And I'm willing to bet that they only did that (i.e., acquired the ROMs from the scene and monetized it) because they knew that they would never stop people from downloading these games and wanted to at least try to capitalize on the misplaced morality of hand-wringers who can't bring themselves to just download the goddamned things. I can (but probably shouldn't) guarantee that the folks who made these old games are not going to receive any portion of the revenue made from selling these old games. Do you really think that the team who made DigDug is still getting proceeds from the sales of that game? Not bloody likely. It's padding the coffers of Namco, who've probably had enough turnover so that no one who was involved in the development of DigDug, or even the management, are any longer associated with the company. Hell, they broke even on the game years and years ago, any new revenue from the game is pure profit.
This, this and more this. You are never going to get sued for downloading a "contraband" ROM of DigDug or any other vintage arcade game. Nintendo IP may be a different matter, but it tends to be one of those "the cost doesn't justify the action" kind of things. "Oh no, Jimmy Blargh in Des Moines downloaded Super Mario Bros 2. Whatever shall we do? SEND OUT THE LAWYERS!"... $20,000 later... "Well at least we showed him." Hah.
or 3) Download the damned ROMs and quit bellyaching about whether some multi-billion dollar company lost $600 in sales because a few hundred nerds downloaded a ROM of a game they threw up on some Virtual Console store just on the off chance that they could pull in a little bit more revenue. You are not going to get sued over shit like this. Never.
Now, set up your own Virtual Console store with ROMs you downloaded and rake in a bunch of money? Yeah, now you better worry.
I look at it this way. There are only two ways to legally play Super Mario World. One, own (or acquire, possibly at great expense) a copy of the original cartridge, or two, purchase a copy on the Wii Virtual Console. Now we start with the set of all persons who desire to play an old title like Super Mario World (arguably a small number). Intersect that with the number of people who own, or wish to own a Wii. You now have a fairly small (IMO) set of possible sales. So what about the the difference of those sets, the ones who want to play the game but don't own a Wii? What's their recourse? I personally don't own a Wii. I don't even want one. So my only options are to spend more money than the game is really worth on either the cartridge or Wii+SMW on VC, or just download the damned ROM, play it twice a month when I'm drunk and feeling nostalgic and forget about all this hand-wringing bullshit.
I fully understand the point of view that pirating content is not something people should be doing. But we're not talking about about CoD 4 or the latest Lady Gaga record that you can purchase today in such a way that it benefits the original creator. We're talking about things that are not generally available in a form in which a large proportion of those interested in the content are able to consume. I get it Nintendo, protect all that precious IP like Caveman Games with an iron fist. Hate to set a bad precedent. But let's be honest, you are not, in any meaningful way impacting the bottom line of Nintendo when you download ROMs for these games.
I will admit that I've downloaded recent titles from torrent sites and the like. And in 90% of the cases, I played it for a few days, didn't care for it and deleted it. The ones I did like, I went and bought it, either on Steam (weekend sales FTW) or a box. Whether I install the copy I bought or not, at least I know I supported the creator. Just because I can't possibly support the original creator why should I feel bad about it? It's not my fault that they refuse to open an extra revenue stream for people who honestly want to pay for a copy of a game they can use in a way they wish to. Hell, most of the creators of these games are either defunct or were bought by some holding company who probably couldn't care less in the first place.
I don't want to sound like a troll, but why do you care about being "legally justified" about downloading something which will not deprive anyone of anything, let alone revenue. It's not like you can buy a copy of 90% of these old games new (thus benefiting the original publisher). Buying a used copy of the PCB for Dig Dug is essentially the same to Namco as downloading the ROM. At no point in either transaction do they benefit in any way shape or form. We're not talking about modern AAA titles here.
I don't want to come off as a "download whatever you want, whenever you want it" proponent, but when it comes to these (in technology terms) ancient titles, really, what's the moral hold up here? Why are you wasting your time wringing your hands about whether you might get sued (you wont) for downloading a ROM copy of Galaga to put in the DIY arcade cabinet you made?
Lets face it: these titles are not generally available to purchase, thus you are not in any way shape or form depriving anyone of anything. Not even the so called "lost sale" fallacy. All this "buy the PCB and dump it yourself" nonsense is just a silly little mind game people play with them selves to justify an action which has no immoral connotations. The likelihood that you are going to get sued for possessing a contraband ROM image of Galaga is so unbelievably small that wasting even a single thought on the possibility is ridiculous.
