Nintendo's Offensive, Tragic, and Totally Legal Erasure of ROM Sites (vice.com)

"The damage that removing ROMs from the internet could do to video games as a whole is catastrophic." From a report: In July, Nintendo sued two popular ROM sites, LoveROMS and LoveRetro.co, for what it called "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property rights." Both sites have since shut down. On Wednesday, another big, 18-year-old ROM site, EmuParadise, said it would no longer be able to allow people to download old games due to "potentially disastrous consequences." Nintendo owns the intellectual property for its games, and when people pirate them instead of buying a Nintendo Super NES Classic Edition or a downloading a copy from one of its digital storefronts, it can argue it's losing money. According to Nintendo's official site, ROMs and video game emulation also represent "the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers," and "have the potential to significantly damage" tens of thousands of jobs. Even when a Nintendo game isn't for sale, it's still the company's intellectual property, and it can enforce its copyright if it wants.

But the damage that removing ROMs from the internet could do to video games as a whole is catastrophic. Many game developers and people who have otherwise made video games a major part of their lives, especially those who grew up in low-income households or outside a Western country, wouldn't have been inspired to take that path if it wasn't for ROMs. Entire chapters of video game history would be lost if ROMs and emulation didn't preserve games where publishers failed to. And perhaps most importantly, denying people access to ROMs makes the process of educating them in game development much more difficult, potentially hobbling future generations of video game makers.

Comments

Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[Anonymous Coward]

IP Protection laws need to be on a "use it or lose it" basis. If you're no longer producing or providing the ability to use an IP, you lose it to the public domain.

IP Protection laws are meant to protect profits derived from innovation. Once the innovation is finished and there are no more profits to protect, you're done.

That's the way it ought to be.

Re:Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[farble1670]

IP Protection laws need to be on a "use it or lose it" basis. If you're no longer producing or providing the ability to use an IP, you lose it to the public domain.

Agreed. What do you think is a better course of action to achieve that end?

1. Lobby lawmakers.
2. Play a bunch of games you downloaded and didn't pay for.

I'm guessing most freedom-fighters here opt for option 2.

Re: Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are actively working on it, the NEW work would be protected under copyright. The old stuff that isn't updated is not.

Re: Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[MightyYar]

What is this big fear of other people using your work? If you do almost any occupation, people are using your work. The idea is that you have time to make money from it, so you'll keep making work.

If you worked at Toyota, people would use your work. I make equipment for industry - literally so that other people can make tons of money making stuff that other people can use. It's GOOD when people use your work - it means you are doing something useful.

Re:Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Play a bunch of games you downloaded and didn't pay for.

I'm guessing most freedom-fighters here opt for option 2.

Civil disobedience can be very effective, espescially when practiced en masse.

Re: Need a "use it or lose it" IP policy

[NormalVisual]

Well I'm sorry cupcake, but that's exactly the opposite of why copyright exists. The idea is to allow you to benefit from your work for a LIMITED time, in order to encourage you to create other works, with the end result of enriching society as a whole when it eventually becomes public domain. If you want to say "screw society", then maybe society should return the favor and just do away with the idea of copyright altogether, hmm? It's a right that SOCIETY grants to you, not a natural right.

Re: Complicit

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

And that's OK. If you don't have your own copy of Nintendo's entire library yet (and copied across multiple locations) then shame on you. And if you're one of the folks who wakes up and wants to build a Raspberry Pi ROM machine in two years, it will still be as easy as downloading Game of Thrones (i.e. trivial for anyone on SlashDot).

What Nintendo deserves

[hcs_$reboot]

is a global boycott.

why can't we just buy the rom? and not be forced t

[Joe_Dragon]

why can't we just buy the rom? and not be forced to use there crappy emulator?

There are lot's of poor paid emulators out there that suck next to the free ones that do more. Also there are people with flash carts that want to use real hardware as well.

Re:Ok.

[FictionPimp]

Willful disobedience is a valid way to protest an unjust system.

Re: Complicit

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets say I take a picture. Just a normal picture of something semi interesting. Maybe not the best, but it suits its purpose.

This picture gets pirated by a number of people, they use it in ads, they use it on their websites, they use it everywhere. I know this is happening, and just don't care enough to stop it.

18 years later I find out that there are people that will PAY to see my picture. Even though its been essentially free for the past almost two decades. Why exactly should I be allowed to force everyone else to take it down. It was essentially abandoned property.

Re: Complicit

[Dread_ed]

I don't think Nintendo is an American company. Nice try though.