How long does it take for emulation or roms from old consoles acceptable to play.

[SuperCookie78]

After watching many retro gaming videos on youtube for the past month i have began to wonder how long it takes from a release of consoles or computer for illegal roms or emulators to be acceptable to use. For example old dos games can be played on a modern computer but you don’t buy the games from the publisher they are freely available. likewise old consoles like the NES can be emulated. Most people i would say find this fine as both are old enough that no one cares. but how old is old enough? is the wii u old enough since it isn’t being sold anymore? I think that if a company completely abandons a platform that cit means you can play these free roms. By completely abandon i mean that its so old the company won’t perform repairs or even have customer support. But what fo you guys think? 

[PlayStation 2]

Legally, it's a muddled mess, but morally, it all depends on the person. I could not give any less of a fuck if you use emulators, but some think it's wholly immoral.

[Blue4130]

Legally or morally? 

 

Legaly it depends on where they copyright was issued, USA is something like 50 after they creators death. But it changes often and depends on what they medium is and if the creator was contracted to created it. 

 

Nintendo is a great example of a company that actively prosecutes anyone using their I.P. 

 

As for old dos games, they can be considered abandonware and be free to use as long as a "reasonable" effort has been made to track down the copyright holder. As for what is considered reasonable, that's anyone's guess. 

[SaviorSix]

Legally, it's weird. If something is out of print or no longer in service, you should have the right to use it. Say you want to play a game on the NES, but it's not obtainable in a legal way, then getting something and playing it shouldn't be illegal. If it's something like Mario Brothers, you can get the Nintendo Switch Online service and play it legally.

[Blue4130]

3 hours ago, SaviorSix said:

Legally, it's weird. If something is out of print or no longer in service, you should have the right to use it. Say you want to play a game on the NES, but it's not obtainable in a legal way, then getting something and playing it shouldn't be illegal. If it's something like Mario Brothers, you can get the Nintendo Switch Online service and play it legally.

Legally it's pretty cut and dry. Out of print or service doesn't matter legally. NES roms are illegal unless you own a copy of the game. Nintendo has and does claim rights and has been quite successful shutting rom sites down. 

[zassou]

morally, i dont care. my point is nothing beats the real famicom, not even that bastered child so called "nes". but emulation can overcome certain limitations like slowing down or flickering.

[JZStudios]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

Legally it's pretty cut and dry. Out of print or service doesn't matter legally. NES roms are illegal unless you own a copy of the game. Nintendo has and does claim rights and has been quite successful shutting rom sites down. 

The shit thing is Nintendo went after Emuparadise, so they removed all the Nintendo games. Then Nintendo went after them because they still hosted games that can be played on Nintendo consoles, despite Nintendo not owning any of those IP's. Emuparadise just shut down because it's easier to do that than to try to go to lawsuits with Nintendo. I don't think console manufacturers have any rights to third party games simply because they're on their system, much less games for other systems like the PS2 or Saturn/Dreamcast. Especially when Sony, Sega, and the individual third party developers and publishers don't give a shit.

The interesting thing about the games market is that old games in particular were a pretty physical medium, there is no digital version, and the developer/publisher doesn't currently sell them, so those sales are lost to time. It might technically still be illegal, but they couldn't really care less since they wouldn't be making money off sales from used copies anyways.

 

Either way, downloading roms is about licensing and not age. The only games I've... obtained... are Dirt 2, Driver San Francisco, and Richard Burns Rally because they aren't available for sale, the first 2 being due to expired licenses. When the licenses expire or come for their dues, the publisher looks at sales figures and decides if it's worth keeping the game for sale or just saying "We've made our money, no one is buying it anymore, and it wouldn't cover the cost of refreshing the license" and the game disappears into the nether.

[Anomnomnomaly]

I have a mame install on my PC and it's mainly used for really old early/mid 80's arcade classics that you cannot get anywhere else and simply aren't available any other way... But even if they were, I'd still use it... because the few random ones that are available somewhere require such a ridiculous investment in what ever console and eco system it's available on. If you just wanted to play an old game from 30yrs ago but have to spend several hundred pounds to do so... It's easier and morally/ethically justifiable in my book to use a rom.

[The1Dickens]

7 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

The shit thing is

The bigger shit thing is that all the games Nintendo currently uses on their Virtual Console service are not even from their own vault, but pulled from sites such as Emuparadise.

 

On top of that, the used game market (especially for 'classics') is obscene and insulting. I'm not paying 400+ bucks for, say, Chrono Trigger, just because it comes factory sealed. Collectors ruin the market for most things.

