AtariAge + Atari Q&A

[Wildstar]

Anyway, I think we talked about the copyright and lawsuit issues enough with regards to the topic. It's a tangential rabbit hole. Perhaps let shift off this tangent towards a more interesting discussion like maybe how Atari may benefit the community with regards to publishing games made by commercial game developers and homebrew game developers.

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

20 minutes ago, Wildstar said:

Read the U.S. copyright law. The ROM sites are not protected by fair-use laws unless something changed in the last couple years. Congress never legislated the uploading of copyrighted content on a website for people to download for free or any price without documentable proof of licensing or acquisition of rights the copyright holder, just because the game is old and not available on the market. You have to wait until copyright expires. 

 

Fair Use allows you to take screenshots of game which contains pictorial content that is covered by copyrights in stuff like articles, academic research paper and stuff like that. Once copyright expires then it is public domain. 

 

Although a few countries might have made legislation that allows exactly that but here's the rubbing problem. Even if a ROM website is on a server located in such countries, if a person from say, the U.S., where such sites are illegal.... the ROM site is liable to being sued in U.S. jurisdiction because of the recipient was in the U.S. The ROM site legally is suppose to restrict access to such from country like the U.S. 

 

The ROM site is exporting these ROMs into the US, digitally via internet. Once a ROM site is on the internet then they are potentially required to comply with the laws of every country in the world. 

 

There is some issue inconsistency with copyright laws throughout the countries of the world. Lawyers filing lawsuits against ROM sites will beat up on the ROM sites in courts even questioning on control measures. 

 

ROM sites are not violating just merely because they host rom images. How do they comply? Lawful agreements with copyright holders being the most recognized method. 

 

I am namely talking about the myriad of ROM sites where there was absolutely no permission ever granted for so many of the games because there was no documented permission by the copyright holder. One has to also be careful to not just take permission from original authors because if they sold the rights, the original authors no longer have the rights to license or even declare them into public domain. The authors have to actively own the intellectual property rights in order to declare it into public domain. 

 

Just because the site may be hosted in a country where one can legally host ROMs, they can't legally distribute the ROMs by any means to any recipient within countries where the ROMs would be illegal.  Not only is the recipient liable but so is the ROM site and they can file the case either in the country of the ROM site or in the country of the recipient. 

 

The copyright law is a problem. Copyrights, unlike trademark, do not require the game to be continuously available to preserve the rights. A copyright owner can choose to keep something off the market so the games can become rare and increase the value of how much people would pay for limited run re-releases. Illegal copies would flood the market and when the exact game can be downloaded for free, it removes the incentive for many to pay any amount, especially if there is absolutely zero bits difference the legal copy and the illegal copy. It is same binary. That is part of why copyright owners and their lawyers sue people civilly and even criminally. 

 

When it comes to backup copies, you can't legally back your copy in a way to enable distribution of copies derived from the original or a copy of original without permission from the copyright holder. You also may not make a bunch of backup. Usually only one backup copy of any original has been universally accepted in most cases. When you have more than one backup copy, there's a problem. When you give away or sell a copy, you must give or sell the original with that copy and retain no other backup copies at all... except if you legally bought multiple copies of originals and you can have one backup copy for each legal original you bought that you have not given away copies. Legally, you can not sell or give away backup copies without the original copy. Otherwise, you are not venturing into copyright  infringement.

 

If you legally bought 5 copies. Legally, there can be only 5 backup copies. You can replace a backup copy with a new one and reformat the older backup copy. When you give or sell 4 copies... you would need to give or sell 4 originals with four backups leaving you with one original legal copy and one backup. That's the technicality on the matter. If you sell or give away your five copies, you must sell or give away the five originals and the five backup copies or destroy the backup copies by reformatting (or equivalent) the backups and retain no copies and you would have to purchase an original again.

 

It is not the issue of you actually making a backup copy. However, making a backup copy does not mean you may host the copy in a manner that enables people to download copies from. You need a license (permission) or copyright ownership to do so. If someone made several hundred backup copies, it is more than likely to sell or give away without permission. Courts have ruled on that. While the exact number of backup copies you may make, is not well codified but stems from court cases so one or two might not be an issue. A dozen plus copies or hosting in a manner of public access to downloading copies would be an issue. Sometimes, developers/publishers of the game may state how many backup copies you may have at any one time and stipulate that you may not host any copy of the game anywhere. 

