Is It Legal To Own Roms Of Games You Already Own..


bringoutthegimp posted on May 3 2004 at 01:52 AM said:
i dont understand these people who give a shit about such laws. i own like 20 mega drive games.....does that mean im limited to these? fuck no i'll download the whole rom set plus all the snes games while im at it.
The main issue is with exisiting franchises, like Final Fantasy, Mario, Sonic, Zelda, etc... Because the companies still make money from the franchises, hell nintendo just rereleased Zelda 1 and 2! The old nes zeldas, on a compilation cd for the GC. Thats the biggest issue.

If you ask me, Nintendo, Sega, etc.. should MAKE official emulators of their out of production systems, and SELL roms like some official sites sell individual MP3's. Wouldnt everyone win in that situation? Game companies would get money for digital copies of games they made years ago, and the amount of illegal roms on the internet would be slightly reduced.
 
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I don't think it's that much of a big deal at all, to be honest.

Nobody's going to do RIAA style random sueing (sp?) for owning a bunch of roms (Though i'm confused about this whole nintendo thing). Iso images of more recent console games I can understand, but roms for older systems and/or arcade machines which probably can't be found anywhere... Well.
 
Well the law is still interesting even when it is about some difficult to make people apply it. It's just that if some people try to respect it, and we can't blame them for this. You can do whatever you want in your life : you can drive beyond limitations, you can run naked in the streets, ... but if you get caught that's not the same deal.
 
The main issue is that many companies don't even think about that. They prefer to make uninteresting remakes or compilations of games. It surely would make more money to distribute every rom on a merchant website, but it is risky. Companies don't trust users, RIAA is the best example. They prefer to create hard to copy rebashed compilations than easy to copy and valuable already existing games.
Another example, not game related but still valuable is DVD audio disks. You take some music that was on CD, you put it on DVD and then sell it more expensive than the CD. And there have been tests that prove sound quality is identical between the two mediums. Same goes with games, and compilations on recent systems.
 
You could look at it the other way.

If you own a game, and then make (or obtain) a rom of it to play on your GP32, and put the original in storage as the 'archival copy', then surely you are only playing one copy and using one copy for archival purposes. When you buy a game, you're paying for the cost of the media plus the rights to use the software, so as long as you only use one copy, and archive the original, I cant see any legal problem. However, dont quote me, I'm not a lawyer :)
 
Twinbee posted on May 3 2004 at 02:09 AM said:
I don't think it's that much of a big deal at all, to be honest.
Well its not, really, but he didnt ask "Does anyone care", he asked if its "legal". No one, besides nintendo, really cares about emulation of old systems. There are so many hundreds of systems being emulated, and only nintendo has stepped up to the plate to try and do something. (not counting sonys battle with Bleem! but that was not on the topic of copies and roms)

And notice also, that his question wasnt specifically about old consoles. He generalized his question, so it also encompases new games, such as for GBA etc...
 
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i think here in the U.K. it IS legal to own a rom if you have the original copy. You are only allowed one copy for your personal use (no sharing). However the copy you have must be your own. You must make it yourself with your own equipment and not downloaded from the internet.
 
sammster001 posted on May 3 2004 at 03:15 AM said:
i think here in the U.K. it IS legal to own a rom if you have the original copy. You are only allowed one copy for your personal use (no sharing). However the copy you have must be your own. You must make it yourself with your own equipment and not downloaded from the internet.
Its like that everywhere. But actually USING the copy for anything, is not legal (pending circumstances). This law is not just in one reigion. The USA/Canada, UK, Korea, etc... all have international copyright laws that say the same thing. Look up global free trade, GATT, WTO, etc... for information and resources to find these laws if you are truly curious. There are very few civilized places in the world that these laws do not apply to) ,Although, its such a gray area that as long as you are not abusing it. (i.e. distributing over the internet) then your not really going to be underfire.
 
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sam fisher posted on May 3 2004 at 11:29 AM said:
Where can I get this equiptment for making a nes rom from my carts.
But alas one of my mario games is broken so that will be one less.
Lik Sang
I would like to add something, no one can differenciate a ROM dump that's your from another so maybe your mario game is not a problem ;)
 
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sam fisher posted on May 3 2004 at 03:29 AM said:
Where can I get this equiptment for making a nes rom from my carts.
But alas one of my mario games is broken so that will be one less.
Do a google search.

But honestly does it really matter to you? Do you think they will really care, regardless of laws, if you have a rom of mario, when you own the cart? When there are hundereds of thousands of people that have roms without the originals?