 

Legally, there's a ton of convoluted messes that are intended to obfuscate things and make it difficult to argue one way or the other, and the 'bigger' entity just throws more money at it, hoping the other party concedes or runs out of money.

[wasab]

Patents last for 20 years. Copyright last for... 80 years I believe? By US laws at least. 

[JZStudios]

2 hours ago, The1Dickens said:

The bigger shit thing is that all the games Nintendo currently uses on their Virtual Console service are not even from their own vault, but pulled from sites such as Emuparadise.

 

On top of that, the used game market (especially for 'classics') is obscene and insulting. I'm not paying 400+ bucks for, say, Chrono Trigger, just because it comes factory sealed. Collectors ruin the market for most things.

 

Legally, there's a ton of convoluted messes that are intended to obfuscate things and make it difficult to argue one way or the other, and the 'bigger' entity just throws more money at it, hoping the other party concedes or runs out of money.

Yeah, wasn't the PS1 mini thing also just another emulator running the same roms? At least Sony didn't go after the sites. Sega actively doesn't give a shit and MS only goes after things like Halo.

 

Yeah, I went around to a few bookstores and game shops with a work buddy, and he finally found Skies of Arcadia for $90. He skipped it. I just went home and got it on an emulator.

 

Yeah, I don't think Emuparadise had to shut down. I think they could've just removed the Nintendo console stuff and left the PS2 and other stuff. I'm not even convinced they would have to remove the Nintendo console stuff, but it would prevent them from having to deal with a big lawsuit. Kind of wish they crowdfunded for a lawyer or something. It's not like MS can go after you for pirating a Ubi/EA game, just because you play it on PC.

[JZStudios]

20 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

The problem with copyright laws is that the copyright is held for 75 years, at least in the US before a renewal has to be done.  Considering most games for Nintendo products have a license held by Nintendo they can still sue since most of them are not even more than 30-40 years old.  Which is why they were legally allowed to go after them like that.  On top of that, Nintendo actually dedicates a portion to their own website about "misconceptions" and other legal stuff on the matter.  XD

https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp

I would like to see the license for Burnout 2 by EA that Nintendo owns.

And again, that doesn't even begin to account for roms from other platforms. I think there's also the issue of things going "out of print" and not actually being commercially available, licensing issues making the game not available for sale, the rights owners being either completely gone or nebulous at best... there's a lot of factors that make it not a clear cut copyright issue.

 

And given the definition of Copyright that Nintendo has labelled on their site, roms don't infringe on Nintendo, other than their first party titles like Mario and Zelda. Emulators also don't use the source code, which is why Nintendo can't go after them.

 

And then they say this, in which they straw man, and then basically ignore the question;

People Making Nintendo Emulators and Nintendo ROMs are Helping Publishers by Making Old Games Available that are No Longer Being Sold by the Copyright Owner. This Does Not Hurt Anyone and Allows Gamers to Play Old Favorites. What's the Problem?

The problem is that it's illegal. Copyrights and trademarks of games are corporate assets. If these vintage titles are available far and wide, it undermines the value of this intellectual property and adversely affects the right owner. In addition, the assumption that the games involved are vintage or nostalgia games is incorrect. 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.

 

1. That only applies to Nintendo's IP. As mentioned, they can't just bring back Burnout 2 because they don't own dick about it. Much less things from other platforms.

2. If the game is no longer sold by the copyright owner, how does it undermine the value? It's literally not available for sale anywhere, there is zero value.

3. You're still using the old version of the game, on it's respective "hardware" instead of the current hardware. As such, the older software on the "hardware" you're using, is still unavailable for sale.

 

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.

 

This seems in direct contrast to the digital backup law. And again, there's a stupid straw-man argument that because some people upload them, everyone does.

[MrFixitBlankFace]

For stuff like DOS games, I think emulators are reasonable for the following reasons:

1. DOS games are on sale no where.  Companies don’t produce them and people would rather keep them as a collectible than to sell them on eBay, etc.
2. Almost no one owns a DOS computer anymore, which also makes DOS gaming impossible.
3. DOS has become abandonware and is relatively legal now.

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

You'd have to talk to them about that.  Their defense is that anything that has that Nintendo seal on it is their property to defend.  Not saying I agree with them, or anything like that, but that's what their defense is followed by what's on the legal page.

I know. I'm not sure how much legal precedent is already set, but it mainly comes down to no one so far has had the money or will to fight Nintendo. Just because they say it's so doesn't exactly make it so.