Marketing itself as an online video game rental store, Console Classix offers a paid subscription giving you access to thousands of games from a variety of platforms: ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo 64, our beloved GameBoy Advance, and many more.

​

Console Classix differs from a standard rental store in that you don't actually receive the physical game at home: you're actually playing ROMs using emulators. So how does that work? Why are they claiming this service as fully legal, and why has it been up and running for so many years? According to the owner, Aaron Ethridge, this is all due to a legal loophole of sorts:
1) For starters, Console Classix owns at least one physical copy of every game it distributes
2) When someone wishes to play a game, the game isn't actually stored on the gamer's computer, it is only available in RAM so there is no (easy) way for the player to retain the game. So this can be considered as lending rather than distributing.
3) Console Classix doesn't lend more ROMs simultaneously than it owns physical copies. If they only own 1x Super Mario Bros 3 (NES) cartridge, then there can only be one person playing that ROM at a given time through their emulation service.

Whether or not this is technically legal, Console Classix has yet to be taken to court. Back when they started their business, they received a cease and desist letter from Nintendo, but this never went any further, and so Mr. Ethridge went on with his business.

What do you think about such services? Have you ever used Console Classix?

Make sure to read Ars Technica's excellent article on the subject

 

[Captain_N]

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.

 

[Rabbid4240]

Goddammit I need money to stay alive.

 

[grossaffe]

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.

 

[Captain_N]

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.

 

[the_randomizer]

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.

 

[Wrathcaster]

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.

 

[Metoroid0]

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 ---------------------------

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.

 

[gamesquest1]

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

 

[BORTZ]

There is no way this is legal.

 

[Metoroid0]

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 ---------------------------

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?

 

[FAST6191]

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

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...)

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

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?

 

[Metoroid0]

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.

 

[FAST6191]

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.

 

[osaka35]

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).

 

[calagan]

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.

 

[FAST6191]

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).

 

[calagan]

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.

 

[FAST6191]

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

 

[MasterControl90]

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.

 

[Noizetank]

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.