EmuParadise has removed its entire library of retro game ROMs and ISOs

[icemanxp300]

But if we're so niche and don't matter, why is Nintendo even bothering to pay lawyers to do this? Why would they feel threatened at all?

 

I am pretty sure Nintendo does not feel threatened at all. Give someone an inch and they take a mile. Like I had mentioned before legally speaking if you want to protect your IP you need to do soomething sooner than later.

 

Again it is not really the roms Nintendo was shutting down. It was a service offered by a few sites that charged to play "certain" roms on emulators.

 

I am fairly confident EP is just being extremely cautious. Would Nintendo have gone after them, not likely and if they did it would likely have stemmed off a few very specific games like Pokemon and such. EP could likely have just removed a small amount of roms and kept as they were. However when technically speaking you don't own the right to anything on your site you might as well just pull everything and not worry about what might happen, especially when we are talking a massive corporation that could come after you.

[John Stamos Mullet]

But if we're so niche and don't matter, why is Nintendo even bothering to pay lawyers to do this? Why would they feel threatened at all?

they dont feel threatened. They do this as a warning. Paying a lawyer for a couple of hours to draft a C&D letter is nothing. Its a drop in the bucket. And they know there will be no resistance from the romsite owners once they receive the warning because the romsite owners already know they are in the wrong.

[zzip]

I am pretty sure Nintendo does not feel threatened at all. Give someone an inch and they take a mile. Like I had mentioned before legally speaking if you want to protect your IP you need to do soomething sooner than later.

Sooner than later? These sites have only existed for 20+ years now!

 

 

Again it is not really the roms Nintendo was shutting down. It was a service offered by a few sites that charged to play "certain" roms on emulators.

 

I don't know about that, I checked a few free rom sites last night out of curiosity and the download links produce 404 errors, or the download link is gone completely. I didn't find one that worked at any of the major sites that the search engines know about.

Edited August 14, 2018 by zzip

[icemanxp300]

Sooner than later? These sites have only existed for 20+ years now!

 

How long have these sites been charging people to play certain games on emulators?

[zzip]

How long have these sites been charging people to play certain games on emulators?

What sites have been charging people? I'm seeing the free ones being affected by this with their roms gone.

[icemanxp300]

What sites have been charging people? I'm seeing the free ones being affected by this with their roms gone.

 

The sites Nintendo went after Love roms and whatever were charging people to play games via emulators on their web sites.

 

Other sites such as EP were not affected, they chose to close shop out of fear. As far as I know EP and others were not contacted at all by Nintendo, they were just scared over the other 2 websites Nintendo went after.

[Wyluli Wolf]

Interesting article but as far as I can see, Emuparadise is still up and running just fine....

 

[derFunkenstein]

Interesting article but as far as I can see, Emuparadise is still up and running just fine....

 

You've obviously not tried to download anything there.

[Wyluli Wolf]

You've obviously not tried to download anything there.

I stand corrected sir. Guess I expected something to be posted on their home page or somewhere obvious. You have to click on the tiniest question mark to get to this page:

https://www.emuparadise.me/emuparadise-changing.php

 

Ah well. It was expected. I had hoped to get the rest of the 3DO games downloaded that I needed before they went belly up.

'Signals the soldiers to begin playing "military taps".

[Flojomojo]

Good editorial from Chris Kohler here https://kotaku.com/in-defense-of-roms-a-solution-to-dying-games-and-broke-1828340811

 

lots of the same points that are being made here, but he's a better writer than us <ducking>

[Punisher5.0]

The sites Nintendo went after Love roms and whatever were charging people to play games via emulators on their web sites.

 

Other sites such as EP were not affected, they chose to close shop out of fear. As far as I know EP and others were not contacted at all by Nintendo, they were just scared over the other 2 websites Nintendo went after.

EP actually had a premium paid service. That might be why they shut it down

[John Stamos Mullet]

Nope. Dude's whole article is based on the "we need to preserve these!" argument which is 100% poo. There is no other art form in the world where anyone of reasonable mind deems it acceptable to make unauthorized copies of original works and distribute them. It's a false narrative devised by cheapskates to attempt to legitimize their nefarious activities.