Oh, and if the whole point of the exercise is for you to feel superior to all those nasty pirates then you really need to re-evaluate your priorities.
You're absolutely right. Because we still have debtors prisons, you routinely see ragged hungry children sitting in the streets begging, and don't forget all those indentured servants who clean the houses of the rich. Yeah, it's just as bad to be poor now as it was a few hundred years ago. Exactly the same.
Personally I've found the documentation to be hit or miss. Some modules provide good examples in addition to API docs, while others just give a description of the API with one or two pathetic examples that don't even demonstrate a real-world use of the code. All in all I find the documentation to be very good, but there's always those particular modules that you pretty much have to figure out everything yourself... logging, i'm looking at you..
Somehow I refuse to believe that it could possibly be worse than Tron: Legacy. Thank god I was drunk when I watched it, otherwise it might have done some permanent damage to my brain.
Granted, but we're not dealing with biology here. The law IS black and white and anyone less than 18 is a minor. And there is a great deal of historical precedent of treating minors differently than adults.
Except we're witness to a certain subculture which thinks the road to success involves one (and only one) of the following: 1) Rap star 2) Star athlete 3) Lotto winner
Don't get me wrong, it's not endemic to blacks, this kind of diseased thinking is present in all races and all walks of life. Never mind hard work, the way out is by the roll of the dice. For every rich rapper or football player there are 10,000 wannabees who will waste their lives chasing after an impossible dream and then bitch about how hard their life is. Instead of doing the same thing everyone else in the country is doing (i.e. finishing school, getting a job, climbing the ladder) these morons persist in the absurd notion that they are super stars, when they're just as average as the rest of us.
Hell, it's not even limited to the minority cultures, plenty of well off white morons think they''re entitled to riches without any work whatsoever. Blame the rise of "self esteem" (which is just a new way of saying don't hate yourself) or blame whatever you want, some people are just stupid enough to risk everything on impossible odds. Just look at all the talent-less hacks they show on the first few episodes of each season of American Idol. A bunch of cocky idiots who have all the talent of a sea slug. But they're sooooo special, mamma told them so.
It's teh gays. They caused the breakdown of the holy Nuclear Family Unit. Nevermind the fact that due to the steady erosion of jobs which pay a living wage that allows one parent to work and the other to stay home. These morons bleating about the death of the family unit should be focusing on modern commercial culture instead of some supposed moral collapse. Oh my, mom AND dad have to work in order to maintain a lifestyle their parents managed on a single income. God bless the free market, and as always god bless America. The American dream had its throat cut and bled out long ago. Apple pie!!! America!!
If they're under 18 they're "disenfranchised" as a matter of law. Unless you're arguing that the vote be given to a citizen at the moment of birth... These stupid kids have no idea who the enemy might be, except for maybe "everyone who won't let me do whatever the hell I want to".
Dude, you're arguing with the most trollingest troll ever. This guy is a dyed in the wool moron who will respond to your ever post with an incoherent mixture of words and meaningless punctuation. Sorry man but YHBT.
Well well well, APK is both retarded AND racist. What a lovely revelation. Fucking troll. Hay, what's your user name on niggermania.net? Lets commiserate about how the niggers are ruining everything! My hero! Oh, and it was probably a nigger that instituted the change in Windows Vista that disallows using 0 in host files. Sounds about right.
It sure beats the hell out of VBA... only Microsoft could impose such an abomination on an unsuspecting world. And the documentation... dear gods, to delve into that abyss is as likely as not to destroy any sanity a man has left.
If Microsoft can, for once, provide a well documented macro language for their Office products that doesn't derive from the Loins of the Devil (aka VB)... well, it'll be a cold day in hell, who am I kidding?
Slashdot Mirror
My kingdom for mod points.
And I'm willing to bet that they only did that (i.e., acquired the ROMs from the scene and monetized it) because they knew that they would never stop people from downloading these games and wanted to at least try to capitalize on the misplaced morality of hand-wringers who can't bring themselves to just download the goddamned things. I can (but probably shouldn't) guarantee that the folks who made these old games are not going to receive any portion of the revenue made from selling these old games. Do you really think that the team who made DigDug is still getting proceeds from the sales of that game? Not bloody likely. It's padding the coffers of Namco, who've probably had enough turnover so that no one who was involved in the development of DigDug, or even the management, are any longer associated with the company. Hell, they broke even on the game years and years ago, any new revenue from the game is pure profit.
