# This site has been getting you to pay for ROMs since 2001 and isn't afraid of Nintendo & co.



## TotalInsanity4 (Aug 23, 2018)

That's... an interesting take on the law, I'm glad it seems to be working out for them so far


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## Xzi (Aug 23, 2018)

Very interesting.  I wouldn't think Nintendo would acknowledge his right to distribute these games to play, even if they can't be kept.  It's possible he's stayed under their radar for the most part, but Nintendo might be cracking down harder in this new wave of anti-ROM hosting, we'll have to wait and see.


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## WeedZ (Aug 23, 2018)

That's actually pretty smart. Follows the copyright to a t


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## Noctosphere (Aug 23, 2018)

wow...
just... wow...
lol...


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## TunaKetchup (Aug 23, 2018)

Renting roms

Now this is pretty messed up


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## Deleted User (Aug 23, 2018)

That's really interesting, and a smart way of getting around copyright loopholes.  However, Ethridge is right in saying that using the service is a novelty; I can't see anyone using this site over a dedicated emulator and ROM Hosting site, and I'm willing to bet the versions of the emulators on _Console Classix's_ client are horribly outdated.


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## Noctosphere (Aug 23, 2018)

TunaKetchup said:


> Renting roms
> 
> Now this is pretty messed up


renting


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## DS1 (Aug 23, 2018)

I just wish the original devs got a cut, as impractical as that may be. Not because they "deserve" it (the people that worked on the original games might be long gone), but because they need the data. Online campaigns and petitions are BS, but imagine they knew people were paying for a subscription and spent most of their time playing Shining Force or something. Then they'd have an actual incentive to rerelease the originals or even revive the IP


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## KingVamp (Aug 23, 2018)

That's interesting. Kind of like a retro cloud gaming. I wonder how licensing comes into play for this.


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## RayPanimals (Aug 23, 2018)

This is the hero we need to stand up against Nintendo.


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## Deleted User (Aug 23, 2018)

Scrapes every rom... I'm just... Uhhhh, renting, yeah.. _Renting_


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## Quantumcat (Aug 23, 2018)

Are you even allowed to rent out cartridges? On DVDs there is a message it is for home use only. Video shops of old had to pay extra (a license?) to be allowed to rent them out. I imagine it is the same for games, so it wouldn't matter if they had a physical cartridge for each person "renting" a particular rom.


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## ShadowOne333 (Aug 23, 2018)

"Oh got a C&D from Nintendo?
Well .l. you, I am on fairly legal ground assholes!"

Awesome way he didn't give a shit about Shitendo's C&D.
Now those are guts, hope it all goes well for him and his little rental service.


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## supergamer368 (Aug 23, 2018)

This is to say the least, odd. Yeah, let us lend you a technically pirated rom for a fee, but only one of you gets it at a time. Obviosly, this is gonna create tons of problems because all the popular *ahem* good *ahem* games will be in constant use. I’m kinda suprised at how well it works out for them.


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## Souperman9 (Aug 23, 2018)

I'm quite surprised this exists.


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## Deleted User (Aug 23, 2018)

supergamer368 said:


> This is to say the least, odd. Yeah, let us lend you a technically pirated rom for a fee, but only one of you gets it at a time. Obviosly, this is gonna create tons of problems because all the popular *ahem* good *ahem* games will be in constant use. I’m kinda suprised at how well it works out for them.


Stares at Pokémon and Mario


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## evandixon (Aug 23, 2018)

Fascinating idea, but definitely illegal (unambiguously), since it's still distributing copyrighted data.


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## moneychild (Aug 23, 2018)

Dang.....why didn't I think about this.

I think oaky...after all he is only sharing what he owns.


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## bodefuceta (Aug 23, 2018)

I thought someone hacked the site and put ExoClick ads on front page.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 23, 2018)

That's genius. Wish I had come up with that. 


evandixon said:


> Fascinating idea, but definitely illegal (unambiguously), since it's still distributing copyrighted data.


It's not really distributing anything since it's not saved.


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## evandixon (Aug 23, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> It's not really distributing anything since it's not saved.


Distribution happens before your RAM or disk are even involved.

Plus, downloading ROMs to disk then immediately deleting them is still illegal. I know it shouldn't matter, but that's our law.


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## ov3rkill (Aug 23, 2018)

hahahaha. That's a lot of super mario 3 cartridges. 

Do people pay for this type of shit? They might as well buy the game.
Renting games even in Japan is illegal.


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## Fusion (Aug 23, 2018)

Good job GBAtemp, now Nintendo knows the last C&D didn't end/finish/close up shop on this guy and will be back with revenge.....the sequel.


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## Pedeadstrian (Aug 23, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> It's not really distributing anything since it's not saved.





> *Definition of distribute*
> distributed; distributing
> transitive verb
> 2 b *: *to give out or deliver especially to members of a group


Semantics aside, with your logic it's legal to stream any tv show or movie, since you're essentially "streaming" the ROM. Video rental sites/stores have licenses to distribute their movies. I highly doubt this guy does.


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## XDel (Aug 23, 2018)

Hilarious, but you know this does bring up a valid point against the argument that claims that piracy is killing the industry because no one ever mention how the majority do not know how to pirate, operate emulators, hack consoles, and so forth. What the majority does is rent their games and movies, or in the case of movies and music, a lot of people use the totally free Interlibrary Loan system, both of which take away from actual sales and only puts money in the pockets of the rental stores, and the library if you return your media late. 

Something many people do not know and that is that America did not recognize copy right lawns for at least a century after it was founded/claimed. The argument was that they were a new nation, and needed to depend upon boot legging in order to establish a foundation to compete within the world market. I myself am not too fond of copy right laws and feel that in many ways they help to create monopolies and thus lead to massive consolidation, not to mention the indirect forming of a new religion where media and advertising outlets are concerned. It snubs competition from the small guy up to the big guy, and as a result, also suffocates progress, innovation, and improvements in quality.


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## Ericzander (Aug 23, 2018)

Several armchair lawyers in this thread. Basically, a bunch of people who like piracy and try to justify it because they think that they vaguely know about copyright laws.


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## SonicMC (Aug 23, 2018)

Interesting Similar Services but not the same services that in the future could or have already been removed for similar copyright stuff:

Music:
https://www.murfie.com/ They allow you to send music cds to them and they will hold them for you and allow you to stream or download them from their website. No renting but does have the digital copying of stuff going on. So far has not been removed. Wonder if a rom service like this would survive... send in your game and they store it and allow you to download the rom and or stream the game.

Former:
www.VidAngel.com
Used to let you rent their DVDs using the same philosophy only one stream out at a time per DVD they had; they also would let you use filters that were made. This was shut down and never brought back... But somehow they have filtering available for streaming web content.


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## Shadowfied (Aug 23, 2018)

Doesn't get more legit than this


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## Ericzander (Aug 23, 2018)

SonicMC said:


> https://www.murfie.com/ They allow you to send music cds to them and they will hold them for you and allow you to stream or download them from their website. No renting but does have the digital copying of stuff going on. So far has not been removed. Wonder if a rom service like this would survive... send in your game and they store it and allow you to download the rom and or stream the game.


Oh hell yeah! I've been wanting to pay $99 a year to send my music CDs to some dude so that he can give me a link to listen to the songs!


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## chartube12 (Aug 23, 2018)

supergamer368 said:


> This is to say the least, odd. Yeah, let us lend you a technically pirated rom for a fee, but only one of you gets it at a time. Obviosly, this is gonna create tons of problems because all the popular *ahem* good *ahem* games will be in constant use. I’m kinda suprised at how well it works out for them.



By US law, you are allowed to make your own backups of video games. Technically though, you are supposed to own an original copy for each backup you create. Unless you can prove they didn’t make thier own backup copies and don’t own enough original copies, you can’t say say they are using pirated content, neither can Nintendo. Not sure how they are getting around the non-distribution thing though. I know every US copy of Nes and Snes has a message printed on the cartridges, say you can’t rent, share or lend the titles to other people. I guess they could argue they are a video game TOS, those have rarely been held up in court except in a handful of cases.


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## WeedZ (Aug 23, 2018)

chartube12 said:


> By US law, you are allowed to make your own backups of video games. Technically though, you are supposed to own an original copy for each backup you create. Unless you can prove they didn’t make thier own backup copies and don’t own enough original copies, you can’t say say they are using pirated content, neither can Nintendo. Not sure how they are getting around the non-distribution thing though. I know every US copy of Nes and Snes has a message printed on the cartridges, say you can’t rent, share or lend the titles to other people. I guess they could argue they are a video game TOS, those have rarely been held up in court except in a handful of cases.


It has never been illegal to rent or share games in the us. Some video stores that are still in operation continue to rent out games.


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## the_randomizer (Aug 23, 2018)

chartube12 said:


> By US law, you are allowed to make your own backups of video games. Technically though, you are supposed to own an original copy for each backup you create. Unless you can prove they didn’t make thier own backup copies and don’t own enough original copies, you can’t say say they are using pirated content, neither can Nintendo. Not sure how they are getting around the non-distribution thing though. I know every US copy of Nes and Snes has a message printed on the cartridges, say you can’t rent, share or lend the titles to other people. I guess they could argue they are a video game TOS, those have rarely been held up in court except in a handful of cases.



Someone should have told Blockbuster 25 years ago then.


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## jurassicplayer (Aug 23, 2018)

Sounds about as viable as those video game bars in Japan. Btw, a number of said bars were dunked, those were all physical copies too.

derp


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## SonicMC (Aug 23, 2018)

Ericzander said:


> Oh hell yeah! I've been wanting to pay $99 a year to send my music CDs to some dude so that he can give me a link to listen to the songs!


"No argument with that; I wouldn't do it myself. I already took all my cds and made FLAC files and store them on my server."

My question is whether services like Murphie, console classix, would get the taken down like vidangel was. Or if somehow the filtering was the cause of the take down; rather than copyright issues...


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## Bladexdsl (Aug 23, 2018)

and people PAY to rent roms ? fuck some people are just beyond lazy AND stupid! learn to google...they're OUT THERE STILL


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## TheZander (Aug 23, 2018)

What a goofy convoluted process this seems like some back woods rom playing. As if they advertised on signs you would find randomly scattered throughout the woods.


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## Ericthegreat (Aug 23, 2018)

They are still profiting on someone else's work.


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## Trash_Bandatcoot (Aug 23, 2018)

If Nintendo doesn't copyright this man, everyone will get pissed.