Edited August 14, 2018 by John Stamos Mullet

[English Invader]

Nope. Dude's whole article is based on the "we need to preserve these!" argument which is 100% poo. There is no other art form in the world where anyone of reasonable mind deems it acceptable to make unauthorized copies of original works and distribute them. It's a false narrative devised by cheapskates to attempt to legitimize their nefarious activities.

 

Other art forms are more legitimised. There's a site that does audiobooks of the literary classics but Sony aren't demanding they remove Dracula because the film studio they bought made a movie of it 25 years ago; same deal with the Shakespeare plays or the Dickens novels; big business has money in those things but they've been classed as public domain because the powers that be recognise their cultural significance. Things are starting to go that way with the music of the 20s and 30s with the 78 preservation project over at the Internet Archive site; Judy Garland and Cab Calloway are considered culturally significant so it's ok for them to be publicly archived. Does our culture deserve less?

 

And visual art certainly has its share of "unauthorised copies" and "fake" paintings that are claimed to be the work of famous artists when they're not. Scam artists and suckers are not the exclusive IP of the retro gaming community.

[John Stamos Mullet]

 

Other art forms are more legitimised. There's a site that does audiobooks of the literary classics but Sony aren't demanding they remove Dracula because the film studio they bought made a movie of it 25 years ago; same deal with the Shakespeare plays or the Dickens novels; big business has money in those things but they've been classed as public domain because the powers that be recognise their cultural significance. Things are starting to go that way with the music of the 20s and 30s with the 78 preservation project over at the Internet Archive site; Judy Garland and Cab Calloway are considered culturally significant so it's ok for them to be publicly archived. Does our culture deserve less?

 

And visual art certainly has its share of "unauthorised copies" and "fake" paintings that are claimed to be the work of famous artists when they're not. Scam artists and suckers are not the exclusive IP of the retro gaming community.

these aren't classical works of art. They are mass produced consumer items - toys, no less. Preserving the original source code, or the original case artwork would be equivalent. Making unauthorized exact copies and distributing them without permission is not preservation. If preservation is the goal, they should be on display at the Smithsonian, not backed up on your usb drive.

[Austin]

Good editorial from Chris Kohler here https://kotaku.com/in-defense-of-roms-a-solution-to-dying-games-and-broke-1828340811

 

lots of the same points that are being made here, but he's a better writer than us <ducking>

There were actually a lot of great points made from both sides of the fence there, thanks for sharing. Good article that should get those unfamiliar with the issue up to speed quickly.

[Flojomojo]

I think there's a way down the middle here.

 

1. Preservation

• a. Preservation is a legit concern, and people like Kohler and Cifaldi are reasonable spokespeople for that cause. They've written lots of critical and almost scholarly words on the topic. Cifaldi has a preservation foundation and worked on the museum-esque Mega Man collections. They aren't just thieves.
• b. We know that lots of these companies didn't hold onto source code or production materials. The analogy to the lost films of the 1920s is somewhat apt -- if these ROMs weren't dumped, they could be lost -- but perfect digital copies spread around the world has prevented that from happening. Preservation = done.
• c. Yes, I agree that these are toys and most of them are frankly not worth worrying about. Much of it is forgettable dross, and just like Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crud. I think curation is more important than hoarding complete sets.
• d. Preservation doesn't mean that everybody who wants to play Super Mario Bros needs or gets to be a museum. Not everybody has to hold the entirety of videogame history to hand down to future generations.
• e. Some people are just too close to the material, maybe because of emotion or nostalgia or a sense of entitlement, to see this in a clear and consistent way. How many cartridge-lovin' classic game fans really cared when nice mobile games like Flight Control were pulled from the App Store? Or got bent out of shape when a 2nd string MMO changed its business strategy, expired some content, or went offline? It's not so different from some unloved but cult classic going out of print in the pre-Google Books days. Just because you don't care about a particular genre doesn't mean it's not "important." And just because you like something, doesn't mean it is.

