ROM Myths Busted

[addictedtonoise]

I was checking out Nintendo.com for some reason and I came across their FAQ. They pretty much address all things about emulators and ROMs. I think we've all read about ROMs being legal if their consoles are obsolete, or that ROMs are legal if we delete them within 24 hours after downloading them. That's all BS according to Nintendo's lawyers.

According to Nintendo, downloading a ROM of a game a person owns is illegal. Even if they own it it's illegal to download the same game.

The copyrights of a game lasts for 75 years. 75 years. Since the gaming industry is only about 30-some years old all games are still copyrighted.

Providing links to ROMs creates liability to the provider and their ISP if they're caught.

It's all pretty interesting info and stuff we should keep in mind. Nintendo goes into further details, like how they feel about emulators and what they think of old games being available for download.

FAQ here: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom

[iball®]

Copyright laws are different for each country.
In the U.S. it's 75 years.
Also, emulators themselves are NOT illegal.
Nintendo's statement on THAT is utterly false.

[El Diablo]

i think we all knew roms were illegal...unless you ha done you made yourself just sittting on your comp for your use only

[Adiuvo]

Never in my lifetime have I heard BS from Nintendo. This is a sad day indeed.

[jgtc_lover]

Iso's are illegal too, doesn't stop me.

[addictedtonoise]

Yeah, but nobody says "If you delete the ISO within 24 hours it's okay." With ROMS it's different cuz the games are old. There's a lot of myths sorrounding them. Nintendo gets right in the middle of it and says it's all BS.

And that site is for Nintendo of America's site, so it applies to American law, not anywhere else.

[Basil-Culex]

Nintendo's beginning to act like sony...lol

[superballr]

Never in my lifetime have I heard BS from Nintendo. This is a sad day indeed.

im gonna pretend i never read that and keep playing my roms

[Moonchild]

Yeah, but nobody says "If you delete the ISO within 24 hours it's okay."

That's complete BS. It's like I shoplift something and return it within 24 hours then it's ok?

[SeikenZ]

That's complete BS. It's like I shoplift something and return it within 24 hours then it's ok?

yep, its okay o_O *cough*

[Basil-Culex]

i agree with SeikenZ *cough* *cough*

[jgtc_lover]

Well if their so illegal, why are there SO many rom sites out there? And whats the point in making it illegal to play a game that nintendo doesn't even make any more? I mean it's not like nintendo is losing money when someone DL's a super mario bros rom.

[Exophase]

I really can't stand Nintendo's anti-emulation propoganda. They try really hard to convince you that it's both 100% illegal and immoral to use emulators (even if you own the games), but look at Wii. Nintendo claims that emulators themselves are illegal (not just ROMs), yet will sell you ROMs that they have bought the rights to for play on THEIR emulators. Do they expect you to own the originals of those? No. They're just making a profit on other people's work. Look at this in particular:

"The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers."

Intellectual property rights of video game developers? These "intellectual property rights" are owned by the game companies themselves, not the developers. And what's more, they're free to be bought and sold on a whim for a profit, which is exactly what Nintendo is doing. For most games that are emulated today the original authors stopped having anything to do with the game a long time ago, and many of them aren't even employed at the company that owns the game rights anymore. They certainly don't make anything like royalties off of them. Nintendo actually tries to present this as if it's a matter of retaining the intellectual integrity of people who make games, when anyone who makes for a living has basically zero rights to their work. They'd have considerably more rights if they made the games for free.

"Nintendo is famous for bringing back to life its popular characters for its newer systems, for example, Mario and Donkey Kong have enjoyed their adventures on all Nintendo platforms, going from coin-op machines to our latest hardware platforms. As a copyright owner, and creator of such famous characters, only Nintendo has the right to benefit from such valuable assets."

Emphasis on "creator." Nintendo obviously thinks nothing of buying out the rights to several titles they didn't create for usage on Wii. Certainly they would never sell their own "assets", but as far as their actions indicate "copyright owner" is just a bought title to them. It's about money, that's all. Not only does Nintendo have the right to do whatever they want with other people's games, but they have the right to MAKE money off of them. In other words, whereas piraters merely get the games for free, Nintendo is both getting the game and making a profit of it. This is legitimized because the original "owners" of the "intellectual property" are paid off for this, and accept/allow it. However, since they long stopped making money off the products it's nothing more than a free gift to them. If someone sold a whole bunch of old ROMs on eBay for a company that couldn't care less about it (and isn't going to bother taking legal action against them), then gives a cut of the profit to that company, do you think Nintendo would suddenly be okay with them? Sure, if they bought the rights beforehand, but no company is going to do that, because it goes against their legal protocol and would damage their image (Nintendo talks a lot about image too, and how ROMs undermine it... they clearly want to maintain a stronghold on the mentality of their buyers).

Face it, this isn't about human rights, it's only about the ability for big companies to make money from nothing. Note I'm talking about emulating old games that have long since lost profitability in their original format and have long since made a significant return on their initial investment.

Companies like Nintendo are just greedy, and they'll tell the public anything to get them on their side, then behind the scenes go against everything they've been claiming if it better suits them.

[Mario Famous]

It really doesn't matter, in the end, people are going to continue to download roms and such, nobody can do anything about it. Nintendo is the biggest gaming corporation in the world, of coarse there going to inforce a law, I have nothing against them, Nintendo games ARE the most emulated games to date. They made this law because The new Wii system will have the VS(Virtual Console) this VC will alow to play N64, Sega, Atari, NES, SNES, etc on the Wii, but in order to download the game, Nintendo made out a point system which you have to abide by. Hence the crack down on roms. I really don't care, it's not a big deal, just coniue what your doing like nothing was ever said.