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## VitaType (Aug 23, 2018)

Costello said:


> This site has been getting you to pay for ROMs since 2001 and isn't afraid of Nintendo & co.


OMG! I didn't knew that belongs to my monthly expenses!!!11 Thanks for pointing out, will get rid of that now. 

Interesting take on videogame renting though.


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## Raylight (Aug 23, 2018)

Isn't afraid eh? we'll see about that


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## Cyan (Aug 23, 2018)

jurassicplayer said:


> Sounds about as viable as those video game bars in Japan. Btw, a number of said bars were dunked, those were all physical copies too.
> derp


It makes me think about these video game shops where you can play LAN games in dedicated room. the place is now closed in my town, but it wasn't a bar, you paid for one hour play session. I don't think the owner ever asked copyright owners authorization to play "outside of the home private circle".
And that's probably the same with all LAN party ever created everywhere in the world. are owners contacted before playing in a public space?
How about video game store providing a simple TV and console in free access?
Tomorrow my town makes a public _Just dance_ contest ! I wonder if Ubisoft or Nintendo gave their agreement to display Wii consoles publicly. edit: seems they canceled it. I wonder why... or just already did it part of a past gaming exhibition.

I always wished making an association, or a sort of place where people could come and play video games, and where I could teach about legal hacking or homebrew development, but I wonder how it would cost to get proper authorizations.


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## Kourin (Aug 23, 2018)

That title is a bit odd, it implies this is some sort of major business and the average user is paying him for ROMs but in reality this thread is the first most of us are hearing about him.


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## Costello (Aug 23, 2018)

Kourin said:


> That title is a bit odd, it implies this is some sort of major business and the average user is paying him for ROMs but in reality this thread is the first most of us are hearing about him.


it's a figure of speech  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech
there's a strong chance that no gbatemp user (not one) has ever gotten a paid subscription to that service, considering, you know...


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## Deleted User (Aug 23, 2018)

Never heard of them, but it's really damn clever. However, just because you ignore a C&D doesn't mean you aren't in the wrong. It's more likely Nintendo's lawyers usually are complied with, assumed the job was done, and never did a follow up.


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## ThoD (Aug 23, 2018)

Interesting take on the whole thing, lending still counts as distribution though (it would be legal if they had official rights to lend games like rental stores do), but oh well, getting to play some good old stuff is more than worth it with everything that's going on on most major hosting sites. Wish it was free though...


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## Localhorst86 (Aug 23, 2018)

I can forsee them being gone soon. This is, at a strecht, a grey area. But I feel like it probably is not legal at all.


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## MikaDubbz (Aug 23, 2018)

Its cute that they think they are in the legal right here.  Just saying I wont be surprised to see them down within a year, especially now that they're calling attention to themselves.


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## Zumoly (Aug 23, 2018)

I think Nintendo cannot do anything against their system.
They are basically using the "buddy" system where the law cannot interfere in any way.
I can pretty much rent my own cart games and ask for a small fee no?
That's so smart I might actually do it


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## KiiWii (Aug 23, 2018)

And it’s entirely impossible to dump the rom data from the ram..... uhuh


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## Localhorst86 (Aug 23, 2018)

Zumoly said:


> I can pretty much rent my own cart games and ask for a small fee no?



Not a lawyer, but my guts tell me "no". As soon as payment is involved it's a commercial background and different rules apply. You'd most likely have to get the copyright owners to agrree to some sort of licensing. Afaik, DVD Rental shops had to purchase specific Rental versions that were a lot more expensive, they couldn't just walk into Bestbuy, get a bunch of blurays and rent them out.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 23, 2018)

Never heard of them. Interesting take on things though, and proving losses in that scenario would be very difficult which would make a civil case that much harder.

I am not sure of the hard specifics of game rental in the US right now -- a lot of it got complicated not long before the DMCA arose (1996 WIPO and 2004 Madrid Protocol) so I will leave that one for now. Practically though it seems free and clear and unrestricted in the sense that one does not need to buy rental specific copies like we saw in VHS and DVDs.

Cases wise I would probably look at that one where people were making censored versions of DVDs and buying/destroying a copy for each one sold. They got smacked down though.
Similarly the RAM defence might be slightly shaky, some of the World of Warcraft cases hinging upon such a thing. Few were happy with the interpretations the lawyers were using for that though.


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## hamohamo (Aug 23, 2018)

gotta admit. if you actually ever use this shit then you gotta be the huge fucking moron.


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## Costello (Aug 23, 2018)

Localhorst86 said:


> I can forsee them being gone *soon*. This is, at a strecht, a grey area. But I feel like it probably is not legal at all.


they're older than us, what makes you think they'll be gone soon? Nintendo will do something because they are getting press coverage?


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## Localhorst86 (Aug 23, 2018)

Costello said:


> they're older than us, what makes you think they'll be gone soon? Nintendo will do something because they are getting press coverage?


Lets face it: this is the first time most people ever heard of this company. It's by no means as far as big as emuparadise or loveroms was. With the recent crackdown by Nintendo regarding ROM sites, I would assume this business would also reappear on big Ns list of targets.

While the concept of the site does not sound morally wrong, I do believe that, despite their confidence, the site technically has no legal right to operate the way they do.


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## DinohScene (Aug 23, 2018)

I thought it was prohibited to lend it to others when you bought a game...


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## ThoD (Aug 23, 2018)

DinohScene said:


> I thought it was prohibited to lend it to others when you bought a game...


It is, they are just nitpicking because they think using similar words that alter the definition of laws are loopholes No matter where you live, copyright laws are international and while dumping disk images (ROMs) for own personal/private use is legal, lending out either the item itself or a dump of it IS illegal as you need a license from the publisher/copyright owner in order to do that (if for a fee, if free it's straight up piracy). That's the reason Steam for example can't sell a game unless the copyright holder puts it on there, because it's renting games, just indefinitely, so they need license/permission from copyright holder (also reason games disappear from places like Steam when the holder changes).


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## PRAGMA (Aug 23, 2018)

I'm actually working on a similar project with a much bigger goal in mind
> Be able to start a game in mere seconds
> All from a browser with no downloads
> Mass-Compatibility

So, it will have roms, but you wont be able to download them for use outside my project.
The project is a website, it allows you to play emulators on any system (Linux, Mac, Windows, Android, Windows Phone, Xbox One, *switch should in theory work, but the webkit might have stripped necessary features for it to work*)
All it requires is a keyboard input, OSD Input wont be a feature at least not on initial launch.

It's essentially like this, but many people can play the same game at the same time, it doesn't lock-down the game when its full.
It will also be pay-walled just like this website, except it will be a pay-by-monthly service.
Essentially getting it to work just like a Spotify-like system which is well due.

I cant say its 100% legal, but I can definitely say its less illegal then other rom related websites out there.


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## DarthDub (Aug 23, 2018)

Sounds like a paid version of Vizzed..


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## Spider_Man (Aug 23, 2018)

Loop hole my ass unless he is paying a lease on the games then he is breaking the law.

All games state unothorised copying, even charging to rent is prohibited and regardless where it's stored he is charging a fee to play.

It even says something along the lines of broadcasting.

I'm sure it won't be long I'd he keeps acting like egohot, that Nintendo will shut him down.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 23, 2018)

Retroboy said:


> Loop hole my ass unless he is paying a lease on the games then he is breaking the law.
> 
> All games state unothorised copying, even charging to rent is prohibited and regardless where it's stored he is charging a fee to play.



Games/their manuals can state what they like. The question is would such a thing be enforceable and what law (case law, book law or international law) might there be to trouble it?
I am hazy on the specifics of US game rental law and what I do know says it is not so clear cut so I can't argue too much about what it might be, however looking out into the world there are plenty of rental services big and small and game companies as a whole are a bunch of litigious bastards so we would be seeing smack downs every other week (or no services) if it was not desired by the game companies.


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## ThoD (Aug 23, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Games/their manuals can state what they like. The question is would such a thing be enforceable and what law (case law, book law or international law) might there be to trouble it?
> I am hazy on the specifics of US game rental law and what I do know says it is not so clear cut so I can't argue too much about what it might be, however looking out into the world there are plenty of rental services big and small and game companies as a whole are a bunch of litigious bastards so we would be seeing smack downs every other week (or no services) if it was not desired by the game companies.


You are forgetting one major detail regarding said companies though, they are licensed and give most of the sales money to the publisher/copyright holder while simply keeping part of it as a fee, whereas this is paid renting of games without paying the publisher anything. Small difference on paper, but considerably different law-wise.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 23, 2018)

Pedeadstrian said:


> Semantics aside, with your logic it's legal to stream any tv show or movie, since you're essentially "streaming" the ROM. Video rental sites/stores have licenses to distribute their movies. I highly doubt this guy does.


Actually, many claim it is. It's sort of a legal gray area I guess, and probably depends on where you live. Even ISPs will tell you that they don't care if you download torrents as long as you don't seed them. Not that that makes it legal, but there's more to it, due to the rental nature of this site. I'm no lawyer, but if their lawyer that specializes in copyright says it's OK, then it probably is.
It's sort of like how archive.org has been getting away with hosting ROMs and ISOs because they are legally a library, although they allow people to make unlimited copies so the legality is dubious at best, but they have probably gotten an all clear from their lawyers.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 23, 2018)

ThoD said:


> You are forgetting one major detail regarding said companies though, they are licensed and give most of the sales money to the publisher/copyright holder while simply keeping part of it as a fee, whereas this is paid renting of games without paying the publisher anything. Small difference on paper, but considerably different law-wise.


I did have a quick look for what such things might be, and did also come the other way and look for business plans for setting up game rental companies. While there were some that offered cut price purchase* for a revenue share I struggled to find anything saying that (or buying a specially badged version) was the only way, and again where we see stuff like the "sealed game is still second hand" stuff from the other day going on and any number of other similar tier legal moves I have nothing about small scale shops getting slapped (looking at all the services and ideas people had around the place, to say nothing of the "small room in a corner grocery shop" approach I saw so often as a kid for VHS, I have to believe someone did it). That was just an internet search but even ignoring all the forums I would have hoped some of the straight up business advice sites would have mentioned it in their article form stuff if it was required.

*more of a thing I imagine if you are doing current games and similarly need to keep current, retro stuff like the subject of the OP is presumably a different matter.


