EmuParadise has removed its entire library of retro game ROMs and ISOs

[John Stamos Mullet]

Not even borderline. He admitted he has no desire to find a middle ground solution to this. He's just beating up on strawmen.

It's not up to me to find a middle ground for other people's illegal activity. I'm not telling people to stop using roms or sharing them.

 

I'm fine with things the way they are. I download roms. I use emulators. I just don't pretend that I'm entitled to do this under some misconstrued notion of copyright lapse, or because I think it's "unfair" if a company decides to activate and enforce their properties.

[John Stamos Mullet]

That high price tag is part of what can be considered fair use or fair dealings in copyright law. These are limitations and exemptions that can make having copyrighted works without permission legal.

.

 

Even having to deal with antiquated equipment can support fair use or fair dealing. Personal use and effect on the market are more reasons that support the case.

All of this is 100% false. There is no legal precedent covering any of these reasons. This is excuse making. I realize you think your position is reasonable, and to the layperson, these do, in fact sound like reasonable ideas. But they aren't in any way, shape, or form correct, or legitimate.

Edited August 16, 2018 by John Stamos Mullet

[mr_me]

All of this is 100% false. There is no legal precedent covering any of these reasons. This is excuse making. I realize you think your position is reasonable, and to the layperson, these do, in fact sound like reasonable ideas. But they aren't in any way, shape, or form correct, or legitimate.

Lack of precedence does not make it false.

 

...

 

I'm fine with things the way they are. I download roms. I use emulators. I just don't pretend that I'm entitled to do this under some misconstrued notion of copyright lapse, or because I think it's "unfair" if a company decides to activate and enforce their properties.

Why is not okay to correct something that's unfair? Edited August 16, 2018 by mr_me

[John Stamos Mullet]

Why is not okay to correct something that's unfair?

You would have to define why you believe it is "unfair" first. Then it has to coincide with the laws of your jurisdiction.

 

You consider it unfair. So far, your entire argument consists of "Because I want them." and "They're too expensive for me to buy now." Neither of these conditions meet the definition of "fair use".

 

The copyright owners consider existing copyright enforcement fair.

 

The burden of proof then falls on you to prove how it is unfair.

[Flojomojo]

Snow White and the Wizard of Oz immediately come to mind...

 

As does Gone With The Wind, and King Kong. All of these were created with massive budgets (for the time), received acclaim then and now, and have been preserved by the rights holders quite adequately. They're the top 1% of the top 1%, and they're more like Super Mario World than some forgotten gem. No one can reasonably argue that they're in danger of being destroyed, except perhaps in their original, fragile, celluloid form.

 

Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation estimates that more than 90% of American films made before 1929 are lost, and the Library of Congress estimates that 75% of all silent films are lost forever. In contrast, I think we can safely assume that every single commercially released NES, Famicom, SNES, and Super Famicom cartridge has been dumped to ROM and preserved.

 

Whether these old cartridge games should be distributed to the public without restrictions is rather moot, it's already happened. I think a free public library of video games would be a worthy thing, but Nintendo and other rights holders can do what they want until such time that this happens.

 

That said, I believe James Madison incorporated some of these issues in the Bill of Rights.

 

1. Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercisethereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 

2. The Right to Bear Arms

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

 

3. The Housing of Soldiers

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

 

3a. The Playing of Teh Romz

No person shall infringe upon the right of the video game enthusiast to play Journey to Silius without having purchased a cartridge of said software in a retail store or from a secondhand purchase. Furthermore, such play shall constitute Preservation, a legal state which shall not be questioned by those who seek to monetize or otherwise destroy this noble pasttime.

 

It goes on like this. I think the intentions of our Founding Fathers are clear and easily understood.

[mr_me]

You would have to define why you believe it is "unfair" first. Then it has to coincide with the laws of your jurisdiction.

...

 

No it doesn't. The law and ethics don't always coincide. You know that.

 

...

 

You consider it unfair. So far, your entire argument consists of "Because I want them." and "They're too expensive for me to buy now." Neither of these conditions meet the definition of "fair use".

 

The copyright owners consider existing copyright enforcement fair.

...

The expensive part falls under the nature of the use. Copyright owners have no say when it comes to fair use or fair dealings. It's up to a judge. Edited August 16, 2018 by mr_me

[zzip]

I'm fine with things the way they are. I download roms. I use emulators. I just don't pretend that I'm entitled to do this under some misconstrued notion of copyright lapse, or because I think it's "unfair" if a company decides to activate and enforce their properties.

And all I'm saying is there should be a legal way to do this that is fair to all parties so that emulator fans aren't technically criminals.

[John Stamos Mullet]

No it doesn't. The law and ethics don't always coincide. You know that

 

 

As does Gone With The Wind, and King Kong. All of these were created with massive budgets (for the time), received acclaim then and now, and have been preserved by the rights holders quite adequately. They're the top 1% of the top 1%, and they're more like Super Mario World than some forgotten gem. No one can reasonably argue that they're in danger of being destroyed, except perhaps in their original, fragile, celluloid form.

