ROMs of old games

[Flying-Emu]

Let me ask a question of you. Before I enter, I have a disclaimer: This is not a question of whether piracy is right or wrong. Those who begin to flame on right or wrong will be reported for dragging the thread off-topic. Please retain such arguments to another thread or Private Messages. Thank you.

Recently, a thought entered my head. There are many games from the 80's and 90's no longer in production; cartridges for the NES like Contra and Bubble Bobble, for example. I began to think; would downloading ROMs for games no longer available via the original publishers or current license holders be considered piracy?

Let me explain my thoughts. Let's say I download a ROM of a game. We'll call this game GAMEX. GAMEX is no longer in production in its original format (an NES cartridge), and has not been rereleased for the Nintendo Virtual Console or currently in production as a port to a handheld or console system.

I could buy this game off of eBay for an insane amount of money. None of which would go to the original company or current license holder. I could buy it used from a yard sale. None of which would go to the original company or current license holder. I could download a ROM of it, and nothing would go to the original company or current license holder.

Since there is absolutely no way the original company or current license holder would benefit from a backyard purchase of GAMEX, would it be considered piracy for me to download a ROM of GAMEX?

((All who flame for or against piracy can and will be reported without discretion. You have been warned. This is a simple question of the definition of piracy. Not a debate on the right and wrong or legality of the act.))

 

[Internet Kraken]

I don't believe it would be considered piracy. If the producers of the game so no profit from your purchase of it then the product is no longer theirs. So you would not be pirating it.

At least I wouldn't consider it piracy. If it is then I'm a hypocrite for playing my Earthbound ROM.

 

[SharPhoe]

At least I wouldn't consider it piracy. If it is then I'm a hypocrite for playing my Earthbound ROM.

You and me both, brother.

As I see it, playing an emulator isn't piracy. So far as I know, if you own the game, it's legal to get the ROM. If not, then it's not. In your case, it's not worth the arm-and-leg price for GAMEX, and like Kraken said, the original company wouldn't be getting that money anyway, so you're off the hook in my book.

 

[Pimppeter2]

No I have some roms, I have an OOT rom that I play at work

 

[CIA]

Well, yes, but you should do it anyway. Attempts to control distribution of things like this though the internet confuse me. The company that produced the game would have no problem letting it be sold though ebay, but they cringe at the idea of free distribution though a ROM. You brought up an interesting point about this double standard.

That old game is probably worth any questionable activity.

 

[Trivun]

That's a bit like saying "Shakespeare's works are out of copyright, even from his descendants, so is performing them wrong?". Which of course, we know the answer is no. This raises the question of ownership periods. It's like, with most products, patents and copyright are for a limited time. If you listen to Mozart or Beethoven then there's no breach of copyright, even if you were to download it from a site you found through The Pirate Bay or from something like Limewire (yes, TPB was deliberately mentioned there...). So there's nothing wrong. If these games, likewise, haven't been sold by the original distributors and publishers/developers for ages and they aren't produced anymore, then they are likely now out of copyright, or will be soon. In which case there is nothing wrong. So downloading a really old ROM of something like Space Invaders would be fine. Downloading for free a ROM of Pokemon Diamond (which I've done, incidentally) would be breaching existing copyright, and is therefore wrong (yes, I suppose I am a bit of a hypocrite there. What are you gonna do about it?). As it is, there is a list somewhere (you can probably Google it) that gives the names of every game that has been officially released by their developers or publishers for the free ROM market, which means basically all the games that are legal to download. Anything not on the list is illegal, not that most people really give a damn...

 

[CrustyMedic]

I think I saw a website somewhere that allows you to download some of these games. I believe it's www.abandonware.com or something like that. Or you can search "abandonware"

 

[Bibliomancer]

If you can't get the game new, then no money goes towards the makers, thus it's probably morally ok if not legally ok.

 

[Darkeagle6]

...If you listen to Mozart or Beethoven then there's no breach of copyright, even if you were to download it from a site you found through The Pirate Bay or from something like Limewire ...

Not true. There are artists who perform that music for a living, and companies that publish that music. If you distribute it and download it, it's piracy.

Now, as for music scores published by old publishing companies that so happen to be in the public domain, it's a completely different thing. See imslp.org

 

[ZeroMachine]

If the game is completely out of production, I think using roms is fine. For systems like Super Nintendo, NES, Game Boy, and the like...

I also think it's fine if you own/have owned the game and lost it or if your system doesn't work anymore.

But for people that try to make emulators for PS2 and Gamecube... Not only are they not practical and take up a HUGE amount of harddrive space, it's way to recent. You can still find those games these days.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

There are a few more legal loopholes to jump through if you really want to discuss the legality of downloading GAMEX.

If the developer is no longer in business, and currently no entity owns the rights to the work, then you are apparently within your rights to download it. Such is the case for game I had spent years trying to find: The Amazing Spider-man by Paragon Software. Paragon went out of business in 1992, and no one snapped up the rights to their work, so when I finally found [a href=http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/542/Amazing+Spider-Man.html]the damned game[/a], me downloading it was apparently on the up and up.