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## migles (Aug 23, 2018)

Quantumcat said:


> Are you even allowed to rent out cartridges? On DVDs there is a message it is for home use only. Video shops of old had to pay extra (a license?) to be allowed to rent them out. I imagine it is the same for games, so it wouldn't matter if they had a physical cartridge for each person "renting" a particular rom.


that's what i am wondering as well, in some movies and some other media there are messages all over its even forbidden to play it in public places like prisons or hospitals...
and you need "permition" for that..


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## spotanjo3 (Aug 23, 2018)

I am not paying him so he can have his profits. NAH!

I know the private site underground already that have so many plentiful of roms and isos for free. I am good to go.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 23, 2018)

azoreseuropa said:


> I am not paying him so he can have his profits. NAH!
> 
> I know the private site underground already that have so many plentiful of roms and isos for free. I am good to go.


So you choose not to pay for your games and pirate them instead? Fair enough.


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## spotanjo3 (Aug 23, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> So you choose not to pay for your games and pirate them instead? Fair enough.



You dont get it do you ? Hello ? I am talking about him having his roms and wanting to set up for people to pay the subscription so we can access to his roms for his own profits. Nah.

I can get it for free somewhere else and if I love it then I buy it for my collection because I am a video game collector.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 23, 2018)

azoreseuropa said:


> You dont get it do you ? Hello ? I am talking about him having his roms and wanting to set up for people to pay the subscription so we can access to his roms for his own profits. Nah.
> 
> I can get it for free somewhere else and if I love it then I buy it for my collection because I am a video game collector.


I got it, however it seems you did not. The guy seems to have found a way to operate a rental service such that no more copies of the game are realistically in play at any given time than existed before one of his service users pulled from the library.

Play it how you will, however it would seem a stretch that you have some great reason for it.


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## CaptainSodaPop (Aug 23, 2018)

As far as I'm concerned this is legal. Even if Nintendo may not consider it. At least it's "illegal" in the same way as renting or selling physical used games, which a lot of big sites and companies allow. Fact that Nintendo takes money for fans recording videos of their games tells a lot about their real motives. If they were really concerned about roms of their games lurking over the internet and knew their rights as they did all the time they would have taken down sites like EmuParadise and other ones long time ago. At the time they were losing their popularity and status in video game industry and since they didn't make money off from old games anymore they let that exist because every promotion, even a dirty one like that was good for them. Now when retro stuff became popular again they decided to cash in with NES/SNES Mini and take down sites. I bet if they didn't sell that good, they still wouldn't care about sites like that existing. They're probably working on legal emulators service right now for all possible platforms because that seems like a good market for them currently. Also another reason why they limited number of their games on Mini consoles... Every weird decision Nintendo makes is not a mistake but one made on purpose so they can cash-in some more money later. Which disgusts me. Nintendo will always hold the most special place in my heart for video games but I'm never buying anything digital from them at the same, or similar price as physical release. Even buying physical games from them is not justified a lot of the times, since they charge recycled remakes same as everything else. It's just hard to admit for fans because all of the nice memories and love for them, which ends up in giving them pass every time. Nintendo doesn't care about it's fans like it did in 90s, it's a fact.


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## BlueFox gui (Aug 23, 2018)

k
there are still other roms sites don't worry


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## CaptainSodaPop (Aug 23, 2018)

Sure, but they'll always struggle from now on.


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## SirNapkin1334 (Aug 23, 2018)

Would not use them. Paying for retro games!? Outrageous!


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## AutumnWolf (Aug 23, 2018)

Never heard of them


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## linkinworm (Aug 23, 2018)

I'm sure that Nintendo (or any company) has to give you a licence to rent games, hence the not for resale on a lot of games as they were distributed under a paid deal with who ever or with a console etc. pretty sure this still isn't legal


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## chrisrlink (Aug 23, 2018)

problem is many people may used a D&R (Dump and Return) scheme for services like gamefly etc to make them less suspicious they may keep the physical copy 3-4 days before returningyoull not be on radar as easy as returning one everyday I bet thats how some warez sites do it too


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## Subtle Demise (Aug 23, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> It has never been illegal to rent or share games in the us. Some video stores that are still in operation continue to rent out games.


Well Nintendo did convince lawmakers to make it illegal for a while.


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## PalindromicBreadLoaf (Aug 23, 2018)

Quite the take on a retro gaming store there. I have one buy me that does rentals, and when they come back within 30 minutes of the purchase, they always figure that the renter dumped the game. Then they will be back in 3 days later walking out with more rentals.


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## Subtle Demise (Aug 23, 2018)

FEF1 said:


> Quite the take on a retro gaming store there. I have one buy me that does rentals, and when they come back within 30 minutes of the purchase, they always figure that the renter dumped the game. Then they will be back in 3 days later walking out with more rentals.


That's not exclusive to retro games. When I had a CFW PS3, I used to rent games from redbox and rip them. I even got a free trial to gamefly and ripped those too. The publishers maybe got a few cents out of it, so I don't feel too bad for doing it.


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## grossaffe (Aug 24, 2018)

If Aereo was brought down by the courts, there's no way this would stand.


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## Captain_N (Aug 24, 2018)

that whole having a backup copy of the cart is a hoax. it clearly says in nintendos user agreement you cant copy the game. the rom is clearly a copy. there is no 1 backup copy law for nes carts. companies like ms used to let you make a backup copy of a disc like office. you were still not allowed to let another user install it. We all installed applications like office on multiple computers with the same licence key.


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## Rabbid4240 (Aug 24, 2018)

Goddammit I need money to stay alive.


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## grossaffe (Aug 24, 2018)

Captain_N said:


> that whole having a backup copy of the cart is a hoax. it clearly says in nintendos user agreement you cant copy the game. the rom is clearly a copy. there is no 1 backup copy law for nes carts. companies like ms used to let you make a backup copy of a disc like office. you were still not allowed to let another user install it. We all installed applications like office on multiple computers with the same licence key.


The law about backups wasn't made by Nintendo, it was made by the government.  Not that it makes what this person is doing legal.

Sadly, there's a loophole in American law in that regards that its been deemed that breaking encryption is illegal, if you have a DVD of a movie that uses encryption (which is most of them), it is illegal to back it up because it involves breaking encryption.


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## Captain_N (Aug 24, 2018)

grossaffe said:


> The law about backups wasn't made by Nintendo, it was made by the government.  Not that it makes what this person is doing legal.



True. Im sure if Nintendo wanted to nail him they could. the question is, is it worth it to nintendo. Might cost Nintendo more in the long run. There is a good reason they are nailing these sites. They must have something big planned. they did not seem to care about the site during the virtual console phase.


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## the_randomizer (Aug 24, 2018)

grossaffe said:


> The law about backups wasn't made by Nintendo, it was made by the government.  Not that it makes what this person is doing legal.
> 
> Sadly, there's a loophole in American law in that regards that its been deemed that breaking encryption is illegal, if you have a DVD of a movie that uses encryption (which is most of them), it is illegal to back it up because it involves breaking encryption.



Nintendo isn't above the law, even though they like to think they are; they love to use fearmongering when it comes to ROMs and emulators, especially in their TOS/EULA crap. The DMCA makes it legal for backups, so I'd love to see them try to refute that.  That said, the whole "backups are legal, but circumventing DRM is bad" side of it is utter BS and seems almost meaningless to allow one, but not the other.  But it's under-enforced though, I figure if I bought the game or movie legally, I can do whatever I want so long as I don't distribute it.


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## Wrathcaster (Aug 24, 2018)

Why is there so many wannabe lawyers in this thread, quick to say he's breaking the law and will be shut down soon. They may have distributing rights, you don't know. Either way they are definitely doing something right since they been around since 2001 and Nintendo tried to shut them down long ago and failed, so doesn't matter if they are a small unheard of company, Nintendo found them way back then, they would never forget something like this,  most likely they are waiting for a loophole of their own to get rid of him.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

I think it's a nice way to play, as long as they are not expensive...At least in the past was when that was a hassle to someone who have less technical know-how.
But nowadays its useless, since you can download the game on your own from wherever (may i say Nintendo cant stop rom's on internet now) and play it for free, 
and in this time (2019.), paying to play rom's to some pirate is crazy! and naught of him to ask for money for a thing that is easily available and piracy..
unless he wants to actually sell those games physically, than that would be OK imo!

However, I don't approve pirating games for your own profit!!! 
That profit belongs to its creator (Nintendo etc...), and if Nintendo cant make money of off those games anymore, than that ALSO not excuse to make money off off it also!

So i'm not conflicted, I do not endorse piracy for personal profit AT ALL!
The situation does not justify ANYONE asking for money for pirated games, however, 
i can understand in some poor countries people sell many things to make profit.
They have some crappy PC, download some games put them on CD with an emulator and sell them illegally on the street, and when police comes they pick up their bags and flee...

I was on a vacation this one time ant guy was selling ROMS on street ready to flee if police comes, i was barging with him, cause i wanted to play some mame games on my ps and did not had internet, so i bought, i helped the guy and i got them in that situation, but that doesn't mean i approve paying for pirated games.

I approve anything home-brew, pirating, copying, sharing, everything good and fun, and i also aprove paying, and encouraging everyone that CAN to buy games, to support developers, but ONLY GOOD GAMES! not every crap they toss on a market!

but i DO NOT approve when pirated content is sold! (even if i bought a cd with 1000 mame games for $1)


Well, that's my stance on that. (if you think i'm wrong, please correct me)

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



the_randomizer said:


> Nintendo isn't above the law, even though they like to think they are; they love to use fearmongering when it comes to ROMs and emulators, especially in their TOS/EULA crap. The DMCA makes it legal for backups, so I'd love to see them try to refute that.  That said, the whole "backups are legal, but circumventing DRM is bad" side of it is utter BS and seems almost meaningless to allow one, but not the other.  But it's under-enforced though, I figure if I bought the game or movie legally, I can do whatever I want so long as I don't distribute it.


i think nintendo is better off looking their own buseness which is NOT hunting pirates but making games that people want and that are actually fun and easy to buy, and to make cost more affordable and not to be greedy.
I think nintendo started out of love for games that brought them money, you could tell by their business, games and approach, 
but now its the same, its just that they love money now more than games.


