A Brief history of Roms and Bios Legality?


Halcyon

Halcyon

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Right off the bat, Im not asking for roms, or bios files or anything else that could get members of this community in trouble or invoke unwanted attention.


Im not a lawyer, I would be surprised if there are many lawyers in these forums (could be wrong) and I have heard many things about the usage of ROMs (Im using this term to mean essentially the software component of either a cd or cartridge video game)


Im also not a programmer, so when i look at all the files that go into making an GameBoy Advanced emulator i have no idea what I am looking at.


With that background in mind, can anyone explain if there are world wide rules that apply to emulation.


Specific questions I have are:


Bios files. So again using the GBA example. I can freely trade a collection of files that make up a GBA emulator but can not legally share a bios file? How does that work? It would seem if the powers that be could clamp down on a single file why not stop them all? Also how come some emulators dont have this at all? Game Gear, SNES, Sega Genesis, but Sega CD does? It just seems odd to me, I am easily confused though :)


Roms: So I truly own a product called the SF Professor 2.


http://everything2.com/title/Professor+SF+II


a331112959374.jpg



I put my SNES games in and out pops a 3.5" floppy and bingo there is the ROM. Am I legally allowed to back up my games? Can I legally take those back ups and put them on something like the Pandora? Would someone who has the game but not the SF Professor 2 be allowed to legally put SNES games they own on their Pandora?


By no means do I want this to degenerate into a discussion about morals or ethics, I can make up my own mind on such topics as I'm sure you can as well, but if anyone has any idea about the history of emulation or why I cant get the BIOS file for the GBA emulator but have everything i need for the SNES (for example) I would be very interested to hear it.


Lastly I know this is can be a touchy subject and I truly dont intend to cause any trouble for the boards so if this is a topic of discussion that can not be held openly I would be happy to remove it form the boards at the request of a moderator.
 
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Halcyon said:
Lastly I know this is can be a touchy subject and I truly dont intend to cause any trouble for the boards so if this is a topic of discussion that can not be held openly I would be happy to remove it form the boards at the request of a moderator.
Click to expand...

I would hope not, I think you prefaced the topic quite fairly with lawful intent. Although, there always is some jack@$$ who comes and posts random illegal stuff just because you asked about something indirectly related to it.


// Would be very interested to hear some even quasi-legal expertise on the matter. No dependency on the advice given; merely for curiosity's sake.
 
Very interesting.


So according to Nintendo(and i would guess any of the other major brands), you are only allowed to have a single copy of a product.


Well I guess that answers all my questions about Roms.


It seems like Emulators are illegal out right as well, so again i must wonder why the shell game with bios files?


Oh in case anyone is wondering I have now destroyed my illegal SF Professor 2 <_<
 
Halcyon said:
It seems like Emulators are illegal out right as well, so again i must wonder why the shell game with bios files?
Click to expand...
To cut a very, very long story short (and to not go into the confusing bits that differ by region because that would muddy this attempt at a basic explanation): Emulation is perfectly legal. Copyright infringement is not.
 
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Prometheus said:
Halcyon said:
It seems like Emulators are illegal out right as well, so again i must wonder why the shell game with bios files?
Click to expand...
To cut a very, very long story short (and to not go into the confusing bits that differ by region because that would muddy this attempt at a basic explanation): Emulation is perfectly legal. Copyright infringement is not.
Click to expand...


Sorry but could you please give a little more detail, I suppose the heart of my question may stem from the "seemingly" randomness of the required bios file. Can you speak to the topic that some emulators require this to "work" while others do not?
 
Halcyon said:
Prometheus said:
Halcyon said:
It seems like Emulators are illegal out right as well, so again i must wonder why the shell game with bios files?
Click to expand...
To cut a very, very long story short (and to not go into the confusing bits that differ by region because that would muddy this attempt at a basic explanation): Emulation is perfectly legal. Copyright infringement is not.
Click to expand...


Sorry but could you please give a little more detail, I suppose the heart of my question may stem from the "seemingly" randomness of the required bios file. Can you speak to the topic that some emulators require this to "work" while others do not?
Click to expand...

I can explain. Some emulators don't use or require a BIOS file because they try to emulate all the BIOS functions themselves, which can be buggy or glitchy, while some emulators are either so good they don't require it or the developers just say "too much work to do that, we'll just work from the BIOS instead".
 