 

If there are technical errors in what I said, then I am in error. OK. However, when it comes to internet hosting of ROMs, you have to comply with the laws of every country and not distribute any illegal goods to any persons in those countries where the roms being downloaded would be an illegal goods. Data transferring game roms from you to another person via computer networking/telecommunication means of any kind is distribution. So if you hosted a rom without copyright holder permission or ownership of the copyrights and I downloaded it, not only I could be sued so can you and because I am in the U.S.  they can file in U.S. Federal court... even if you and your site is not in the U.S. This has been done before and still are done.

 

 

[Wildstar]

6 minutes ago, guppy said:

I figure it's reasonable for Atari to want to continue to reserve certain rights.

But I think that they could be amenable to release certain other rights to the community, for mutual benefit.

For example, if they wanted to encourage the Homebrew community to develop games for legacy systems, they MIGHT be able to grant open license to the community to enable them to develop games using certain trademarks (and not others), in the narrow context of developing software that will run on native legacy/dead hardware.

They could stipulate that they reserve certain rights, such as rights to develop using those same trademarks on other systems (the new VCS, whatever new modern systems they develop in the future, etc.)  

They might also reserve right of first refusal to publish projects using their trademarks.  So if someone develops a homebrew sequel to some Atari trademarked title, Atari would have right to first refusal for publishing a commercial release of that game, and if they decline, then the homebrew dev would be able to release the game through a publisher of their choice.
 

It really depends on how friendly Atari really wants to be.

Good thoughts there.

[Wildstar]

2 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

 

I agree. Thank you for pointing that out. 

[Wildstar]

2 hours ago, Albert said:

This is fun and all, but I would appreciate if we could get back on track.  Some of these subjects are definitely better explored in their own threads.

 

Thank you,

 

 ..Al

Agree. At this point, we talked copyright issues ad nauseum enough. I apologize for lengthy responses to this tangent. 

[Wildstar]

58 minutes ago, PlaidMouse said:

Will the online JS7800 (https://raz0red.github.io/js7800/?cart=https://atariage.com/forums/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=802867) still be available to access and play games on? Thanks in advance to anyone who answers this.

Reposting to draw attention to it.

[Blinky]

Just been looking at the 10 in and 1 cart image and realized the dip switch positions are in sequencial order where the left most switch is the least significant bit.
 

Can future dip switch carts use gray code instead for the dip switch positions? That way only one dip switch needs to be changed to play the next game in line (on the label)

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

35 minutes ago, Blinky said:

Just been looking at the 10 in and 1 cart image and realized the dip switch positions are in sequencial order where the left most switch is the least significant bit.
 

Can future dip switch carts use gray code instead for the dip switch positions? That way only one dip switch needs to be changed to play the next game in line (on the label)

But who will want to play the games in order? IMO being able to remember the switches is more important.

[Blinky]

31 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

But who will want to play the games in order?

When someone whats to check out the games. They usually check them out in order so it's easier to remember which games have been tried out.

[42bs]

1 hour ago, Blinky said:

Just been looking at the 10 in and 1 cart image and realized the dip switch positions are in sequencial order where the left most switch is the least significant bit.
 

Can future dip switch carts use gray code instead for the dip switch positions? That way only one dip switch needs to be changed to play the next game in line (on the label)

 

Hmm, are there 74HCXXX 4bit gray to 1 multiplexers?

[42bs]

1 minute ago, Blinky said:

When someone whats to check out the games. They usually check them out in order so it's easier to remember which games have been tried out.

My order would be:

0000

0001

0011

0111

1111

1110

1100

1000

well, only the half of it. But then it time for bed anyway

[42bs]

3 minutes ago, 42bs said:

Hmm, are there 74HCXXX 4bit gray to 1 multiplexers?

Ah, ok, one needs just 3 XOR gates, so no cost question.

[Blinky]

7 minutes ago, 42bs said:

Hmm, are there 74HCXXX 4bit gray to 1 multiplexers?

You don't need a decoder. you just put the games in different order in the rom or on the label (if the number of games is an exact power of two)

• In case of the 10 in 1 cart. They'd have to insert a few unused banks between the game roms.
•  In case of the 4 in 1 cart. changing the games order on the label would be enough.