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## gamesquest1 (Aug 24, 2018)

I remember discussing this idea in school, basically trying to come up with a similar solution of of which was practically this model, except we were thinking to own a full catalogue and sell "shares" thus meaning each share holder had a small share of each cart and thus could maintain a copy for each game

ofc it was just wanna be lawyer talk trying to figure out loopholes ( I have no ideas how it would actually hold up in court), but funny to see someone actually doing it, I'm guessing the only reason Nintendo haven't gone after him with full force is the site was/is fairly unknown and they didn't want to risk setting a precedent that could open the floodgates for a more bold bigger operation to come along and take off using the same principle but with a lot more copies to hand to allow hundreds/thousands to legally have full access to the entire back catalogue of games


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## BORTZ (Aug 24, 2018)

There is no way this is legal.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

BORTZ said:


> There is no way this is legal.


technically i wouldnt way its illegal because he is just renting his own games..its his games, he is renting them its just not phisical copy. But the thing that botheres me is moral issue is that if you can in this day and agedownload the rom and keep it, why would you wanna tell people its better to buy from me and give me your money i wanna screw you over even though you can download them for free ANYWHERE!
But if he is raising funds  for his (theorethical)medical condition, than i can understand kinda, lets support this guy and have fun doing it etc...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



gamesquest1 said:


> I remember discussing this idea in school, basically trying to come up with a similar solution of of which was practically this model, except we were thinking to own a full catalogue and sell "shares" thus meaning each share holder had a small share of each cart and thus could maintain a copy for each game
> 
> ofc it was just wanna be lawyer talk trying to figure out loopholes ( I have no ideas how it would actually hold up in court), but funny to see someone actually doing it, I'm guessing the only reason Nintendo haven't gone after him with full force is the site was/is fairly unknown and they didn't want to risk setting a precedent that could open the floodgates for a more bold bigger operation to come along and take off using the same principle but with a lot more copies to hand to allow hundreds/thousands to legally have full access to the entire back catalogue of games


why would i rent a game from some random guy when i can download full game for free?


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## FAST6191 (Aug 24, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> (if you think i'm wrong, please correct me)





Metoroid0 said:


> I think it's a nice way to play, as long as they are not expensive...At least in the past was when that was a hassle to someone who have less technical know-how.
> But nowadays its useless, since you can download the game on your own from wherever (may i say Nintendo cant stop rom's on internet now) and play it for free,
> and in this time (2019.), paying to play rom's to some pirate is crazy! and naught of him to ask for money for a thing that is easily available and piracy..
> unless he wants to actually sell those games physically, than that would be OK imo!
> ...


Is he pirating/giving rise to piracy though? It appears to be a somewhat technically advanced rental system.



Metoroid0 said:


> But the thing that botheres me is moral issue is that if you can in this day and agedownload the rom and keep it, why would you wanna tell people its better to buy from me and give me your money i wanna screw you over even though you can download them for free ANYWHERE!
> 
> why would i rent a game from some random guy when i can download full game for free?


If renting is legal and downloading is not?


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Is he pirating/giving rise to piracy though? It appears to be a somewhat technically advanced rental system.
> 
> 
> If renting is legal and downloading is not?



they are both illegal in laws eyes, but he wants money.
Its about individual asking for money for something that already is pirated, technically (weather its on ram or permanent storage, those games already exist nowdays as roms), he also pirated them (how else can HE get the roms) and distributing it to many people while profiting off it,
where you can download them for free.

Would you pay him to play sumer mario for an hour if you can DL it for free?
roms where always free among us gamers, unless its nintendo who is selling them. they are company and its their games, they can sell them or give for free, but i dont see from a moral standpoint (not legal loopholes or the law) how this is ok to do.

To me i dont see that as ok, but from laws point..idk, if he found a hole, good for him, but i wont support him. If he already ripped them, he shouldnt make money off off it, but rent them for free.
Its money part that buggs me and moral issue, not legal.
And also a logical one...again, why would i give money to some guy that rent me ROM i can download for free and to keep (or not).

He is doing nothing new that other pirates don't do, except that he rents rom's, and is asking money for them.

they are both wrong in legal eyes, but what he is doing is
wrong in moral and legal eyes for me.

I'd rather support other pirates than pirates like him.

Now landing a phisical copy is other story, but technically, from gaming perstective, it's the same...
but thats a different tpic.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 24, 2018)

Is renting illegal in the eyes of the law? I did look earlier as part of this and struggle to point at any enforced laws (civil or criminal) in the US against it, and plenty of people seemingly doing such businesses and discussing how to do them in open sites. There were some technically similar cases (ones that I recalled were the DVD extra censoring people and some of the arguments world of warcraft made in their many many cases) but that is about it.

It is generally held as not piracy if you own a license/licence at the time you acquire a backup, which appears to be the case here (cart ownership implies licence ownership).

If I own an item I can sell it, lend it, rent it out, take it and use it to conduct my business. It can get slightly trickier in the case of intellectual property, especially in the US, but I am not seeing any real issues here.

Would I pay them? Largely irrelevant in this discussion but probably not as I have better means of doing things. You are not obliged to have a good business model though and can try whatever you like (as long as it is legal) and this appears to fall in line with that.

"why would i give money to some guy that rent me ROM i can download for free and to keep (or not)."
If renting is legal and simple downloading is not and such things bother you then that would appear to be a reason to do such a thing. It might be a trifling concern for you (and I dare say it would be for many on this site) but that matters little.

So I am at a loss for how you are getting to find this troubling, be it morally or legally and why you reckon money is an aggravating factor. If I believed all the crap that software companies try to pull I could well find myself "feeling" it should be against some kind of law but I try not to pay attention to what such people say beyond figuring out if they are telegraphing a future play.

"Now lending a physical copy is other story"
Why?
Spin it another way. I will keep sell you my copy of Minna no Soft Tetris but keep the physical thing locked in my bank vault, you own it and I will author a document saying as such as well as send you a copy of the ROM chip on it. You can ask for the physical copy if you want at some point in the future, or you can transfer ownership to someone else. Would you have a problem with that?
Replace Minna no Soft Tetris with gold and we have how most of the gold supply in the world works (many other things you mine out of the ground, and some amount of things that grow as well) and everybody seems happy enough with that.


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## osaka35 (Aug 24, 2018)

the_randomizer said:


> Nintendo isn't above the law, even though they like to think they are; they love to use fearmongering when it comes to ROMs and emulators, especially in their TOS/EULA crap. The DMCA makes it legal for backups, so I'd love to see them try to refute that.  That said, the whole "backups are legal, but circumventing DRM is bad" side of it is utter BS and seems almost meaningless to allow one, but not the other.  But it's under-enforced though, I figure if I bought the game or movie legally, I can do whatever I want so long as I don't distribute it.


I know there was a court case many years ago which found converting music CDs to mp3s was cool, but that ruling was extremely specific about how it was not to be used to apply to any other case other than music. Do you, or anyone, know what ruling or changing of the law allows for "legal backups"?

Fair use only comes into play when you're talking about reviews or some sort of critique, discussion, or educational purposes, and even that goes out the window when the company puts protections on it, like DRM (yeah, our copyright system in the states is broken).


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## calagan (Aug 24, 2018)

I'm also concerned about the fact that they're making profit on the back of the emulators' developers who don't necessarily have the means to sue them out of oblivion like Big N.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 24, 2018)

calagan said:


> I'm also concerned about the fact that they're making profit on the back of the emulators' developers who don't necessarily have the means to sue them out of oblivion like Big N.


This could be more interesting as I am not entirely sure what it would play out here as and have not looked into specifics of the emulators used.

If they have been operating as long as they have then all sorts of licenses would be in play. However I recall MAME specifically had one to forbid commercial use (they had a particular problem with MAME cabinets being made and sold), the fact they saw fit to create such a setup indicating to me that others would allow it by default. If the others were GPL (it was popular by this point) then this would probably be like any other web service (whether this guy was a pioneer in software as a service or not we will probably want to leave for now).


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## calagan (Aug 24, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> This could be more interesting as I am not entirely sure what it would play out here as and have not looked into specifics of the emulators used.
> 
> If they have been operating as long as they have then all sorts of licenses would be in play. However I recall MAME specifically had one to forbid commercial use (they had a particular problem with MAME cabinets being made and sold), the fact they saw fit to create such a setup indicating to me that others would allow it by default. If the others were GPL (it was popular by this point) then this would probably be like any other web service (whether this guy was a pioneer in software as a service or not we will probably want to leave for now).



Reading "The Console Classix app uses multiple open-source emulators without much interface consistency between them" in the Ars Technica article, I'm doubtful they actually sought approval for using every one of those emulators.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 24, 2018)

Why would they need approval if the licenses implicitly allow it?


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## MasterControl90 (Aug 24, 2018)

Mmmh interesting although he is pretty much remotely renting games, are his gsmes made for rent services? I think they are not so he is still violating games use license. I think this guy will find other loopholes in the future and this ideas could be a beginning for something. Needless to say he should switch to ad and donation supported to avoid legal some legal problems.


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## Noizetank (Aug 24, 2018)

Seams like a good way around the whole piracy thing however there are still hundreds of sites with roms still available. Less than 2 seconds on Google and you can have all the time you like.


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## Rabbid4240 (Aug 24, 2018)

This site has been getting you to pay for roms since 2001.
HoW? JuSt WaTcH tEh FrE ViDeO bElOw!


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## Localhorst86 (Aug 24, 2018)

SexySpai said:


> This site has been getting you to pay for roms since 2001.
> HoW? JuSt WaTcH tEh FrE ViDeO bElOw!


Doctors hate him for this trick. 

Gesendet von meinem Mi A1 mit Tapatalk


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Is renting illegal in the eyes of the law? I did look earlier as part of this and struggle to point at any enforced laws (civil or criminal) in the US against it, and plenty of people seemingly doing such businesses and discussing how to do them in open sites. There were some technically similar cases (ones that I recalled were the DVD extra censoring people and some of the arguments world of warcraft made in their many many cases) but that is about it.
> 
> It is generally held as not piracy if you own a license/licence at the time you acquire a backup, which appears to be the case here (cart ownership implies licence ownership).
> 
> ...


because he is ripping games to sell them where you can download them free from internet. if im that guy i wouldnt have decency to sell something that anyone everywhere can get for free. phisical is different because you cant download plastic and phisicalcarteidge to play on original system, you must rent it by lending it phisically to someone and he can play it how much he wants for lets say month. and the game was not coppied, ripped and you can only get phisical copy is someone lend it to you or you buy it, but roms you can get them anywhere to play.
I just would not feel right asking money from someone for something people can just download, but phisical copy you cant just download or play on original system.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Noizetank said:


> Seams like a good way around the whole piracy thing however there are still hundreds of sites with roms still available. Less than 2 seconds on Google and you can have all the time you like.


exactly my point.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

chartube12 said:


> I know every US copy of Nes and Snes has a message printed on the cartridges, say you can’t rent, share or lend the titles to other people. I guess they could argue they are a video game TOS, those have rarely been held up in court except in a handful of cases.


what cases??
Also...who came up with that stupid law that you cant share or lend a copy of a game to a friend?! thats so stupid i never heard anything more stupid in my life!!! its my game, i own it, i can give it to whomever the hell i want...
i get if nintendo dont agree with that because they want everione to have their own copy to buy, because of money...but for that to be a law breaking court thing its a stupid!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



The Real Jdbye said:


> That's genius. Wish I had come up with that.