 

2. The law and monetization

• a. Copyright law is an overreaching mess. The commercial life of most of these games has long since passed.
• b. If there's a long tail to this stuff (Virtual Console showed that there are limits to how far this can be monetized), I agree with Kohler that the industry is leaving money on the table by only serving up the same hits over and over again. Few people bother with stealing MP3s, because streaming is easy.
• c. A lot of these companies don't even exist anymore. There really should be a more fair approach to legalized abandonware.
• d. Few if any end users have been prosecuted for copying and sharing ROM files. Legal or not, it's fucking cool that I can put the entirety of the cartridge oeuvre on a tiny flash card, and I won't stop just because Nintendo says it hurts them. I give them hundreds of dollars a year so I don't feel too bad about that.
• e. Nintendo is on the cusp of bringing out a game service. I don't know all the details, and they don't have the greatest track record for innovative web services. I think their experiments with mobile have shown them how to scale up services. I'm hopeful that the Switch service, which is so cheap it's almost free, will serve up some oldies but packaged in interesting new ways (online multiplayer for sure) and make us think it's better than a big list of ROMs on a Pi.

[RevEng]

Nope. Dude's whole article is based on the "we need to preserve these!" argument which is 100% poo. There is no other art form in the world where anyone of reasonable mind deems it acceptable to make unauthorized copies of original works and distribute them. It's a false narrative devised by cheapskates to attempt to legitimize their nefarious activities.

The age of easy copying is fairly new, but one example that leaps to mind is concert recordings. These have been copied, traded, and preserved in a similar fashion to classic gaming roms.

 

I think your use of "nefarious" takes the point a bit too far, especially considering that often game preservation entails saving old protos from bitrot. (see NES Bio Force Ape. There are lots of other less publicized examples, many from our own members here) One might equally call corporations that have stolen works from the public domain, while simultaneously benefiting from several public domain works, "nefarious".

 

When it comes to art, preservation has a bit of a loaded meaning. One can colloquially "preserve" art with duplication, homage, and reference. If one locks away a work of art so photons will never again degrade it's surface, it may be preserved in some very literal sense, but most people would ask "what's the point?" With art, the notion of preservation without appreciation seems pointless.

 

 

these aren't classical works of art. They are mass produced consumer items - toys, no less. Preserving the original source code, or the original case artwork would be equivalent. Making unauthorized exact copies and distributing them without permission is not preservation. If preservation is the goal, they should be on display at the Smithsonian, not backed up on your usb drive.

So we get some graded scale of protection, where mass-produced art only deserves to have it's packaging or source code preserved? This is a bit weird, and a little elitist.

 

There has to be a better balance than the one we see now, with perpetual copyright and continued chipping away at fair-use. I don't believe the copyright law extensions after 1976 do anything to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

[empsolo]

The problem with the pre-1976 copyright laws was that the copyrights only lasted for a maximum of twenty-eight years. This allowed people to troll the patent and copyright offices for goods that looked promising but had not taken off yet. It was what enabled people like Thomas Edison to amass the fortune he gained by simply waiting out copyrights and patents and then publishing and selling his “inventions.” Thus depriving people like the estate of Georges Millier millions in dollars with his stolen copies of “From the earth to the moon.”

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited August 15, 2018 by empsolo

[mr_me]

The problem with the pre-1976 copyright laws was that the copyrights only lasted for a maximum of twenty-eight years. This allowed people to troll the patent and copyright offices for goods that looked promising but had not taken off yet. It was what enabled people like Thomas Edison to amass the fortune he gained by simply waiting out copyrights and patents and then publishing and selling his inventions. Thus depriving people like the estate of Georges Millier millions in dollars with his stolen copies of From the earth to the moon.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

According to wikipedia, the film was released in europe in 1902. He was hesitant to release in the US because of rampant piracy. By 1904 the Edison company got a copy and was pirating the film.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Trip_to_the_Moon

 

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

 

The Library of Congress is preserving video games. They are in need and asking for stuff from the 1970-90s. Of course they are doing it legally, it would work better if they didn't have that restriction.

https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2012/09/yes-the-library-of-congress-has-video-games-an-interview-with-david-gibson/

 

"The gaming community has been so key to the preservation work that has been done thus far, through emulation and raising awareness of the fragility of digital media, that it seems strange to think about how to situate game preservation within an institutional context, especially within an institution like the Library of Congress. I only hope that we can forge relationships with those members of the developer and collector community that are interested in preserving the nations gaming culture in order to find ways to work together for the common good."