Ok, that sounds simple enough. Thank you kindly for the explanation.


So my understanding is the Sega Saturn is something of a "hard nut to crack" in terms of emulation. Would it be a reasonable thing to think that should an emulator come along (no im not trying to start this as a new discussion point) a bios file would be probably needed?


Anyone want to weigh in on the legality of devices like this?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_16_Go


It plays SNES cartridges.


My guess is that Nintendo would see this a worth while investment of legal time bringing a company like this to court where it realistically could not prosecute everyone who has an internet connection and fond memories of games gone by and must relay on an appeal to ethics and morals to even partially choke the flow of roms. However I have been aware of this product for about a year and the company for at least 5. So maybe it is legit some how.


Aww the world of lawyers and copy right law B)
 
(IANAL, of course)

Halcyon said:
Bios files. So again using the GBA example. I can freely trade a collection of files that make up a GBA emulator but can not legally share a bios file? How does that work? It would seem if the powers that be could clamp down on a single file why not stop them all? Also how come some emulators dont have this at all? Game Gear, SNES, Sega Genesis, but Sega CD does? It just seems odd to me, I am easily confused though :)
Click to expand...

Due to some nonsense in history, software and hardware are protected by a different set of rules and regulations. Software is protected by copyright, the same mechanism that protects written works, works of art, film, music etc. Copyright is exactly what it sounds like: The right to copy. And in short, unless you're explicitly given the right to copy, you don't have it. Hardware is protected by patent. But emulation of hardware does not violate patent law; patent law was designed to protect the innovation but allow reasonable competition, so there's a lot more leeway in what's legal. In particular, emulation is not a reproduction of the actual hardware schematics, it is merely an invention with the same intent. In principle you can violate a patent without knowing it, because a recreation of something which you didn't know was patented is a violation of the patent. Copyright is altogether different. Think of it like software actually is a form of art (some of us programmers think that it is, anyway :p ). Copying that art is illegal. Creating something with the same function of that art is perfectly legal since, well, traditionally art doesn't have a function.


Classically, some consoles have included software, while some have been entirely hardware. The software of such a system is called the BIOS (for no good reason). Whether you require a BIOS file or not is a consequence of both the particular design of the console, and how easy it is for some hacker to create alternative software which serves the same purpose. If the console never included BIOS software in the first place, then obviously none is needed. If the console did include BIOS software but its function can be reproduced, then that alternative software may be OK (as is the case in some PSX emulators). However the reason why the original software cannot be included is simply that software and hardware are protected by different regulations, copyright vs patent.

Halcyon said:
Roms: So I truly own a product called the SF Professor 2.


http://everything2.com/title/Professor+SF+II


I put my SNES games in and out pops a 3.5" floppy and bingo there is the ROM. Am I legally allowed to back up my games? Can I legally take those back ups and put them on something like the Pandora?
Click to expand...

Modern copyright law protects your right to back up software, however the exact extent to which that is allowed is somewhat unclear. In principle so long as you do not distribute copies, you are allowed to copy for "backup" in whatever way you see fit, but in practice copyright law often ends up being a question of who has the bigger pocketbook.

Halcyon said:
Would someone who has the game but not the SF Professor 2 be allowed to legally put SNES games they own on their Pandora?
Click to expand...

No. Copyright is the right to copy. They may have the right to copy their own, but they are not allowed to copy yours. The fact that they are identical is irrelevant.
 
isn't that something you can wake up curious one Sunday morning and ask questions about things you have been around or doing for years and get clean concise answers.


Thx for all the answers and explanations. :D
 
It really really depends on the country.


I had a german book in my shop about emulators which had an article upfront written by a lawyer.


In Germany, playing backup-copies of games for devices that are no longer available is perfectly legal.


Making copies FOR YOUR OWN PRIVATE USE (backup copies) is also perfectly legal if the original doesn't have a copy protection (as it is illegal to crack copy protections).


So using something like the retrode to read out your original cartridges and play them on your Pandora would be perfectly legal in Germany.


If you sell the original game, of course, you have to delete all backup copies as well.
 
Linopoly said:
No, not really. If it's legal to play your own backups in Germany, then it doesn't matter what Nintendo thinks of that, they are not entitled to forbid you from doing it.
Click to expand...
Indeed. It won't stop them from trying though.
 