 

Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation estimates that more than 90% of American films made before 1929 are lost, and the Library of Congress estimates that 75% of all silent films are lost forever. In contrast, I think we can safely assume that every single commercially released NES, Famicom, SNES, and Super Famicom cartridge has been dumped to ROM and preserved.

 

Whether these old cartridge games should be distributed to the public without restrictions is rather moot, it's already happened. I think a free public library of video games would be a worthy thing, but Nintendo and other rights holders can do what they want until such time that this happens.

 

That said, I believe James Madison incorporated some of these issues in the Bill of Rights.

 

 

It goes on like this. I think the intentions of our Founding Fathers are clear and easily understood.

 

You're trying to get this thread locked, aren't ya? LOL

[PlaysWithWolves]

Anyone who thinks copyright laws that extend in perpetuity is a good thing does not understand the derivative nature of creativity. There would be no glut of super hero films today without John Carter in 1912's A Princess of Mars. No Star Wars without the many bits Lucas "borrowed" from preceding works. Copyrights are good, but all lose with extended copyrights.

 

This whole video is very good, but part four (~22:48) speaks directly to nature of ideas clashing with intellectual property law:

 

[John Stamos Mullet]

And all I'm saying is there should be a legal way to do this that is fair to all parties so that emulator fans aren't technically criminals.

There is.

 

Buy the existing games you want. Use them on original hardware. Or - buy cartridge dumping hardware, and dump copies of your own games, and don't share them with others.

 

The problem is not with the use of emulators. The problem is the source of games being illegally shared.

[zzip]

3a. The Playing of Teh Romz

No person shall infringe upon the right of the video game enthusiast to play Journey to Silius without having purchased a cartridge of said software in a retail store or from a secondhand purchase. Furthermore, such play shall constitute Preservation, a legal state which shall not be questioned by those who seek to monetize or otherwise destroy this noble pasttime.

One of the problems here. like most debate is everyone argues from the extremes, it's like you can only be either a "I'm entitled to muh warez" pirate-leech or a puritan who believes that all games must be played on the original hardware only, and if it breaks you are just SOL..

 

I like emulators. I like having all old games in one place. I also believe in paying for games. When original games are released, I buy the collections. I have legal CD-rom releases like "Willams Arcade Classics", "Midway Arcade Treasures", "Intellivision Lives" and quite a few others.

 

But the fact remains that the vast majority of old games never get such a release. One of my all time favorite games is M.U.L.E., what collection is that on, I've never seen it. My original MULE disk no longer works, Am I supposed to just not play it? If I have a MULE rom, am I hurting anyone because I already paid for the game? According to some I'm still a leech and my concerns about preserving my favorite games are just BS.

[zzip]

There is.

 

Buy the existing games you want. Use them on original hardware. Or - buy cartridge dumping hardware, and dump copies of your own games, and don't share them with others.

 

The problem is not with the use of emulators. The problem is the source of games being illegally shared.

My disks are copy protected. I don't have the skill set to defeat copy-protection. I guess according to you I would have to learn that too and not touch the already cracked copy because that would be wrong because reasons. Even though I own the damn game already.

[Gamemoose]

People keep leveling their guns at Nintendo and such but has anyone stepped back to look at things mord objectively?

 

What y'all want-the ability to play these games legal, would take some serious time and money. One could say that those who burned the ROMs did most of the work, but there's more to it that that.

 

-Game selection: there's a reason why we see a lot of the same games on Virtual Console and such: they were popular! Sure games like Urban Champion squeak in there, but in that case Nintendo owns that so it's filler. But what about non-Nintendo titles? That leads to...

 

-Cost of licensing: so as a business, you are probably not going to go nuts to get the rights to something like "Captain Comic". You are going to spend your cash on what would sell, the Castlevanias, Street Fighters, etc. That would greatly reduce the number of titles tremendously, but they ARE a business and so are the license holders. If there is no agreement that works for both sides, it just doesn't happen.

 

We won't even go into movie or sports licensing as that's another expensive, tangled web.

 

Testing, Upkeep and support- the creation or modifying of emulators. The testing of ROMs to make sure they work to reduce any support calls. Making sure any updates to a system doesn't break the emulation.

 

I could go on but I hope you get the gist. We have to remember it's not just about dumping roms, it's all the other red tape and money exchanges to make it work and legal. Unfortunately for some, the money exchangers determine what's worth the effort.

 

If Nintendo was not listening, we would never have gotten the minis or Virtual Console.

[John Stamos Mullet]

My disks are copy protected. I don't have the skill set to defeat copy-protection. I guess according to you I would have to learn that too and not touch the already cracked copy because that would be wrong because reasons. Even though I own the damn game already.

I think the question you need answered here is really "why do my disks have copy protection?"

[mr_me]

There is.

 

Buy the existing games you want. Use them on original hardware. Or - buy cartridge dumping hardware, and dump copies of your own games, and don't share them with others.

 

The problem is not with the use of emulators. The problem is the source of games being illegally shared.

