realize that copyright law originally didn't exist indefinitely.. right? Blame the Disney's of the world for drawing it out indefinitely. The original copyright terms covered the author long enough to gain a decent living for his lifetime (and the lifetime of his family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... So many derivative works stand on the shoulders of the works that came before. Now as a culture, we are essentially locked into an endless cycle of large corporations sucking up ideas and "owning" them indefinitely.
"Let's plays" aren't "free advertising", they're a video of how the entire game plays. Once you've watched it, there's no point in buying the game. They're also blatantly illegal. The fact that Nintendo doesn't take them down entirely is Nintendo being nice to fans. "Let's plays" actively harm sales and everyone knows it.
Nintendo is certainly within their legal rights to do this, but I don't get the point of it as a business strategy.
Is the idea that if people can't get the ROMs anywhere they'll just play new games on the newer consoles? Those are completely different market segments. I don't see how that idea would work at all.
Is the idea that they're losing NES/SNES classic sales because people are getting the ROMs instead? That's the same kind of argument the MPAA/RIAA uses that never seems to work out in the real world.
It just seems like they're spending more money on litigation than they'll ever get back in sales from this. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's smart to do it.
Something being out of circulation does not give you the right to access it freely.
What if I do own the rom and I can't access the console anymore? Do I have a right to play the games I really like if I can play it on an emulator?
Is the rom media the license or is it the method of delivering the software?
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
First off, you can't rip a NES cartridge with a DVD drive. Second, I already paid (well, my mom paid) $50 for Super Mario 3 in 1990, so I have the legal right to download a ROM. Fuck Nintendo if they think I'm paying for the game *again*, not to mention $300 for a Switch or Wii or whatever console they decide to lock it to (PC Master Race). It's pathetic that they're actively selling 30 year old games from stone-age consoles for non-trivial amounts of money in the first place.
This shit is why you hoard data. Download things while you can and save them on a hard drive somewhere, because in 5 years when the corporatization of the internet is complete it will all be gone.
You shouldn't steal things that don't belong to you. No sympathy here.
Except big business stole the public domain and our right to own our software first long before idiots like you enable massive corporate corruption and lawlessness, but lets not let the facts out lobbyist bought IP law because of morons like you slide. The evidence is overwhelming, historically and politically illiterate people like you are useful idiots that allow robber barons to exist.
Lets look at the constitution:
Intellectual Property Clause. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for **limited times** to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Note it says limited times, not infinite times, it was never intended to grant a permanent private monopoly on human culture to giant corporations. Technically IP is owned by the public and since it is already owned by us we are not stealing since we are the ultimate owners of OUR IP. Intellectual property was a temporarily granted monopoly to encourage the preservation of human culture not the destruction of it.
If it wasn't for ignorant people like yourself governments of the world wouldn't be so corporately owned and corrupt.
George carlin said it best about humanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
How is depriving someone from income not theft? Don't give me the crap of "otherwise I wouldn't have bought it anyway", as you consumed it, therefore should have paid for it which would have given the creator income, or "but you cannot get it anymore", well most is still available secondhand, yes it might cost a lot and it isn't available all the time, but so are a lot of other products..