[DJShrimpy]

They said that dumping your own backup is illigal. Is that true?

[Henkibojj]

I think that games that are no longer for sale through Nintendo themselves should be allowed for emulators. Until Wii's released, there hasn't been any immorality in downloading ROMs and emulators at all, as long as they no longer sell the games themselves.

I for one wouldn't have had any interest in many of the biggest titles such as Metroid, Megaman X, Mario or Zelda if it hadn't been for ROMs and emulators. I can't say I've played that many games on emulators though, mostly it is one game of each series mentioned above. This is perticularly interesting, because although I haven't bought a DS (or will be either), I wouldn't have any interest whatsoever if it hadn't been for ROMs. Come on! It will only give them publicity and free "commercials".

Anyone with me?

[tenshu]

They said that dumping your own backup is illigal. Is that true?

nope they said distributing it is illegal.

Then it depends on your countrie laws.
Here in france we could use backup of our game/software
And we could make personnal copies of our music/videos in order to use them in different places (like your car or second house)

But following the pressions of the music industry (mostly Universal) our parlement voted a new law. It is now forbidden to bypass security measures.

So it means that we could dump and use backup if their is no piracy-protection on it.


My conclusion is that this is a complicated problems, depending on every countries laws.

and i advice all of you US people to remember that USA laws are not worlwide laws (as major of the industry seems to forget)

[MiG]

They said that dumping your own backup is illigal. Is that true?

it depends all on the console in question... on how strict obtaining a rom is..

Nintendo have always been ****s when it comes to obtaining roms for there systems, none of the major sites still carry any Links to GBA, or DS games.. sure you can get em, but they are harder to find and you have 2 goto ****ty sites with millions of pop ups and crap..

There was a major thing ruffled up about GBA emulation maybe a year or 2 back..

I dont give a flying rats ass, if i own Super Mario Kart on the GBA, i wanna download the ROM and Play it on my PSP.

i own the game... original GBA cart.. dont know what british law says, but i've always gone on the fact that you can download it if u own the original.

[Basil-Culex]

They did say its illegal only until 75 years later, who is going to wait that long

[Moonchild]

Yeah, like. Yay, I can play my nes roms in the year 2060!

[Krisman]

Are Game Copying Devices Illegal?

Yes. Game copiers enable users to illegally copy video game software onto floppy disks, writeable compact disks or the hard drive of a personal computer. They enable the user to make, play and distribute illegal copies of video game software which violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. These devices also allow for the uploading and downloading of ROMs to and from the Internet. Based upon the functions of these devices, they are illegal.

Is this true cause I always thought that they were legal?

For the most part what they say seems true. Its worded to try to trick you into thinking that emulators themselves are illegal but the never say they are.

[billman424]

no one has ever gone to jail for downloading a rom. and no one ever will.

[Jelga]

I think it's right for a company to defend it's copyrighted material because they made the product in order to obtain a profit, even if the product Nintendo tries to sell is outdates by today's standards it could still become profitable again later (maybe). This still doesn't stop me from getting roms though...Oh and on another note, I don't know if this would be possible but what if someone found a way to put roms you already have on to the wii? That would be pretty cool, it's probably not possible but I can always dream, right?

[Exodus]

[I didn't quote, too long of a post, but:]

I'm going to support ******** on this one. What is this, World War II? Propaganda is a strong word, but I think he is right to use it...

It's all about the money to them...

[brain_stew]

They said that dumping your own backup is illigal. Is that true?

If you have to circumvent copy protection to get your dump then in the US it is illegal under the DMCA.
-= Double Post =-

It's all about the money to them...

And nigh on every single company in the world. Big business is here to make as much cash as possible, learn to deal with it and move on, getting all angsty about it is going to get you no where. If you can't live with it, then leave western capitalist society as it is not going to go away.

[Joey]

The Wii IS the reason they're so against emulation...

I hear people say "We're playing games they don't even make anymore", which is obiviously false if you look at the Wii...

That's why they don't want you downloading old games they still own. They DO still sell them, and have intentions on selling them for years.

I mean, retro games come out every year (there's a Sega 30 game pack coming out for the PSP soon, am I wrong?). These companies still sell these old games, can you blame them for being mad when you pirate them?

Please, tell me how downloading a Sonic rom, instead of buying the PSP Sega Game pack, is any different from downloading Music, when you could buy it at best buy?

I'm so tired of hearing that lame excuse ("They're not selling those games anymore")... They do, and if they don't now, they will in the future.

And brain_stew is right... Find me a single company, where it's not "all about the money"... That's right, you can't, because there is no such thing... These companies are in a business, and the definition of business is Money.

[Zak1392]

The Wii IS the reason they're so against emulation...

I hear people say "We're playing games they don't even make anymore", which is obiviously false if you look at the Wii...

That's why they don't want you downloading old games they still own. They DO still sell them, and have intentions on selling them for years.

I mean, retro games come out every year (there's a Sega 30 game pack coming out for the PSP soon, am I wrong?). These companies still sell these old games, can you blame them for being mad when you pirate them?

Please, tell me how downloading a Sonic rom, instead of buying the PSP Sega Game pack, is any different from downloading Music, when you could buy it at best buy?

I'm so tired of hearing that lame excuse ("They're not selling those games anymore")... They do, and if they don't now, they will in the future.

And brain_stew is right... Find me a single company, where it's not "all about the money"... That's right, you can't, because there is no such thing... These companies are in a business, and the definition of business is Money.

Well said! I completely agree with you! :Punk:

[Basil-Culex]

me too

[SeikenZ]

me too

Matrix Reloaded déjà vu!

But I think the same way as well. so.. me too..

[Vee]

Me Tree..