If you have a physical copy of the game and you download a copy... that's a gray area. It's legal if the ROM is a dump of your physical copy. Not so is you download someone else's copy. However, since there is no actual difference between the two... as I said, gray area.

If the developer is still in business, chances are good they still hold all the rights, and at some point might do something with it. I think the perfect example there is Kid Icarus.

There are several other situations that aren't coming to mind, and I'm no lawyer, so feel free to ignore everything I just said. But I do read a lot! This just happens to be one of the things I pour over time and again when I come across it.

 

[theSovietConnection]

Anywhere I've read, games such as GAMEX usually fall under abandonware, so you should be safe. I don't the owner would care anyways, as there is no way they can make money off the game if there aren't selling it anymore. As long as you aren't trying to profit from it you'll be fine.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Short answer: yes, it is.
Long answer: Buying the game over Ebay or in a Yard sale is buying a used game. At some point, someone bought (or stole) the game. This means that the company received payment for the game at some point. The copy of the game then belongs to the new owner (the guy who bought it) and eventually (and possibly after more exchanges) it ended up on Ebay or in that yard sale. The point is that somewhere along the the way company originally received their payment for that copy of the game (or lack thereof tin the case of theft).
In the case of ROMs and downloads, the company is never payed initially for the copy of the game. Maybe they were payed for a cartridge that was then copied into a hundred, but then only one copy is legal and 99 are pirated. When the company receives no payment, then it has not officially agreed to you (or whoever) owning that copy, (they agree to you owing a copy when they enter into a transaction and exchange the game for money) and you are stealing it, or pirating it.
Now if the game is unattainable by any means and you really want it, that does not justified anything. If you really want it and there is no way to buy it, then the only thing you can do is write letters to whoever owns the rights to the game and implore him to release it in some format for you to buy (or give you a copy). If he owns it and is just sitting on it and not releasing it, you can't really do anything about it.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

This is more a morality question than a legal question.

If the product is out of copyright, then there is no physical way to commit copyright infringement considering the copyright is non-existent. If the copyright still exists, then it's a pretty cut-and-dry case of copyright infringement.

Although, it's really about morality. Are you breaking the spirit or the letter of the law? If it's the letter, then you can be persecuted, even if you aren't breaking the reason for the law. If you aren't, then it's whether or not you're doing wrong by yourself.

By the letter of the law, if the copyright is still active, then you're technically circumventing purchasing the copyright. The thing about buying someone else's copy is you're buying their product key for the copyright, as well as the product itself. It's all above board. If you're downloading a ROM, then you're not paying for anyone's copyright. No harm is being brought to the copyright holder either way, since in both cases, a single copyright has been paid, the problem with ROMs is that 5+ people can be using the same copyright, if you buy a physical copy, it's limited to whoever has a hold of your cartridge.

Morally speaking, if it's out of print, I don't think it matters. On the same vein, downloading and running a ROM of a game I own (like Breath of Fire I and II) is technically illegal, since I did not dump my own personal cartridge, though it's still following the spirit of the law, which is what I care for.

Hopefully that made sense.

 

[WIUtomato]

yeah, sorry to poop on your parade, but as long as the material in the rom was once copyrighted it would still be piracy. The ability to locate a legitimate copy of something or not sadly does not alter the copyright status of said something. Sorry mate,

 

[tenlong]

i dont think its piracy. it reminds of some my favorite games i had on the genesis as a kid. they were streets of rage and golden axe . i lost the copies of the games . when i got on the internet years later i discovered they were both trilogies. i found the roms and played them. when the chance to buy them came i got them. but what if i couldn't buy them to have to suffer not playing them. Heck,no!

 

[robinkom]

As explained by many others above, there is a hefty gray area when considering all of this.

Personally, I only really download ROMs or ISOs of out-of-production games if they're either so rare that the odds of finding a physical copy are incredibly slim or if they only sell for gratuitous amounts of cash (see "Nintendo World Championships 1990" for $5000.00).

Other than that, I make the effort to buy real copies of whatever I'm looking for, be them NES, SNES, Atari, Genesis, or what not. Sometimes I even get then in duplicate or triplicate to be safe (Just got a hold of my 3rd copy of Sonic CD for Sega CD. ^.^)

I wouldn't worry too much about the piracy thing though. It's been going on forever and isn't about to stop now. Just do what you need to to find your desired entertainment.

 

[megapenguinx]

I am not sure. You'd think they would be in public domain. But then again (favorite example to use) I loved Freakazoid. Now they didn't have any copies available anywhere, the show was no longer on television, and there was no DVD. However people who would download it were still liable for copyright infringement because "WB still holds the rights until otherwise stated". I guess the same would apply in this situation since the companies still hold the rights to the characters and possibly even those old games. (Sorry if this sounds jumbled)