To take money from people for things they can get for free...from "google"
I thought its about sharing, not making a profit. Isn't that what big greedy companies do?!

also..playing a game one at a time among 100000000 people online?? when will be my turn to play Super mario bros.?!?
Oh well, i guess i will download a rom from a random website and play it on emulator that works best on my PC...or wait..i can play it on vita or Wii...no...i think i will play it on sega dreamcast...no, i will play it on My Android..yeah!
...i hope my renal rom that i must pay for will be available soon *playing super mario bros on android emulator while waiting for rental rom to be free (if ever)*


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## chartube12 (Aug 24, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> who came up with that stupid law that you cant share or lend a copy of a game to a friend?! thats so stupid i never heard anything more stupid in my life!!! its my game, i own it, i can give it to whomever the hell i want



I didn’t say it was a law. Just something along those lines were printed on the back of nes & snes carts. Been along time since I seen an old cart. I do however remember something about not lending or renting games without Nintendo’s consent!


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

hamohamo said:


> gotta admit. if you actually ever use this shit then you gotta be the huge fucking moron.


I cant really imagine ANYONE in their right mind using this.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 24, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> what cases??
> Also...who came up with that stupid law that you cant share or lend a copy of a game to a friend?! thats so stupid i never heard anything more stupid in my life!!! its my game, i own it, i can give it to whomever the hell i want...
> i get if nintendo dont agree with that because they want everione to have their own copy to buy, because of money...but for that to be a law breaking court thing its a stupid!
> 
> ...


Some people prefer to pay rather than pirate. Crazy, I know.
But you gotta hand it to the guy, that's a really clever way to make money. I personally wouldn't pay to rent a ROM unless I couldn't get the ROM by other means, but hey, nothing wrong with doing that. What you spend your money on is up to you.
If it was just renting individual games, then it wouldn't be worth it, but $6 a month for access to hundreds of games legally isn't bad. It's not much different from game streaming services like Playstation Now other than not having latency since everything is ran locally. And some of those games can be rather expensive if you were to buy them used, so for non-pirates this might be their only option.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 24, 2018)

chartube12 said:


> I didn’t say it was a law. Just something along those lines were printed on the back of nes & snes carts. Been along time since I seen an old cart. I do however remember something about not lending or renting games without Nintendo’s consent!


Yeah i can kinda understand nintendos stance on that one. I remember that also cause as little when i bought a lot of games, i liked to read manuals (it was like a meditation to me xD) so i read something along those lines.


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## Song of storms (Aug 24, 2018)

Holy shit guys...

The "DO NOT RENT" messages are put there because you're purchasing a PRIVATE copy. A copy made for the end user. Blockbuster & Co. had different versions of games and movies that you could rent. You can still purchase movies that you can rent or broadcast (and they're more expensive, of course).


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 25, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> Some people prefer to pay rather than pirate. Crazy, I know.
> But you gotta hand it to the guy, that's a really clever way to make money. I personally wouldn't pay to rent a ROM unless I couldn't get the ROM by other means, but hey, nothing wrong with doing that. What you spend your money on is up to you.
> If it was just renting individual games, then it wouldn't be worth it, but $6 a month for access to hundreds of games legally isn't bad. It's not much different from game streaming services like Playstation Now other than not having latency since everything is ran locally. And some of those games can be rather expensive if you were to buy them used, so for non-pirates this might be their only option.


i prefer to pay if i want to! but to nintendo, because its a real thing, not to some random guy who rips games, makes roms, store them on his pc and lend them to me to use them on a crappy emulator (i tried it) for money in a limited manner. it MIGHT work in a distant past, but i dont see it as morally ok or even sane thing to do in 2018.
i say morally because if im in his shoes i would feel like i rip people off!
it would be like selling you the air in the bottle for 6$ where you can breath it for free from the...air 

And you say if i pay 6$ a month i can play games that other play? meaning not one game per person but one game per many people??

and yeah, it is smart. but its also kinda stinky to ask for money online for things that gamers share for free and DONT ask for money.

Also, its not crazy that people like to pay for everything, when people have lods of money they just search for stuff to spend them on, they don't know what to do with all that money they have,
but in some places pirating is the only way to get games to play because people cant really afford to spend anyting on luxury because they need to eat.

And internet is/should be for everione free and sharing place among people and comunities, the only place that is as i see it.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Song of storms said:


> Holy shit guys...
> 
> The "DO NOT RENT" messages are put there because you're purchasing a PRIVATE copy. A copy made for the end user. Blockbuster & Co. had different versions of games and movies that you could rent. You can still purchase movies that you can rent or broadcast (and they're more expensive, of course).


How much more?
I didn't know that, that is interesting...

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



FAST6191 said:


> So you choose not to pay for your games and pirate them instead? Fair enough.


I would pay them (if i want a game) to a damn nintendo, not a guy to play it on a crappy emulator.
The guy pirated them in the first place, and is renting them to me for money!
how do you think he put them on his PC, just showed a cartridge into floppy slot and said "pay me 6$ and play this from my pc"?

so he is not a pirate? interesting.


sorry for sarcasm...


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## Subtle Demise (Aug 25, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> i prefer to pay if i want to! but to nintendo, because its a real thing, not to some random guy who rips games, makes roms, store them on his pc and lend them to me to use them on a crappy emulator (i tried it) for money in a limited manner. it MIGHT work in a distant past, but i dont see it as morally ok or even sane thing to do in 2018.
> i say morally because if im in his shoes i would feel like i rip people off!
> it would be like selling you the air in the bottle for 6$ where you can breath it for free from the...air
> 
> ...


How do you think roms end up online in the first place? Magic? Most are trivial to dump with a small amount of soldering.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 25, 2018)

Subtle Demise said:


> How do you think roms end up online in the first place? Magic? Most are trivial to dump with a small amount of soldering.


i know that... what is your point?


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## Subtle Demise (Aug 25, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> i know that... what is your point?


You said the guy pirated the roms, but I'm saying he actually probably dumped them.


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## grossaffe (Aug 25, 2018)

Subtle Demise said:


> You said the guy pirated the roms, but I'm saying he actually probably dumped them.


Dumped them... and proceeded to provide said dumps to other people while retaining the original.  Sounds like a form of piracy.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 25, 2018)

Subtle Demise said:


> You said the guy pirated the roms, but I'm saying he actually probably dumped them.


Oh that..yeah that's what i meant, he made a copy himself and is asking a money for that copy.
My only "problem" with this is he asking money and he is not even a nintendo. He just wants to milk people for things they can get for free. He is maybe in a legal loophole, but its still not right imo.

if i'm in his shoes, i would feel like i rip people off for something they can play for free anyway (unless its nintendo themself). its free and you can find it anywhere on "google", its a fact and have better experience anyway.

I always saw internet as a free sharing comunity (excluding companies, but since its internet they can be there also) and he can also do this kind of stuff, but i dont see how anyone in right mind would support him or PAY for his dumps to play they when they are available to play...

Its just...i mean....it is....i wanna say that....... this is so fu**ed up i dont know how no one see it.... im done.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



grossaffe said:


> Dumped them... and proceeded to provide said dumps to other people while retaining the original.  Sounds like a form of piracy.


so for a 1000 of people to play donkey kong at the same time, he needs to have 1000 copies of the game??

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Captain_N said:


> True. Im sure if Nintendo wanted to nail him they could. the question is, is it worth it to nintendo. Might cost Nintendo more in the long run. There is a good reason they are nailing these sites. They must have something big planned. they did not seem to care about the site during the virtual console phase.


I was ranting at first for nintendo nailing down rom websites, but when i cooled down, i actually support nintendo, even though it would be dificult for me or others to find roms, but technically those sites overexposed them self and became almost as a official website for nintendo roms! 

I mean nintendo is protecting their IP which is a great thing! however, some of nintendo decisions and methids are really...stupid imo...but in its core, they are protecting them self, they want everione to know its their IP and they cant let people do what they want with it, there has to be a limit.
But all in all, underground rom providers will always exist, and that is a reality, and nintendo cant do anything about THAT, but they can say "you grew to high and are rude to think you can do whatever with our IP" but as i said, underground rom sites will always exist, and thats where illegal roms belong in the first place.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



grossaffe said:


> Dumped them... and proceeded to provide said dumps to other people while retaining the original.  Sounds like a form of piracy.


That's why i said renting a physical copy is different among other things.


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## The Real Jdbye (Aug 25, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> i prefer to pay if i want to! but to nintendo, because its a real thing, not to some random guy who rips games, makes roms, store them on his pc and lend them to me to use them on a crappy emulator (i tried it) for money in a limited manner. it MIGHT work in a distant past, but i dont see it as morally ok or even sane thing to do in 2018.
> i say morally because if im in his shoes i would feel like i rip people off!
> it would be like selling you the air in the bottle for 6$ where you can breath it for free from the...air
> 
> ...


People do sell air, in many forms.

I would imagine that you get relatively consistent access to the games for $6. He has multiple copies of some games, as you would expect. Something like Super Mario Bros or Zelda he's obviously going to need more than one copy of. But as mentioned in the source article, the service isn't very frequently used, so unless everyone wants to play the same game, it shouldn't be a problem.

I partly agree with you though. On one hand, it's game rental, it's been done for a long time and no one thinks that's morally wrong. On the other hand, it's emulation, it's hardly the authentic experience. But the people paying for this know that and it doesn't bother them.
Anyway, if people are willing to pay then I don't see a problem. These people know exactly what they're getting. He could have made everything free to play, sure, but who would make a service like this just to give away game rentals? That game collection wasn't free, and the servers running everything aren't free either.


Metoroid0 said:


> Oh that..yeah that's what i meant, he made a copy himself and is asking a money for that copy.
> My only "problem" with this is he asking money and he is not even a nintendo. He just wants to milk people for things they can get for free. He is maybe in a legal loophole, but its still not right imo.
> 
> if i'm in his shoes, i would feel like i rip people off for something they can play for free anyway (unless its nintendo themself). its free and you can find it anywhere on "google", its a fact and have better experience anyway.
> ...