Notice that that page by Nintendo has inaccurate information about the legality of game copying devices. They claim that they are illegal, but that is not generally considered the case (in most places anyway) as long as you don't distribute the ROM to anybody else.


The law is not as cut and dried as it should be. It's open somewhat to interpretation. A company can theoretically try to take legal action against you for doing things that are generally considered perfectly within your rights. However, usually the things that are within your rights will draw no attention at all from these companies because they don't involve anyone but the individual doing them.


My comments here are based primarily upon U.S. copyright law because that is what I am most familiar with. However, many places have similar copyright laws.


BIOS files: Bios files are illegal to distribute without a license just like any other copyrighted material. However, they are not illegal to imitate. You can reverse engineer the functions of a BIOS file and create code that will perform the same functions. Most emulators that do not require an original BIOS file have code that imitates the functions of the original file after it has been reverse engineered. If original BIOS files are required for a certain emulator, then see the restrictions for ROMs below.


Hardware: Most video game hardware is based on off the shelf chips that don't have any relevant patents still in effect. Even new systems often have no patents associated with them, so code that imitates hardware chips through reverse engineering efforts is usually legal. If it imitates something that is still patented, however, with a similar implementation, it will be illegal. This is unlike copyrighted software/firmware (that is, copyright doesn't provide protection against imitating function through reverse engineering, only against direct copying).


ROMs: If you own a legitimate copy of the original ROM for a game (or a BIOS or CD), then you are permitted to have additional copies as long as you don't distribute them. However, it will still be technically illegal for you to download these files from an Internet site that has no license to distribute them. It would be very difficult and pointless to take action against you for this, since it is difficult to prove, and constitutes no damages (the company would not get anything from you, only from the party you downloaded from). The party that you downloaded from is the one that could get into real trouble for this. In theory, your sanction for downloading the ROM could be a fine for contributory infringement. You can legally obtain these ROMs either by dumping them yourself, or by having a friend dump your ROMs and returning the ROMs and the copies at the same time.


Copy protection: If you have to crack copy protection to dump a ROM (or BIOS or CD), then you may be violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The law reads as if you are, but technically, the law reads as though playing a movie or sound recording that was copy protected would be illegal as well, which is clearly outside its intention. A recent court ruling by the U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in the MGE vs. PMI case last July, along with a three year DMCA exemption given by the Library of Congress (starting sometime in 2009) give credence to the position that cracking copy protection is only illegal according to the DMCA if it is done for the purpose of violating copyright. If that's the case, then cracking copy protection on your own ROMs and optical disks to use the material for your own private use would not be illegal. A Supreme Court ruling on this would remove more doubt, however.


Edit: I would like to make a clarification about copy protection schemes under the DMCA. Even if you interpret the DMCA in the sense that defeating a copy protection scheme is illegal under any circumstances, some anti-piracy efforts are not technically copy protection schemes. For example, it would not be illegal to rip a Playstation disc to a disc image even though measures were taken to keep copies of these discs from playing on the Playstation. This is because the anti-piracy measures don't actually stop you from copying the information on the disc; they only (try to) stop a burned copy from working in a Playstation. (The Playstation predates the DMCA, so defeating a copy protection scheme for it would not be illegal anyway; it's just an example.)
 
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SONY said:
NCL doesn't allow such things.

Nintendo said:
Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.
Click to expand...

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom
Click to expand...
Note that while they make it sound like obtaining ROMs is illegal, they actually only state that it is illegal to download them. Because you have the right to make a backup copy. However downloading a file from the internet is not making a backup copy. It is perfectly legal to posess and use ROMs or BIOS images that you yourself have copied from the original media that contained them.


However thanks to the mindless lobby sycophants that run most countries (at least Germany and the USA) it is considered copyright infringement to copy media that has some form of copy protection.


Bios files are illegal to share because they are intellectual property of the device creator. Emulators are not.
 
SONY said:
NCL doesn't allow such things.

Nintendo said:
Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.
Click to expand...

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom
Click to expand...
ok that quote from Nintendo only refers to downloading Nintendo roms from the internet! so if you created your own backup which wasn't downloaded from the internet then there should be no problem.


or did I miss something here?
 
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