This, this and more this. You are never going to get sued for downloading a "contraband" ROM of DigDug or any other vintage arcade game. Nintendo IP may be a different matter, but it tends to be one of those "the cost doesn't justify the action" kind of things. "Oh no, Jimmy Blargh in Des Moines downloaded Super Mario Bros 2. Whatever shall we do? SEND OUT THE LAWYERS!" ... $20,000 later ... "Well at least we showed him." Hah.
or 3) Download the damned ROMs and quit bellyaching about whether some multi-billion dollar company lost $600 in sales because a few hundred nerds downloaded a ROM of a game they threw up on some Virtual Console store just on the off chance that they could pull in a little bit more revenue. You are not going to get sued over shit like this. Never.
Now, set up your own Virtual Console store with ROMs you downloaded and rake in a bunch of money? Yeah, now you better worry.
IMO, the correct answer is: "Who cares?"
I look at it this way. There are only two ways to legally play Super Mario World. One, own (or acquire, possibly at great expense) a copy of the original cartridge, or two, purchase a copy on the Wii Virtual Console. Now we start with the set of all persons who desire to play an old title like Super Mario World (arguably a small number). Intersect that with the number of people who own, or wish to own a Wii. You now have a fairly small (IMO) set of possible sales. So what about the the difference of those sets, the ones who want to play the game but don't own a Wii? What's their recourse? I personally don't own a Wii. I don't even want one. So my only options are to spend more money than the game is really worth on either the cartridge or Wii+SMW on VC, or just download the damned ROM, play it twice a month when I'm drunk and feeling nostalgic and forget about all this hand-wringing bullshit.
I fully understand the point of view that pirating content is not something people should be doing. But we're not talking about about CoD 4 or the latest Lady Gaga record that you can purchase today in such a way that it benefits the original creator. We're talking about things that are not generally available in a form in which a large proportion of those interested in the content are able to consume. I get it Nintendo, protect all that precious IP like Caveman Games with an iron fist. Hate to set a bad precedent. But let's be honest, you are not, in any meaningful way impacting the bottom line of Nintendo when you download ROMs for these games.
I will admit that I've downloaded recent titles from torrent sites and the like. And in 90% of the cases, I played it for a few days, didn't care for it and deleted it. The ones I did like, I went and bought it, either on Steam (weekend sales FTW) or a box. Whether I install the copy I bought or not, at least I know I supported the creator. Just because I can't possibly support the original creator why should I feel bad about it? It's not my fault that they refuse to open an extra revenue stream for people who honestly want to pay for a copy of a game they can use in a way they wish to. Hell, most of the creators of these games are either defunct or were bought by some holding company who probably couldn't care less in the first place.
I don't want to sound like a troll, but why do you care about being "legally justified" about downloading something which will not deprive anyone of anything, let alone revenue. It's not like you can buy a copy of 90% of these old games new (thus benefiting the original publisher). Buying a used copy of the PCB for Dig Dug is essentially the same to Namco as downloading the ROM. At no point in either transaction do they benefit in any way shape or form. We're not talking about modern AAA titles here.
I don't want to come off as a "download whatever you want, whenever you want it" proponent, but when it comes to these (in technology terms) ancient titles, really, what's the moral hold up here? Why are you wasting your time wringing your hands about whether you might get sued (you wont) for downloading a ROM copy of Galaga to put in the DIY arcade cabinet you made?
Lets face it: these titles are not generally available to purchase, thus you are not in any way shape or form depriving anyone of anything. Not even the so called "lost sale" fallacy. All this "buy the PCB and dump it yourself" nonsense is just a silly little mind game people play with them selves to justify an action which has no immoral connotations. The likelihood that you are going to get sued for possessing a contraband ROM image of Galaga is so unbelievably small that wasting even a single thought on the possibility is ridiculous.
Oh, and if the whole point of the exercise is for you to feel superior to all those nasty pirates then you really need to re-evaluate your priorities.
YHBT. HAND.
I bet I could find a link on moveon or Democratic underground that asserts he is a fascist.