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Blinky

[42bs]

2 minutes ago, Blinky said:

You don't need a decoder. you just put the games in different order in the rom or on the label (if the number of games is an exact power of two)

• In case of the 10 in 1 cart. They'd have to insert a few unused banks between the game roms.
•  In case of the 4 in 1 cart. changing the games order on the label would be enough.

 

 

 

0000  0
0001  1
0011  3
0111  7
1111 15
1110 14
1100 12
1000  8
1001  9
1011 11
1010 10
0010  2
0110  6
0100  4
0101  5
1101 13

 

Only one switch changed. But well, is it worth it?

More important would be to have the switch on the same side as the label and of course "in front" not on the back.
Now you have to get it out every time (or crawl behind the console).

[Blinky]

Natural binary order vs gray code for a 64K rom:

 

10-in-1 game order now:
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,-,-,-,-,-,-

 

10-in-1 game order using gray code:
0,1,3,2,6,7,5,4,-,-,-,-,8,9,-,-

 

'-' is a unused game

 

13 minutes ago, 42bs said:

Now you have to get it out every time (or crawl behind the console)

I guess that's part of the nostalgic experience

 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Blinky

[42bs]

2 minutes ago, Blinky said:

I guess that's part of the nostalgic experience

Yepp, same as not having an SD card slot Anyway, it'll get hacked! Atari be warned, we make it a nicer console!

[Blinky]

2 minutes ago, 42bs said:

it'll get hacked!

Maybe the dip switch carts can be reprogrammed and we can add games then we can stick an updated list on the back of the cart

[Thomas Jentzsch]

47 minutes ago, Blinky said:

I guess that's part of the nostalgic experience

For next game:

• Old multi carts: Switch off, switch on, play
• New multi carts: Switch off, plug out, change dip switches, plug in, switch on, wait, play

IMO that's a "pre-nostalgic" experience.  

Edited September 15, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[42bs]

3 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

For next game:

• Old multi carts: Switch off, switch on, play
• New multi carts: Switch off, plug out, change dips witches, plug in, switch on, wait, play

IMO that's a "pre-nostalgic" experience.  

Wonder if this will work:

 

https://64kb.de/atari-2600-uno-cart/

 

If so, get 10-in-1, dump to SD card and user the uno-cart 🙂

 

[Blinky]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

• Old multi carts: Switch off, switch on, play
• New multi carts: Switch off, plug out, change dips witches, plug in, switch on, wait, play

Yes that was fun, powerer cycling 31 times to play the last game of  the 32 in 1 cart 😛

 

I'd say the nostalgic experience is now a bit better since you don't have to power cycle to play your favorite game on the multi cart 😁
 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

36 minutes ago, Blinky said:

Yes that was fun, powerer cycling 31 times to play the last game of  the 32 in 1 cart 😛

Let's benchmark this. I am not so sure that the dip switch approach is faster on average.

[Crazy Climber]

1 hour ago, Blinky said:

I guess that's part of the nostalgic experience

I was in line at the grocery store the other day waiting for some old hen to write a check for $5 when it occurred to me there is a "good" and "bad" side to nostalgia/retro...

[Emehr]

Trying to get back on topic here, I have a two-part question for @Albert and @TrogdarRobusto :

 

So, with AtariAge and Atari working together, are there any plans for incentivizing homebrew authors (or teams of programmers, artists, and/or designers) to develop new titles for the 2600+? While nostalgia is a good hook, I feel that having a block of, say, nine(?) new titles could help invigorate interest.

 

On a related note, I understand some of the original Activision authors (Dan Kitchen and I thought one other?) from back in the day wrote some new 2600 titles recently. Has Atari reached out to any of these original developers since some still seem to have an active interest in the console?

[+bfstats]

3 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Let's benchmark this. I am not so sure that the dip switch approach is faster on average.

Or a middle-of-the-road approach… Menu-driven, like what Omegamatrix did with older multi-variant Atari brand games. It’s a software- rather than hardware-based solution. Still have to cycle power to return to the menu, but don’t have to remove the cart to change switch settings, plus no memorization needed, and you can play the games in whatever order you like.

[zzip]

18 hours ago, leech said:

I think there was a kit with the Falcon or with the TT030, right?  Maybe I'm remembering that wrong.  I wonder if anyone still has some of that old devkit stuff, would be interesting to see it.  If they only could dev with the Falcon, would have made it very clear why so few games were made, since so few Falcons were...

The Jag dev-kit might have been TT-based, I could be misrembering.  It was one of the 030's