Edited August 15, 2018 by mr_me

[John Stamos Mullet]

The age of easy copying is fairly new, but one example that leaps to mind is concert recordings. These have been copied, traded, and preserved in a similar fashion to classic gaming roms.

 

I think your use of "nefarious" takes the point a bit too far, especially considering that often game preservation entails saving old protos from bitrot. (see NES Bio Force Ape. There are lots of other less publicized examples, many from our own members here) One might equally call corporations that have stolen works from the public domain, while simultaneously benefiting from several public domain works, "nefarious".

 

When it comes to art, preservation has a bit of a loaded meaning. One can colloquially "preserve" art with duplication, homage, and reference. If one locks away a work of art so photons will never again degrade it's surface, it may be preserved in some very literal sense, but most people would ask "what's the point?" With art, the notion of preservation without appreciation seems pointless.

 

 

 

So we get some graded scale of protection, where mass-produced art only deserves to have it's packaging or source code preserved? This is a bit weird, and a little elitist.

 

There has to be a better balance than the one we see now, with perpetual copyright and continued chipping away at fair-use. I don't believe the copyright law extensions after 1976 do anything to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

Saving protos and unfinished games is important for historical preservation, sure. I would even go as far as saying MAME is important in preserving Arcade Roms because Arcade games were never really sold at retail or mass produced, and as such is important preservation.

 

There is nothing remotely important or preservative about sharing entire romsets of games for home consoles, which sold to the tune of millions of units, and which are readily available on any number of aftermarket sales options. Not even close. They are not the same thing.

 

and in most cases, these IP are still being re-sold and enforce by their copyright owners, through Console Compilations, mobile versions, etc.

 

don't get me wrong - I love emulation and SD carts for retro consoles. Have tons of them. But I am under no ridiculous illusion that I am "helping preserve" anything. I'm conveniently playing a bunch of games for free. It's no better than having an iPod full of music I didn't buy, or hard drive full of downloaded movies I didn't buy either.

[mr_me]

Art is meant to be seen and videogames are meant to be played. Only a fraction of old video games are available "legitimately". Some of this stuff are only on platforms many people don't have. Lots of stuff is with companies that are inactive. Some have multiple party copyrights involved that people don't bother working out.

Edited August 15, 2018 by mr_me

[John Stamos Mullet]

Art is meant to be seen and videogames are meant to be played. Only a fraction of old video games are available "legitimately". Some of this stuff are only on platforms many people don't have. Lots of stuff is with companies that are inactive. Some have multiple party copyrights involved that people don't bother working out.

Companies being inactive doesn't magically invalidate the copyrights to those properties.

 

Just because an item isn't in current mass production anymore doesn't mean it's copyright protections disappear.

 

I don't want to offend, but seriously - this is all just weak excuse making. It's a bit like stealing your neighbors bike because he left it sitting in his front yard untouched for a month, and then when you get caught using it you say "He wan't using it, why am I in trouble?"

[mr_me]

That is all understood. It points out the problems with copyright laws. What if my neighbour left his old broken bike at the curb with the garbage. That would be stealing as well. Just because something is illegal doesn't necessarily mean it's ethically wrong.

Edited August 15, 2018 by mr_me

[Tempest]

Short of a game being explicitly given into public domain, there really isn't any legal way to download the roms for games you don't own. Even games from long dead companies, as the rights are more than likely owned by someone even if they don't know it (although I think there are exceptions to this). It doesn't matter how unobtainable a game is or how it never comes up for legitimate sale, it's going to be illegal to download that rom. But in most cases (unless it's a modern game still being sold), I think society treats it like speeding. Sure it's illegal and sometimes you get caught and fined, but it's something that most people are fine with and turn a blind eye to.

[Flojomojo]

Just don't try to pass off your postcards from the museum as the real thing.