FTFY
You're absolutely right. Because we still have debtors prisons, you routinely see ragged hungry children sitting in the streets begging, and don't forget all those indentured servants who clean the houses of the rich. Yeah, it's just as bad to be poor now as it was a few hundred years ago. Exactly the same.
Personally I've found the documentation to be hit or miss. Some modules provide good examples in addition to API docs, while others just give a description of the API with one or two pathetic examples that don't even demonstrate a real-world use of the code. All in all I find the documentation to be very good, but there's always those particular modules that you pretty much have to figure out everything yourself... logging, i'm looking at you..
Or there can be sequels with lots of man vs ape battles!!!!
And if god is kind, Ponies!!1!
Somehow I refuse to believe that it could possibly be worse than Tron: Legacy. Thank god I was drunk when I watched it, otherwise it might have done some permanent damage to my brain.
Granted, but we're not dealing with biology here. The law IS black and white and anyone less than 18 is a minor. And there is a great deal of historical precedent of treating minors differently than adults.
Except we're witness to a certain subculture which thinks the road to success involves one (and only one) of the following:
1) Rap star
2) Star athlete
3) Lotto winner
Don't get me wrong, it's not endemic to blacks, this kind of diseased thinking is present in all races and all walks of life. Never mind hard work, the way out is by the roll of the dice. For every rich rapper or football player there are 10,000 wannabees who will waste their lives chasing after an impossible dream and then bitch about how hard their life is. Instead of doing the same thing everyone else in the country is doing (i.e. finishing school, getting a job, climbing the ladder) these morons persist in the absurd notion that they are super stars, when they're just as average as the rest of us.
Hell, it's not even limited to the minority cultures, plenty of well off white morons think they''re entitled to riches without any work whatsoever. Blame the rise of "self esteem" (which is just a new way of saying don't hate yourself) or blame whatever you want, some people are just stupid enough to risk everything on impossible odds. Just look at all the talent-less hacks they show on the first few episodes of each season of American Idol. A bunch of cocky idiots who have all the talent of a sea slug. But they're sooooo special, mamma told them so.
It's teh gays. They caused the breakdown of the holy Nuclear Family Unit. Nevermind the fact that due to the steady erosion of jobs which pay a living wage that allows one parent to work and the other to stay home. These morons bleating about the death of the family unit should be focusing on modern commercial culture instead of some supposed moral collapse. Oh my, mom AND dad have to work in order to maintain a lifestyle their parents managed on a single income. God bless the free market, and as always god bless America. The American dream had its throat cut and bled out long ago. Apple pie!!! America!!
What's the alternative to section 8 housing? Sink or swim? Yeah, let's swell the ranks of the homeless, that'll solve all our problems. ~~~~~~~~~~
If they're under 18 they're "disenfranchised" as a matter of law. Unless you're arguing that the vote be given to a citizen at the moment of birth... These stupid kids have no idea who the enemy might be, except for maybe "everyone who won't let me do whatever the hell I want to".
Nice slippery slope fallacy... minors != adults.
and somehow running around with hooligans, aka "flash mob" is a part of growing up?
OOh, pwned. Stick it to 'em. Howdy y'all, join the APK sucks fan club!
Dude, you're arguing with the most trollingest troll ever. This guy is a dyed in the wool moron who will respond to your ever post with an incoherent mixture of words and meaningless punctuation. Sorry man but YHBT.
Well well well, APK is both retarded AND racist. What a lovely revelation. Fucking troll. Hay, what's your user name on niggermania.net? Lets commiserate about how the niggers are ruining everything! My hero! Oh, and it was probably a nigger that instituted the change in Windows Vista that disallows using 0 in host files. Sounds about right.
Beats the hell out of
Dim clippy as HelperObject
Dim value as Boolean
Set clippy = Clippy()
clippy.say "You are writing a letter"
Set value = clippy.ask("Need help?")
if value then
Application.Document.delete
Set Application.location.href = "http://www.goatse.ru"
end if
You mean like they are apparently doing with VBA? What retard came up with that "solution"?
It sure beats the hell out of VBA... only Microsoft could impose such an abomination on an unsuspecting world. And the documentation... dear gods, to delve into that abyss is as likely as not to destroy any sanity a man has left.
If Microsoft can, for once, provide a well documented macro language for their Office products that doesn't derive from the Loins of the Devil (aka VB)... well, it'll be a cold day in hell, who am I kidding?