Legal ROM rentals?

[Grench]

So I was reading this article on ARS:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...library-solve-classic-gamings-piracy-problem/

And a lot of it is about this site/service:
http://www.consoleclassix.com/
It appears to be Windows only?

Which got me wondering... How difficult would it be to spin up a user client for that service to work on a Pyra?

$60 per year for a big library of classic games sounds like a good deal.

 

[levi]

I suspect part of the problem is this type of thing depends on a locked down sandbox, or a network share that only exposes specific parts of the roms at specific moments, and isn't readily mountable from a standard linux mount that would let you copy them to another fs. These ideas are rather the antitheses of open source ideals, but I guess with even firefox now supporting DRMed video playback out of the box, that's starting to turn out to be a slightly old-fashioned idea.

 

[ZXDunny]

To be fair, security issues aside, I have no issues with DRM as long as it allows me to access either what I own or what I have paid to use without getting in my way. As Grench said, $60/pa for a convenient system where I can play what I want when I want to? Sign me right up. As it stands, my only recourse is downloaded ROM images for a huge amount of the games I want to play. They change that, they pretty much eliminate most of the piracy.

 

[HelenF]

Rental is one area where DRM makes sense, since if it's *too* easy to keep rented items, people will tend to keep them by default. And it doesn't have all the problems of years down the road potentially losing access to the things you bought, because you agreed in advance that you're not supposed to still have the things anyway. On the other hand, if DRM'd rental takes over too much of the market, that's really bad for preservation. So I think it's only really a good thing if you can also buy DRM-free copies to keep.

 

[Grench]

So, considering the service noted above and how to hypothetically deploy that in a DRM friendly and secured way on the Pyra, what are the options?

The hypothetical DRM needs a unique identifier to check against. Effectively a decryption key or hash salt. The Pyra holds a few of those.

IMEI from the 4G module
MAC address from the WiFi
OUI address from the Bluetooth
SDXC card's secretish identifier
Yubi keys

Other options?

 

[levi]

All of those are publicly discoverable after a quick internet search, apart from the yubi key option which involves buying a yubikey and leaving it hanging out of your pyra while you retro game. That said, as long as your encryption method is obfuscated enough it'll be hard for your random joe bloggs to use antything to rip rom isos.

I don't see any particular problem with generating a public/private key pair and saving that.

 

[kuru]

I find it hard to believe that console classix' spin on the ROM site spiel would be considered fair by Nintendo.

 

[Grench]

I find it hard to believe that console classix' spin on the ROM site spiel would be considered fair by Nintendo.

Other than being a digital store front that you don't have to drive to, what makes it any different from renting a cartridge from someplace like GameStop?

 

[kuru]

Other than being a digital store front that you don't have to drive to, what makes it any different from renting a cartridge from someplace like GameStop?

The fact that you don't get an actual cartridge. Gamestop does not rip a game and make it available to multiple users at the same time while leaving the physical medium in a drawer somewhere.

Edit: Does anybody know why, next to copying etc., there's a clause against "unauthorized rental and lending" printed on game discs? See attachment at about 7 o'clock

 

[levi]

It's the same with this site too. They have a set number of carts and they only allow that number of carts to be played over the internet at the same time. That's the same as a traditional high street video rental shop.

I think that license text is also on paper books, and also claims you can't sell the book on in many books. As far as I know it's not enforceable in this country.

 

[Grench]

The fact that you don't get an actual cartridge. Gamestop does not rip a game and make it available to multiple users at the same time while leaving the physical medium in a drawer somewhere.

Check out the Ars article that I started this thread with. The guy who runs this example has the entire lending library backstopped with physical cartridges in the same quantity as his system will lend. That is why it would be important to implement some form of DRM to ensure that honest people stay honest and don't duplicate the borrowed ROM.

I don't even have a Windows machine that I can try his free section with. But, I do like the concept - particularly on something like an always connected Pyra.

 

[kuru]

Yeah levi already caught me up with that fact.

so the only spanner in the works is that bit in the law that requires you to send out a physical copy to be accompanied by the ROM

 

[levi]

There's no spanner in the works as far as console classix is concerned - they're doing it and nobody's stopped them yet. There's limited case law so far about this, and there's certainly no statute that out and out says you can't do this. The spanner in the works as far as Grench is concerned is nobody's built a linux client yet.