Rental stores aren't Nintendo. Second hand sellers on eBay and Amazon aren't Nintendo. GameStop and other used game sellers aren't Nintendo. Nintendo doesn't get a single cent from those used sales/rentals. I fail to see how this is any different.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 25, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> because he is ripping games to sell them where you can download them free from internet. if im that guy i wouldnt have decency to sell something that anyone everywhere can get for free. phisical is different because you cant download plastic and phisicalcarteidge to play on original system, you must rent it by lending it phisically to someone and he can play it how much he wants for lets say month. and the game was not coppied, ripped and you can only get phisical copy is someone lend it to you or you buy it, but roms you can get them anywhere to play.
> I just would not feel right asking money from someone for something people can just download, but phisical copy you cant just download or play on original system.



He appears to be ripping games to rent them, not sell the copies. Big difference. Said copies are also not pirated that I can see, and they make a big deal of not having more copies out at a time than they have in their storage. I have played with any number of high end software installs that do something things (they usually call it chairs, as in you are licensed for 800 chairs to be using it at any one time,).
Likewise I am not sure why you are so hung up on the physical item.
There are many business models I would not feel right doing. It seems largely irrelevant to the discussion at hand though -- this guy seems OK with it and we seem unable to point at laws that would happily smack him down (I had a few cases that might throw a spanner in the works of a few defences they might try in court but that is just that), and indeed have the opposite of laws and setups that would seem to allow it..



Metoroid0 said:


> i prefer to pay if i want to! but to nintendo, because its a real thing, not to some random guy who rips games, makes roms, store them on his pc and lend them to me to use them on a crappy emulator (i tried it) for money in a limited manner. it MIGHT work in a distant past, but i dont see it as morally ok or even sane thing to do in 2018.
> i say morally because if im in his shoes i would feel like i rip people off!
> it would be like selling you the air in the bottle for 6$ where you can breath it for free from the...air
> 
> ...



Nintendo does not appear to be offering a comparable service to what this guy is offering. If you don't think the quality of service offered or price charged for it is something you want to use then that is fine -- for little luxuries like this the customer can make the decision as to what they think is worth it. To call it morally questionable or a rip off is a bigger charge though.
Also why just Nintendo? I have a very fine drill from Makita. Do I owe them some money for the thing I built using it? Or indeed Iveco for the van used to deliver it? If it is just your personal preference then so be it, however the way you phrase it makes it sound like you think Nintendo (or whomever made the original games/holds the rights to those games now) would be the sole deserving candidate for the money earned and I struggle to see why that should be.

Sure gamers have been sharing copies of games for decades. That however was probably illegal in the vast majority of instances, this would seem to fall in line with laws. For some that is a fundamental difference. From a technical standpoint it is trivial to download ROMs but many things are technically trivial but otherwise against the law, if this represents a legal way to play these old games then some might want that.

Is this air in a bottle more pure or otherwise certified? Even without that and if you just screwed the top on an empty fizzy drink bottle you can still try to sell it to me (or anybody else) if you want, whether I/they think it a worthwhile deal is a different matter.


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## tbb043 (Aug 25, 2018)

> This site has been getting you to pay for ROMs since 2001



No they haven't. I haven't paid for any ROMs save for ones i ripped myself from carts rented from Blockbuster/Hollywood/family Video/etc.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 25, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> He appears to be ripping games to rent them, not sell the copies. Big difference. Said copies are also not pirated that I can see, and they make a big deal of not having more copies out at a time than they have in their storage. I have played with any number of high end software installs that do something things (they usually call it chairs, as in you are licensed for 800 chairs to be using it at any one time,).
> Likewise I am not sure why you are so hung up on the physical item.
> There are many business models I would not feel right doing. It seems largely irrelevant to the discussion at hand though -- this guy seems OK with it and we seem unable to point at laws that would happily smack him down (I had a few cases that might throw a spanner in the works of a few defences they might try in court but that is just that), and indeed have the opposite of laws and setups that would seem to allow it..
> 
> ...


It just feels stupid to me on so many levels to rent games for money on internet in 2019 no matter how many logical arguments you put in..And i must say you do put many, and know what are you talking about, seemingly.

But hey, if he is making money, than good for him and
people willing to give him their money.
I wish them and him a good fun and profit!

It doesn't make it less stupid to me though. Some aspects look interesting, but overall, in 2019 its so stupid and i cant imagine anyone doing that or paying for that.

P.S. i hope that's NOT where rom's and emulation is going to be in future.

Also if Nintendo does not aproves them as their official rental store or licenced, than..i dont see why would i download from them.

Basically i dont like the idea at all (idk why anyone would), but i bet he does, cause he gets the money... and i would never use it.
Id reather pay nintendo if they ever make something similar, but i dont like to rent games, just movies. i like to own games, and phisically if possible. id reather play them from "google" in retroarch on PC and many other systems whenever.

Also, since i don't have money to toss around i get smart with what game i really want to buy to have in my collection.

But to each his own. If people want to give him money than go for it! but i cant say i will support a guy that ripped his rom and now he rents it to me.


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## Yepi69 (Aug 25, 2018)

Well that's a big Nintendon't to Nintendo's empty threats.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 25, 2018)

Metoroid0 said:


> It just feels stupid to me on so many levels to rent games for money on internet in 2019 no matter how many logical arguments you put in..And i must say you do put many, and know what are you talking about, seemingly.
> 
> But hey, if he is making money, than good for him and
> people willing to give him their money.
> ...



I can't say it is a service that holds much appeal here either, and while I can not see emulation and this ROM bothering business going there as the sole thing in the future I would say I also hope that. However earlier you were variously calling them pirates, rip offs, immoral and other such things and conflating them with the simple downloading of ROMs. Those are very different things from just being a service you don't think is worth it for you, or what is a fundamentally different concept in the case of the simple downloading thing.

Also Nintendo does not have to approve of them doing what they do -- it is mostly the law they have to worry about and it seems it is fine. If you need Nintendo (or the other relevant rights holders) to sign off before you engage with a service then so be it but a) you might be waiting a long time for that and b) that seems like an odd personal requirement to have.


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## grossaffe (Aug 25, 2018)

The Real Jdbye said:


> People do sell air, in many forms.


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## Metoroid0 (Aug 25, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> I can't say it is a service that holds much appeal here either, and while I can not see emulation and this ROM bothering business going there as the sole thing in the future I would say I also hope that. However earlier you were variously calling them pirates, rip offs, immoral and other such things and conflating them with the simple downloading of ROMs. Those are very different things from just being a service you don't think is worth it for you, or what is a fundamentally different concept in the case of the simple downloading thing.
> 
> Also Nintendo does not have to approve of them doing what they do -- it is mostly the law they have to worry about and it seems it is fine. If you need Nintendo (or the other relevant rights holders) to sign off before you engage with a service then so be it but a) you might be waiting a long time for that and b) that seems like an odd personal requirement to have.


i say licenced and aproved by nintendo because than at least emulation would be aproved and working with emulators made by nintendo that actually works good and easy without glitches and bugs and it would be much different. i'm not talking from legal point (im not a lawyer) but functional and more accessible point.

I wants calling them pirates, i wanted to say that its pirating in sense that they are ripping roms as any other pirate and putting them on a pc, with difference they are doing it in a way that seems legal (for now..we will see..whatever) and asking money for that, unlike roms that are also ripped but free and not rental (but more shady).
And by immoral i meant that by my moral standards, i couldnt be able to ask for money for a thing that you can download in 2 sec. from "google" and play on emulator as well. It would feel like i ripped off my fellow gamers. (thats not from a legal point, as i said im not a lawyer i just speak as user/buyer/gamer..whatever)
So im not saying anyone is immoral or pirate, im just saying what they to is nothing different fndamentally and hat to me what they do is not moral.
I could never do that....but also i would never ripp a game and upload it online also, but i apreciate the people who have guts to do that for us who wants to play here and there, and i am thanking them!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



grossaffe said:


>


Hi quality air with vitamine C, D, E....you dont get that from simply breathing regular, borring air!
All the cool kids buy the air!!! 

Be cool!

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



FAST6191 said:


> I can't say it is a service that holds much appeal here either, and while I can not see emulation and this ROM bothering business going there as the sole thing in the future I would say I also hope that. However earlier you were variously calling them pirates, rip offs, immoral and other such things and conflating them with the simple downloading of ROMs. Those are very different things from just being a service you don't think is worth it for you, or what is a fundamentally different concept in the case of the simple downloading thing.
> 
> Also Nintendo does not have to approve of them doing what they do -- it is mostly the law they have to worry about and it seems it is fine. If you need Nintendo (or the other relevant rights holders) to sign off before you engage with a service then so be it but a) you might be waiting a long time for that and b) that seems like an odd personal requirement to have.


Look, i must say i understand you and in some points i can see what you're thinking..
but i just look all this from a different angle thats all.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 25, 2018)

Nintendo emulators "that actually works good and easy without glitches and bugs"... did we play the same virtual console and all the other ported and rerelease titles over the last however many years? Even ignoring Nintendo's lack of cheats, hacks, savestates, graphics filters and all the other jazz which fan made emulators afford most have been shockingly poor and none have done anything not done by emulators written perhaps a decade or more before they came to play (give or take the GC N64 Zelda discs but they were still far from good or the trailblazing).

As for your moral standard then by that logic why would I buy a book/dvd/whatever if I can just as easily download it? Equally I still have to make the distinction between nice and legal and not so legal in most cases. It might not matter to you if you are content to pirate it but in the eyes of the law there is a world of difference. Play it how you will but know your moral philosophy there is quite radically different to most.


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## JellyPerson (Aug 25, 2018)

damn, can't i just, like, NOT pay for roms? kthx


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## Frederica Bernkastel (Aug 25, 2018)

I suspect that everybody is afraid of taking this company to court, as it would set potentially dangerous precedent.

If they win, emulation is legitimized and so companies like Nintendo won't have the option to argue about the ownership of their IP anymore.
If they lose, emulation becomes illegal which potentially scares large swathes of loyal fans away from the product offerings of companies like Nintendo.

