Homebrew Piracy, what is legal?

[Panzer Tacticer]

I'm mostly impressed that the OP actually expected to get a serious discussion to be honest. Although it appears a few respondents have made the effort.

But the only thing that seems to count, in the end, is the industry empowers me to pirate.
While the law merely whines from behind badly written, entirely vague, unenforcible laws. Which vary country to country, without much consistency.

So long as buying entirely unnecessary spindles of blank media is a cheap as dirt, the message will be clear enough for me.

No one really seriously cares.

Because you can't copy if you have nothing to copy on to.
And if you honestly need back up media, you don't need it to the tune of 30 bucks per hundred disks.

The industry has spoken.

I merely listened.

I don't care what the courts are saying.
It's not relevant what the laws are, precisely.

Which explains largely why I basically never spend effort trying to digest their long winded convoluted lawyer-speak drivel.

 

[BORTZ]

why isnt this stickied?

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Nice to know what I didn't care about.
So if roms are illegal, why are the flashcard owners and makers being blamed?
Its the scene dumpers and emulator owners who are at fault.
Cause most flashcards are for homebrews like the games n music.

 

[gosp]

Nice to know what I didn't care about.
So if roms are illegal, why are the flashcard owners and makers being blamed?
Its the scene dumpers and emulator owners who are at fault.
Cause most flashcards are for homebrews like the games n music.

QUOTECarrying the Grokster argument to this is thin at best because there are definitely legitimate uses for emulators that are entirely legal. Also, if I recall, one of Grokster's main problems was that they basically advertised their service as a way to get free music. That is why they were found to be enablers for illegal file sharing.

As long as they release an update to fix a problem with a game, they're basically saying *Play backups*

 

[Ferrariman]

Piracy, what is legal?

There is no such thing as legal piracy.

 

[NonaSuomi]

Interesting article, and there is also a fair amount of intelligent response as well.

Personally I'm fairly interested in this, because while I don't really give a crap about the legality of ROMs, emulators, etc. I don't exactly want to end up in the Big House over some game dump on my R4.

I think that yes, if the manufacturer's commercially and officially make patches that are designed to allow greater compatibility with backups, then it is safe to say that the device would not be very "safe" in my opinion.

As far as game dumps go however, I think that it is worth noting that while there are some very clear and precise laws in places regarding such, they are almost all at different levels of the law, and where/how they all fit together (as well as how the EULA fits in) is the biggest gray area in almost any case, as there are some laws which are conflicting or ambiguous and such.

However I think that when all is said and done, the companies like Nintendo are very unlikely to go after end-users like you or me since that would be much too costly and impractical to make any sort of effect. They are much more inclined, I would wager, to attack distribution sites or other companies that manufacture hardware such as R4's (although that hasn't seen much success in recent times either, if I remember correctly).

At the end of the day, you're getting a game for free, but the developers don't get any money for their hard work. When you play your ROM to the end, read those credits, and realize that you are personally stealing from each and every person listed there. My personal morality of it perhaps unorthodox, and almost certainly illegal, but it works for me, and I still feel it is ethical, if not legal:

-If I download a ROM, it is only with the intention of "trying it out" to see if I want to buy it.
-I usually five myself about 3 hours of play-time to evaluate it, at which point I delete it
-If I liked it, I'll buy it, if not, it remains deleted, ne'er seen again.

I think it would be interesting to see what anyone else thinks of this methodology, and what their philosophy regarding ROMs is.

 

[zeromac]

bravo

 

[Curley5959]

hmm, nice bump there mate..