28 replies to this topic

[destruk]

If you want to split hairs down to the core, by buying an Ultrapin machine, you get access to 12 or 15 legally licensed romsets from bally/williams. I have a few boards and roms lying around here as well as a full Allied Leisure Take 5 machine - which would allow me legal access to any of the solid state allied leisure games as most/if not all use the same code and boardset. Other than that there isn't enough money for anyone to 'come after you' and stick you in jail for running/accessing game code you don't have a license for. And as there is no legal way to actually have carte blanch permission or license for every romset available (within living reason) I don't see it as a very big issue myself. It would be a great business move, for say, Stern to offer a DVD with all their roms on it - legally, for $20 or so, but that won't happen. Most of their game code has issues, is incomplete, missing, etc etc. And what then would you do for companies no longer in business like Atari, Hankin, Gottlieb, etc ? Most of them want an unreasonable amount of money per game - over $1000 for each romset - which is stupid.

[Vanblaricom0]

I understand your point destruk, and I agree. On the other hand yesterday Noah Fentz made it clear to me that it's ok for me to download PinMame roms without having a hard copy, or a license? MAME roms appears to be a different story, but let's not get into that.

Edited by Vanblaricom0, 21 May 2009 - 05:16 PM.

[celodestroyer]

In good old radio times, my position was :they play it on the radio, so it´s ok to record it, copy it & share it, non profit only.
I feel the same about the internet.If they don´t want me to dl it copy it & share it non profit, they don´t put it on the web.
To me, whatever is available on the internet is INFORMATION, AVAILABLE TO EVERYBODY.
If they are some laws that say differently, well they are outdated!

There are laws that disagree of you and they aren't outdated.
Actually, the roms are put illegally in the websites.
for example, Super Mario World for snes is made by Nintendo, but they don't put it on the internet free. The roms in the internet are put there by persons who have the roms and rip them from the cartridge, and then put these games on the internet. this action breakes (correct me if i spelled wrong) the law and is called piracy.
why? its simple: in the example, Nintendo works hard and spends a lot of money in the game. but then someone that owes the game decides to rip the ROM form its cartridge and upload it to internet. that means that Nintendo works hard in vain and a lot of money is thrown away. and everyone knows the worst kind of piracy : sell copies of the game. SELL. and keep the money for him/herself. but i wont comment it here.
however there are games that no longer are copyrighted or are free or demo versions and are freely distributed in the internet. these games are known as abandonwares, and there are plenty of them on the internet.
EDIT: i know that this is a pinball forum, but super mario was the only thing i could remember.

Edited by celodestroyer, 26 January 2012 - 09:23 PM.

[StevOz]

Move to a country where it is legal.

[faralos]

how about the emulator sites? do they use ripped roms
or are the games written in another language
and just act like their commercial counterparts?
I have seen many sites that advertise genesis and nintendo games
for free downloading with a separate emulator that you can use
are they legal to download?

[Rawd]

Noah...

Because they are available online, and the manufacturers know full well, but haven't complained, that makes them legal? I am not a lawyer, but that sounds off to me. Legal to download, or legal to use and play? Why does pinmame have the agreement that you have to click if they are already legal to use? I know that you have had conversations about this with those in the industry, so you must be correct, but it just doesn't seem right...

Destruk, can we get rid of the legal agreement in the next version of Pinmame?

Edit: Personally, I sleep fine at night.

Edited by Rawd, 27 January 2012 - 12:19 AM.

[destruk]

If MAME takes theirs out, then that would mean we can remove it from ours.

[Drawde]

how about the emulator sites? do they use ripped roms
or are the games written in another language
and just act like their commercial counterparts?
I have seen many sites that advertise genesis and nintendo games
for free downloading with a separate emulator that you can use
are they legal to download?

You can find both ripped roms and original games made to run on the emulators. As far as the legality it is not a big problem. The games for the systems you mentioned are 20 to 30 years old. With some exceptions these games are out of print and none are still available in their original form. The publishers that actually care about old roms online (mostly Nintendo since they have official emulation these days) report their titles to the ESA who does a fairly good job of taking them off of the rom sites. The games that will actually get you into trouble are the new ones. Those are also the games that downloading can cause the makers to lose money. If you download a 30 year old out of print game its not like the makers would of made any money since you would have to buy a used copy.

[faralos]

tks Drawde