You are permitted to authorise others to do the rom dumping for you, no need to buy rom dumping hardware. Edited August 16, 2018 by mr_me

[AMenard]

And all I'm saying is there should be a legal way to do this that is fair to all parties so that emulator fans aren't technically criminals.

 

And as I said previously, criminality depends on jurisdiction. Copyright infringment is, depending on jurisdiction, a civil matter not a criminal one.

[John Stamos Mullet]

Some of these responses sound like Mad Libs.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Why do people pretend that the film industry never preserved older movies? They did. It's just that they kept them all in one central location that ended up catching fire due to the fact that older film reels were made up of a highly flammable substance. That's why most silent movies are gone. Also,there is Zero fucking evidence outside of that Super Mario Bros ROM that Nintendo doesn't archive their own games? How the fuck do you think Sky Skipper, of all games, is on the E-shop? Magic? As explained earlier, it's highly likely that an employee simply looked to the internet for a ROM instead of taking the time to rip a ROM from a cartridge since the early Wii VC was contracted out to a third party initially. Especially since there has been zero evidence of any rom since showing that it was downloaded from the internet.

We may not know hwether they downloaded ROMS from the internet or used their own internal stuff. We do know that they borrowed the ines header format and edited the title screens to reflect current ownership and copyright. The same is true for the My Arcade mini classics using licensed ROMs with edited title screens.

[zzip]

I think the question you need answered here is really "why do my disks have copy protection?"

Easy. Because some technically inept suits though that would stop piracy (Hint: It never did). Mostly it just inconveniences legitimate users. Either they can't make legit backup copies, or they need some small dongle plugged in they must never lose, or you need to keep the manual nearby to tell the computer what the third word is in paragraph 4 on page 78.

 

The music industry tried something similar in the early download days. The tracks you bought at legit stores like iTunes or the Windows equivalent had DRM which seriously curtailed the number of devices that could play the play the tracks. In the meantime the songs you got off say limewire had no restrictions and were therefore more attractive to people.

 

They finally wised up and started selling unprotected MP3s and M4As that work on virtually all devices without restriction.

[John Stamos Mullet]

technically inept suits

I could jump up on a soapbox here and be really insulting and throttle this answer for a number of reasons, but let me be level headed about it:

 

Those technically inept suits run companies in industries that employ hundreds of thousands of people, who become jobless, and in some cases homeless, when they lose their employment due to piracy. People claim software piracy is a victimless crime. It's not. Real people lose their jobs, their income, their entire life's work due to rampant piracy. So those "suits" are merely protecting their business, and by extension, their employees.

[zzip]

I could jump up on a soapbox here and be really insulting and throttle this answer for a number of reasons, but let me be level headed about it:

 

Those technically inept suits run companies in industries that employ hundreds of thousands of people, who become jobless, and in some cases homeless, when they lose their employment due to piracy. People claim software piracy is a victimless crime. It's not. Real people lose their jobs, their income, their entire life's work due to rampant piracy. So those "suits" are merely protecting their business, and by extension, their employees.

But even when the evidence shows copy protection doesn't stop or even slow piracy they kept on implementing it. They aren't protecting anything. It's a false peace of mind, and puts unreasonable restrictions on consumers. In some cases it has harmed people's drives and even installed malicious software on legit users computers

 

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

Edited August 16, 2018 by zzip

[John Stamos Mullet]

But even when the evidence shows copy protection doesn't stop or even slow piracy they kept on implementing it. They aren't protecting anything. It's a false peace of mind, and puts unreasonable restrictions on consumers. In some cases it has harmed people's drives and even installed malicious software on legit users computers

 

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

Just because pirates find loopholes, or crack copy protection, doesn't make it ok to pirate software. They are violating the software's stated TOS at time of purchase. Again, it's unreasonable to you, because you want extra free copies of something you're not actually entitled to. That doesn't make it legal, or ethical. Convenience is not a justification for theft.

 

Earlier you were complaining that copy protection causes software to be lost forever because we can't make copies. Now you're saying it doesn't work so they shouldn't bother. Honestly, I'm having a hard time understanding your point here.

[RevEng]

One of the problems here. like most debate is everyone argues from the extremes, it's like you can only be either a "I'm entitled to muh warez" pirate-leech or a puritan who believes that all games must be played on the original hardware only, and if it breaks you are just SOL..

It's much easier to argue against strawmen and posit false analogies, than to actually debate what people have said.

 

The "there is never any justification" responses in this thread are so full of logical fallacies, that I'm suspicious they're not in good faith. If I'm wrong, then people are are just trying to score points, rather than attempt a rational debate. Either way, I'm out.

[Tempest]

The "there is never any justification" responses in this thread are so full of logical fallacies, that I'm suspicious they're not in good faith.

Sorry, theft is theft. It may be socially acceptable theft, but it's still theft. I'm just as guilty of it as everyone else, but at the end of the day it's not legal no matter how you want to try and phrase the argument.

[Flojomojo]

Nintendo has the rights.

 

The public has the ROMs.

 

Good luck trying to get either side to cede anything.