So instead Nintendo, Sega, Atari, they stand to gain more in making it most convenient to play their older titles through product channels which they control: e.g. Virtual Console.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 25, 2018)

Frederica Bernkastel said:


> I suspect that everybody is afraid of taking this company to court, as it would set potentially dangerous precedent.
> 
> If they win, emulation is legitimized and so companies like Nintendo won't have the option to argue about the ownership of their IP anymore.
> If they lose, emulation becomes illegal which potentially scares large swathes of loyal fans away from the product offerings of companies like Nintendo.
> ...



I thought emulation was considered out and out legit (between "substantial non infringing uses", "interoperability is good stuff" and "a console is just a collection of chips, no big deal" the obvious attack paths are already done). I would agree fear some kind of precedent about renting and this specific variation of it being legit for games, or proper scrutiny of user agreements combined with them losing basically nothing and not being troubled for inaction in defending their IP is probably a factor at play, a serious one at that, but emulation has long been on solid ground from where I sit.


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## TeamScriptKiddies (Aug 26, 2018)

I actually recently discovered this site due to an article on Arstechnica about all these rom sites being taken out. I signed up for the free account and honestly plan on subscribing to the premium version (lets you play games from almost every retro console under the sun). Free membership, allows you to play NES, Atari and Colecovision games only. Pretty impressed thus far <3


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## lincruste (Aug 26, 2018)

I would applause if the service was free (that's what "to lend" mean).
Nintendo forbids game pak renting without explicit authorization: this service is NOT legal, like every other rom sharing websites.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 26, 2018)

lincruste said:


> Nintendo forbids game pak renting without explicit authorization: this service is NOT legal, like every other rom sharing websites.



Their manuals might say things but they can try to say what they like. Have the courts ever smacked down a game rental service for renting?


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> That's actually pretty smart. Follows the copyright to a t



Actually it does not. Copying a rom into a computer is an unlicensed copy, nothing they can do after that can make it right.

They are probably saved because their efforts would limit any damages to the point that it may not be worth nintendo pursuing them.

Nintendo may want to avoid a decision on whether it's a fair use or not, in my opinion it's not fair use but courts often do crazy things



Quantumcat said:


> Are you even allowed to rent out cartridges? On DVDs there is a message it is for home use only. Video shops of old had to pay extra (a license?) to be allowed to rent them out. I imagine it is the same for games, so it wouldn't matter if they had a physical cartridge for each person "renting" a particular rom.



The "home use only" means you can't show it in a cinema and charge people to watch, courts recognise the difference between cinemas that pay a lot of money for the rights to show a film & someone who buys a dvd for very little money.

In terms of rental things are much less clear. Video shops paid extra when they had exclusive access to films you couldn't buy for another 6 months. When video game companies tried to stop rental, they lost & the video shops one.


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

smf said:


> Actually it does not. Copying a rom into a computer is an unlicensed copy, nothing they can do after that can make it right.
> 
> They are probably saved because their efforts would limit any damages to the point that it may not be worth nintendo pursuing them.
> 
> ...


US law allows for ROM dumps. You are legally allowed to own 1 backup copy of a physical media. That's why he said in the video "if all copies are being played, you have to wait". He has 1:1 backups.


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> US law allows for ROM dumps. You are legally allowed to own 1 backup copy of a physical media. That's why he said in the video "if all copies are being played, you have to wait". He has 1:1 backups.



Under fair use law, which is for personal use. So he's fine as long as he only ever rents them to himself. Nintendo managed to stop blockbuster from photocopying the instructions of the games they were renting out, because that too is a copyright violation. Even though that 1 game was only being rented out to 1 person at a time.

If you can't legally keep the instructions safe by producing a copy to rent out a copy with an original game, then it stands to reason you can't legally rent out a copy of the game either.

People make shit up about copyright law all the time. At one point it was common "knowledge" that you were ok as long as you deleted it after 24 hours, spoiler you're not.


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

lincruste said:


> I would applause if the service was free (that's what "to lend" mean).
> Nintendo forbids game pak renting without explicit authorization: this service is NOT legal, like every other rom sharing websites.





smf said:


> Under fair use law, which is for personal use. So he's fine as long as he only ever rents them to himself.
> 
> People make shit up about copyright law all the time. At one point it was common "knowledge" that you were ok as long as you deleted it after 24 hours, spoiler you're not.


I don't think either of you watched the video. The service is free. He's lending. You can pay for an additional service that let's you be first in line. Its a legit loophole in copyright law.


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> I don't think either of you watched the video. The service is free. He's lending. You can pay for an additional service that let's you be first in line. Its a legit loophole in copyright law.



I don't need to watch the video. As soon as he lends the video to someone then it's no longer personal use and he is no longer protected by fair use.

The lack of money would limit the damages, so nintendo might not bother. However the ability to get to the front of the queue puts it clearly into commercial use. If he makes money posting about it on youtube then that would be considered as well. Even if you break even or lose money then it could be commercial use, because companies often lose money. Companies also give free products to some people, while charging others.

It's not a loophole.


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## lincruste (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> I don't think either of you watched the video. The service is free. He's lending. You can pay for an additional service that let's you be first in line. Its a legit loophole in copyright law.


As smf said, there is no loophole.
If you make someone pay to borrow something you own(yes, even just to be the first one), you're renting it.
Besides, he does not send the game pak to your home, he sends a copy to your browser which is, you know, a copy.
You know these video streaming websites broadcasting copyrighted Marvel movies for free ? There are NOT using a legit loophole in copyright law, there screwing with it, just like him.


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

smf said:


> I don't need to watch the video. As soon as he lends the video to someone then it's no longer personal use and he is no longer protected by fair use.
> 
> The lack of money would limit the damages, so nintendo might not bother. However the ability to get to the front of the queue puts it clearly into commercial use. If he makes money posting about it on youtube then that would be considered as well. Even if you break even or lose money then it could be commercial use, because companies often lose money. Companies also give free products to some people, while charging others.
> 
> It's not a loophole.


There are no laws against letting people use your stuff. Remember the backlash Microsoft got for wanting to make it impossible for people to share games?


lincruste said:


> As smf said, there is no loophole.
> If you make someone pay to borrow something you own(yes, even just to be the first one), you're renting it.
> Besides, he does not send the game pak to your home, he sends a copy to your browser which is, you know, a copy.
> You know these video streaming websites broadcasting copyrighted Marvel movies for free ? There are NOT using a legit loophole in copyright law, there screwing with it, just like him.


There are laws against streaming and sharing video. This isn't the same thing. The ROM itself isn't being sent to you. Your loading data from the ROM into local ram. You think gbatemp is on your computer when you sign in?


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> There are no laws against letting people use your stuff. Remember the backlash Microsoft got for wanting to make it impossible for people to share games?



Copyright law says you can't make copies. Fair use says you can for personal use as long as you don't give that copy to someone else.

He doesn't get fair use protection because he is giving the unlicensed copy to someone else.



WeedZ said:


> There are laws against streaming and sharing video. This isn't the same thing. The ROM itself isn't being sent to you. Your loading data from the ROM into local ram. You think gbatemp is on your computer when you sign in?



The ROM is being sent to you. When you access gtatemp then parts of that are sent to you too. Whether it's stored in RAM or your hard drive is actually irrelevant to him.

It may help the people who accessed his service.



FAST6191 said:


> I thought emulation was considered out and out legit (between "substantial non infringing uses", "interoperability is good stuff" and "a console is just a collection of chips, no big deal" the obvious attack paths are already done).



emulation is legal, it's the copyright violations that are illegal. As long as you have a license or rely on fair use protection then you're fine. Downloading games and putting them on a flash cart is just as illegal as downloading them and running them in an emulator.



FAST6191 said:


> I would agree fear some kind of precedent about renting and this specific variation of it being legit for games, or proper scrutiny of user agreements combined with them losing basically nothing and not being troubled for inaction in defending their IP is probably a factor at play, a serious one at that, but emulation has long been on solid ground from where I sit.



I'm sure they will keep an eye on him, but if he keeps quiet and doesn't cause any real problems then they will probably leave him alone. The worst thing that could happen for him is that the service get publicity and becomes more popular due to the crackdown. Claiming it's a loophole will probably get them interested in smacking him down.

What they won't want to do is take the risk of a court deciding to interpret fair use law in a way that would allow this. But nintendo may feel compelled if people make a big deal about it.



lincruste said:


> I would applause if the service was free (that's what "to lend" mean).
> Nintendo forbids game pak renting without explicit authorization: this service is NOT legal, like every other rom sharing websites.



Nintendo can say what they like on the game pak. They lost when they sued blockbuster, but they were renting real cartridges. The courts prevented them for copying the instructions to go with the legit cartridge. So a duplicate of the cartridge would seem to be illegal too.


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

smf said:


> Copyright law says you can't make copies. Fair use says you can as long as you don't give that copy to someone else.
> 
> 
> 
> The ROM is being sent to you. When you access gtatemp then parts of that are sent to you too. Whether it's stored in RAM or your hard drive is actually irrelevant.


Omg, watch the video and come back..
He doesn't give it to anyone, he let's you use it remotely..
Gbatemp is a database and several thousand lines of php across several hundred files. None of it gets sent to you. You access the server index and a series php scripts generates html that your browser can display. That resulting output is sent to your computer.


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## lincruste (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> There are no laws against letting people use your stuff. Remember the backlash Microsoft got for wanting to make it impossible for people to share games?
> 
> There are laws against streaming and sharing video. This isn't the same thing. The ROM itself isn't being sent to you. Your loading data from the ROM into local ram. You think gbatemp is on your computer when you sign in?


If only i/o were streamed, you'd have a fucking disqualifying lag. Believe me, copyrighted content IS streamed.


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

Look at it this way. Pretend you have an actual nes and you put in a game. Imagine that game is a ROM (which.. It is). Imagine the nes is your computer, complete with ram and processor (which.. It is). Now when you turn it on the nes doesn't make a copy of the game. It processes scripts and loads outputted data to ram. Now imagine that game was a legally made copy, now imagine that legally made copy was borrowed from a friend.. You see?


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> Omg, watch the video and come back..
> He doesn't give it to anyone, he let's you use it remotely..



It's copied into the ram on your computer.



WeedZ said:


> Gbatemp is a database and several thousand lines of php across several hundred files. None of it gets sent to you. You access the server index and a series php scripts generates html that your browser can display. That resulting output is sent to your computer.



How gbatemp is stored on the server is irrelevant. If there was illegal content stored in the database, then it would still be sent to you.



WeedZ said:


> Look at it this way. Pretend you have an actual nes and you put in a game. Imagine that game is a ROM (which.. It is). Imagine the nes is your computer, complete with ram and processor (which.. It is). Now when you turn it on the nes doesn't make a copy of the game.