Those cart > rom are usually $200 or more (I know my buddies original snes one was $500 back in the day...). (although GB/GBC/GBA you can get a cable for a mere $25) you might be able to find some really cheap ones if you google search though. Google is your friend. :)

As for Lik-Sang they dont have anything like that, they even removed GBA flash carts for some reason (I think nintendo had something to do with that if I remember correctly...)
 
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no absolutley no, sorry but whatever rom site disclaimers say its wrong.

Although a fairly gray area, the law statess that you may own a backup or create a backup of any media that you own. Whast the law does not say is wether you can EVER use this copy, bit stupid if you ask me but there you go.

Although for much older cconsoles nes sms, maybe snes the hardware is defunct so generally the companies don't give two shits.
 
Actually Akuma the law is not so clear as you think ;) The softare companies sometimes say otherwise, but they're wrong.

ie: You are of course allowed an archival copy. But you are also allowed to make copies for use.

Consider..

What happens when you fire up a cartridge in many systems? The cart is *copied* into RAM and then executed. If you weren't able to copy and run, that woudl be illegal.

CDroms.. same deal; you buy MSOffice, and then you copy it from the CDrom and run it from your hard drive; you have copied the software for purposes of execution.

You are in fact able to transmute the data from one formsat to another (though this is often referred to in the laws about dead systems, it also applies to live systems IIRC).

When you buy something, you can generally go to town with it, provided you don't distribute it etc.

I used to study these laws, but the variations by country (and they *do* vary by country, despite the international treaties...)...

jeff
 
Has anyone ever seen a case of someone getting nailed by the cops for owning roms or a kid watching an 18 movie. I doubt the average policeman/woman is even taught about roms. But I do know about that horrible thing they did in America. The cops randomly went around America making examples of people who owned mp3's and each mp3 they had was worth $100,000 in fines. :blink:
Anyway some little girl downloaded "If you're happy and you know it" for her playgroup, she got nailed and was in tears because her parents had to sell the house etc...
She was only 10, that's harsh.
Still though is does anyone know summit about people getting done for having roms cus I'd be curious to know.
 
Thats thing about the girl is an Urban Myth, it never happened, its spread thru internet not thru newspapers, and the title of the song keeps changing

If she was 10, y the hell would she b in playgroup?!? and why would she b d/loading a song, woot the hell would she do with it, i doubt she would know how to convert i and put it on a CD or have an MP3 player

Its just NOT true

No offense to u kknd_cf, there have been numerous different stories circulating thru Chain Mails and forums, one guy did it just to scare people on and MP3 forum i think
 
mattmagoo posted on May 3 2004 at 04:25 PM said:
Thats thing about the girl is an Urban Myth, it never happened, its spread thru internet not thru newspapers, and the title of the song keeps changing

If she was 10, y the hell would she b in playgroup?!? and why would she b d/loading a song, woot the hell would she do with it, i doubt she would know how to convert i and put it on a CD or have an MP3 player

Its just NOT true

No offense to u kknd_cf, there have been numerous different stories circulating thru Chain Mails and forums, one guy did it just to scare people on and MP3 forum i think
nah tis np, I don't give a shit. I was just using it as an example. lol I read it in the Sun whilst waiting in the Indian. lol only thing to do there.
 
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mattmagoo posted on May 3 2004 at 05:25 PM said:
Thats thing about the girl is an Urban Myth, it never happened, its spread thru internet not thru newspapers
WRONG. it was in the papers here and with a picture of the girl
 
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DAMN, thats wat get for trying to b clever

I read the Mail and the NotW and i cant remember reading it,

I just remmeber my mate coming into college yelling "Bollocks get rid of ure MP3s some little girl is getting sued"
then i followed "Where u read that"
Him "I read it on a forum so its gotta b tru"

Needless to say my m8 aint all there so i tend to disagree with him whatever hes saying, half the time i dont listen i just automatically disagree

N E way its not easy for the 'Government' to find roms on ure PC, coz u d/load them from a website, and as far as im aware it is aa lot harder to track a d/load from a web site than it is to track sum1 d/loading an MP3 from a p2p server because anyone can see whats on ure PC if u got Kazaa, so just dont use P2P and u shud be OK

This doesn't mean i condone any illegal d/loading, i condemn it, condemn it tto hell ;) 'yeh thats it, thatll get the police on your side, theyll never find our precious supply of ten of thosand MP3s, PRECIOUS, PRECIOUS'

'shut it u stupid hobbitsis, ure ruining it'

'No the hobbitsis is our fwends'

'eech, stupid fat hobbits tryings to gets us founded out for illegal cactivity, mmmmmmmmm'
 
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