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Over 1,100 New Arcade Games Added To the Internet Archive (archive.org)

Posted by msmash on from the keeps-getting-better dept.

Jason Scott, writing for Internet Archive blog: The Internet Arcade, our collection of working arcade machines that run in the browser, has gotten a new upgrade in its 4th year. Advancements by both the MAME emulator team and the Emscripten conversion process allowed our team to go through many more potential arcade machines and add them to the site. The majority of these newly-available games date to the 1990s and early 2000s, as arcade machines both became significantly more complicated and graphically rich, while also suffering from the ever-present and home-based video game consoles that would come to dominate gaming to the present day. Even fervent gamers might have missed some of these arcade machines when they were in the physical world, due to lower distribution numbers and shorter times on the floor.

9 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. The Internet Archive is a treasure by bobstreo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and should be fully funded as part of the Smithsonian or Library of Congress.

    1. Re:The Internet Archive is a treasure by antdude · · Score: 2

      "It belongs to the museum!" --Indy -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  2. Why are they allowed to do this? by iampiti · · Score: 2

    The vast majority of games available will be unlicensed commercial games. In a time where many rom sites have been shut down why is archive.org exempted from this? Is it because right holders are more lenient about arcade games?

    1. Re:Why are they allowed to do this? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      Because gamers are more interested in preserving our culture then draconian copyright laws that holds it hostage.

      Seriously, are there ANY publishers making money from selling OLD classic arcade games like Marble Madness ??? No, then the copyright should revert to the public domain instead of being hoarded away for "some day".

    2. Re:Why are they allowed to do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The vast majority of games available will be unlicensed commercial games. In a time where many rom sites have been shut down why is archive.org exempted from this?

      Copyright law allows for registered libraries to archive and loan copyrighted material that is no longer actively for sale.
      This actively for sale rule only applies to registered libraries however.

      Combined with the first sale doctrine and sony bono act, it is legal under copyright law for archive.org to lend these materials.

      I only remember two cases in the past decade someone uploaded currently covered and for sale material, and archive.org removed it immediately in both cases.
      I'm sure there have been more than just those two, but my point is this happens so rarely that no one in the authors guild or legal system believes for a moment they are responsible for any mass copyright infringement.

    3. Re:Why are they allowed to do this? by RevDisk · · Score: 2

      Spoke with Jason at HOPE a couple weeks back. This came up tangentially. He's a nice guy, and an interesting personality.

      They had to recode big sections of MAME for functionality but so getting the code licensed correctly. Some of it is actually securing rights from copyright owners. They've been contacting hundreds of copyright holders and securing permissions. Part of it is also they get leeway as the Internet Archives is a registered library. Registered libraries get perks when it comes to lending out copyrighted material.

      It's all a LOT of legwork and they're doing a lot more than posting ROM dumps. And they're doing an insanely lot of very very deep emulation work to preserve as much as possible that is not obvious. It is very much ridiciously detailed archivist work. Which is hilarious because a lot of more academia archivists (think folks with master degrees or even PhDs in library sciences) are pissed that the Internet Archives folks call themselves archivists.

    4. Re:Why are they allowed to do this? by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's all a LOT of legwork and they're doing a lot more than posting ROM dumps

      Not to mention, they're not technically making the ROMs available. You can play it in your browser, but you'll note there's no link to download the ROM itself - it's only available that way.

      Of course, anyone with a modicum of knowledge of how to use "Developer mode" in their browser can easily get at the real ROM files. It's not hard and left as an exercise to the reader. Presumably there are controls in place to keep users from writing scripts to mass download the ROMs.

    5. Re:Why are they allowed to do this? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      Preserving only the (subjectively) good ones would give a false impression.

      It's not like they take up space to prevent others from being stored.

  3. Woohoo! by AndyKron · · Score: 2

    This removes any reason I had to leave my basement. Woohoo!