Established law says it does make a copy, fortunately the copyright holder has authorised that copy. Unauthorised copying without fair use protection is illegal. He doesn't have authorisation and it's not for personal use.



WeedZ said:


> It processes scripts and loads outputted data to ram. Now imagine that game was a legally made copy, now imagine that legally made copy was borrowed from a friend.. You see?



I see your argument, I believe that you are wrong for the reasons I've given. You see?


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## WeedZ (Aug 26, 2018)

smf said:


> I see your argument, you're just wrong


Shoot me in the face


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## smf (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> Shoot me in the face



Being wrong doesn't deserve the death penalty.


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## lincruste (Aug 26, 2018)

WeedZ said:


> Look at it this way. Pretend you have an actual nes and you put in a game. Imagine that game is a ROM (which.. It is). Imagine the nes is your computer, complete with ram and processor (which.. It is). Now when you turn it on the nes doesn't make a copy of the game. It processes scripts and loads outputted data to ram. Now imagine that game was a legally made copy, now imagine that legally made copy was borrowed from a friend.. You see?





WeedZ said:


> Look at it this way. Pretend you have an actual nes and you put in a game. Imagine that game is a ROM (which.. It is). Imagine the nes is your computer, complete with ram and processor (which.. It is). Now when you turn it on the nes doesn't make a copy of the game. It processes scripts and loads outputted data to ram. Now imagine that game was a legally made copy, now imagine that legally made copy was borrowed from a friend.. You see?


Yes I see, it's a virtual data bus service through TCP/IP. Technically it's called streaming. You are allowed to do it with non copyrighted content only.


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## PerfectB (Aug 26, 2018)

It's irrelevant to try to make an argument for this being legal unless the game dumps being served out by his server are, in fact, dumps of those physical carts he owns.  If he, say, downloaded a working SMB3 ROM and thinks he's insulated because he owns 30 copies of it, then the argument is flawed from the start.   Not to mention, it seems like the ability to make your own 'legal' backups of software you own has been subject to too many interpretations over time.

At some point when we were kids (or maybe just because copyright protection was sort of in its infancy level for computer code at the time; also I say 'we' as in the old timers of this board I'm not actually sure what the average age is around here) we thought when we bought a game we truly owned it and could do whatever we wanted with it, when the reality was we weren't even paying for the code on the ROM chips, just a single-user license to run that code on our game system at home.  In fact, I think Game Genie or Gameshark got hit with lawsuits back then because their devices modified the contents of RAM on the system while copyrighted code was running.

Anyway, Nintendo just needs to rework the pricing structure of the Virtual Console into something more user friendly.  I think they're on the right path with the Switch's paid online service adding a subscription to some choice NES games and adding netplay and things like that.  It just never made much sense to me that for $80 you can get an SNES classic with like 25 or 30 games, fairly legit-feeling classic controllers that also plug into your Wiimotes, in a nice little collector package but if you wanted Super Mario World or Super Metroid on your Wii U that'll run $8 a pop.  Granted, with retro game prices ballooning out of hand it's no wonder people would rather pay $8 for Earthbound or search out a ROM of it than give some greedy eBay reseller $300...if you wanted to buy that game 15 years ago you were out maybe $40 at the most.

The Virtual Console as ownership and monetizing their classic library made sense in 2006 on the Wii, but we're reaching the point where I think it would work better with a games-as-a-service streaming model.  Add $5 a month to your Nintendo online subscription, add netplay to as many titles as possible, and just let us stream NES-N64 content straight to our Switches with cloud save-states and the like.  And if it's your favorite game and you want it available locally, just charge something reasonable like $0.99 or $1.99 on top of that streaming fee to keep any game from the library.  At a certain point we have to vote with our wallets.  Super Mario World is a great game, but between the original release, the GBA release, the VC release, etc. I feel like Nintendo's made plenty off off the intellectual property of that title and it wouldn't kill them to come up with a more consumer friendly strategy than trying to bleed us another $8 for what is basically a ROM download at this point.


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## Deleted User (Aug 26, 2018)

Just signed up to test it, the website is using an expired security certificate and they sent me my password in plain text! The emulators they use are over a decade out of date.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 26, 2018)

PerfectB said:


> It's irrelevant to try to make an argument for this being legal unless the game dumps being served out by his server are, in fact, dumps of those physical carts he owns.  If he, say, downloaded a working SMB3 ROM and thinks he's insulated because he owns 30 copies of it, then the argument is flawed from the start.   Not to mention, it seems like the ability to make your own 'legal' backups of software you own has been subject to too many interpretations over time.
> 
> At some point when we were kids (or maybe just because copyright protection was sort of in its infancy level for computer code at the time; also I say 'we' as in the old timers of this board I'm not actually sure what the average age is around here) we thought when we bought a game we truly owned it and could do whatever we wanted with it, when the reality was we weren't even paying for the code on the ROM chips, just a single-user license to run that code on our game system at home.  In fact, I think Game Genie or Gameshark got hit with lawsuits back then because their devices modified the contents of RAM on the system while copyrighted code was running.
> 
> ...



Can you point me at the case or law that says you have to make your own backup? People trot it out a lot but I have never seen or found any kind of thing I can link to. To that end it would seem to remain a myth, or maybe just best advice (if you dump it yourself then you are guaranteed to have not shared it like you might have with torrents or something, also no worries that you might have a v1.1 and the ROM you got is v1.0 or, worse still, the PAL version where you have NTSC).

There have been a great many interpretations of backup, interoperability, format shifting ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/01/are-personal-copies-digital-music-files-unauthorized-or-not ) and other things over the years. Still does not mean we can't try to thrash it out here. As far as I can see they are doing no harms in theory so we are back to technicalities and the poorly thought out IP laws around the place.

http://www.museumofintellectualproperty.org/features/game_genie.html was the case. Galoob won and reading the opinion/legal arguments might actually be of relevance here.


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## PerfectB (Aug 27, 2018)

FAST6191 said:


> Can you point me at the case or law that says you have to make your own backup? People trot it out a lot but I have never seen or found any kind of thing I can link to. To that end it would seem to remain a myth, or maybe just best advice (if you dump it yourself then you are guaranteed to have not shared it like you might have with torrents or something, also no worries that you might have a v1.1 and the ROM you got is v1.0 or, worse still, the PAL version where you have NTSC).
> 
> There have been a great many interpretations of backup, interoperability, format shifting ( https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/01/are-personal-copies-digital-music-files-unauthorized-or-not ) and other things over the years. Still does not mean we can't try to thrash it out here. As far as I can see they are doing no harms in theory so we are back to technicalities and the poorly thought out IP laws around the place.
> 
> http://www.museumofintellectualproperty.org/features/game_genie.html was the case. Galoob won and reading the opinion/legal arguments might actually be of relevance here.



With regards to the Galoob case, I'd say what sealed Nintendo's fate was trying to frame it as a derivative work.  The way the devices actually worked (though, abstracted a bit in the interface for usability) was by referencing a memory address, then inserting a different value.  For example, finding the memory address where the number of lives was stored and overwriting it with some sufficiently 'infinite' value rather than 3 (or maybe it just wrote a static value that could not be decremented, it's been a while since I've read up much on them).  Anyway, it's hard to say but in modern times I think the outcome of that case could have went differently; hacked executable binaries that disable DRM checks by modifying values in RAM have seen their writers prosecuted and I'd say the legal arguments for modifying the RAM values of copyrighted code while running have probably progressed since then, but I'm just an armchair lawyer myself.

With regards to your other question, the legal justification for backups seems to be contained under some antiquated literature, namely Section 117 of the US Copyright Act.  It's a bit hard to parse, but the first section does seem to be pretty clear that making of the backup copy is a right of the owner of that copy.  There could certainly be an argument made, whether it would hold up in court or not, that the backup copy must be produced by the actual owner of the program (or some other party licensed by the owner of the program). What I find interesting is this blurb: "_Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. Adaptations so prepared may be transferred only with the authorization of the copyright owner."  _While I certainly see that the website in question is not permanently storing the contents on your computer, supposing you do not attempt to circumvent that in any way, the backups can apparently only be transferred or leased with the authorization of the copyright owner, and along with transfer of the original copy.  Although, there really isn't anything in place stating what counts as a transfer, and whether a temporary lease over a TCP/IP connection would violate that.

Another interesting piece I found while searching: "_It is also important to check the terms of sale or license agreement of the original copy of software in case any special conditions have been put in place by the copyright owner that might affect your ability or right under section 117 to make a backup copy. There is no other provision in the Copyright Act that specifically authorizes the making of backup copies of works other than computer programs even if those works are distributed as digital copies." _It's been too long since I've thumbed through an NES instruction manual to see if there are restrictions in place, although I think historically video game TOS that take away certain rights have not held up all that well.  While at the time of release, an NES game may have fallen under the 'computer program' category, it would be interesting to see where they shake out now, as it seems that Section 117 would not allow you to make a backup copy to an external drive of a legally purchased and digitally distributed film or music work, even though the drive containing them could feasibly fail.  There could be an argument that a game is no longer a 'computer program' but instead a separate category altogether existing with other forms of consumable media.

I'd be curious to hear your interpretations, however.


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## FAST6191 (Aug 27, 2018)

For the NES
Action Replay/Gameshark/Codebreaker traditionally did memory.
Game Genie acted as a file/cart read replacement by default, and actually had rather limited memory abilities compared to the others.

As time went on systems, names, regions, bankruptcies and buyouts happened which blurred lines (so many moved into save editing, for things like the DS the binaries were copied into memory and thus a RAM cheat could make a straight up assembly cheat if you wanted, files also appeared in memory and with enough IF cheats you probably could do something there as well but I did not see that anywhere near as much as I did assembly).

Back to the thing in question some choice stuff there. Case law wise we have had a few cases since then (usually autodesk vs the world) that might limit the scope of resale restrictions. The quoted section would take a fairly creative reading to get to owner (or their agent commissioned after the point of ownership) must be the one, not one beyond the scope of some lawyers but getting there. Might be reaching for some but that surpreme court case recently about printer consumables being resold could apply at some level here (the court ruled that the original owner might have violated some agreement but the new owner was free and clear from that issue). On the basis of harms done, which is where I usually start, then unless they torrented it and shared/seeded along the way I am not seeing the issue with pulling from an online source.


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## Nitro-Gale (Aug 27, 2018)

Sounds interesting, but fishy.

Hopefully it all works out lol


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