Is there a reason why new users can't read the rules?

[DarkBloodyFetus]

Seriously, I've seen 5-6 topics on the Nintendo Emulator board this week alone asking about how to obtain roms....It's not hard to spend a few minutes of reading what the rules are before joining people. There's also no so hard idea of actually looking it for yourself using Google. Don't get me started on how many messages I'm getting daily from news asking the same question, "hiii, duh, i wAnt Rom@!///! , Wjhre dID u GEt urS@>1?




No joke, some of them actually wrote like that.

[Zach]

That's life on the Internet for you. Be it ex forum members jerking around or some moron who just wants roms.. Morons never stop to read things, especially if they are only interested in furthering their goal

[Ryanfaescotland]

See now I kinda sit on the fence here.

Yeah people should read the rules and know not to ask for roms but lets face it it's just a forum and the rules are pretty common sense sorts of stuff. And what's the worst that can happen if you break them? You can get banned and have to sign up again or banned permenantly and aren't any worse off than before so you can see why people don't bother.

On the other hand I work on the idea of emulation being about preservation and extending the life and enjoyment of otherwise 'dead' games so in my mind such roms should be free to distribute. Of course new school emulation for the DS PS2 and so on is more about seeing if it is possible to emulate these systems and about beating the challanges that crop up. These systems I feel shouldn't have free roms since they are still in the market.

Sadly though only a small percentage of emulation fans have this view with the majority are just trying to get copywritten games without paying for them without a care about the thought and work that's went into them.

Anyways I've lost my point.....

Yeah emm old school roms for out dated systems that are no longer on sale on there original format should be free to distribute, new school games shouldn't. Sadly because of the amount of moochers out their it'll never be.

But that's still off-topic, what was the question, oh yeah emm cause there assholes that's why.

[Robert]

Why do they always want pokemon?

If anyone was to PM me with such a stupid request I would paste the PM in a thread for everyone to laugh at!

On a more serious note, are ALL roms banned, or are homebrew and freely released ones allowed?

[Jale]

Every commercial ROM are not allowed to be freely distributed on the net. That means homebrew ROMs can be freely distributed.

No matter how old a ROM is or if it's not being sold anymore, it's still illegal. A game copyright can last up to 70 years from its creation, release or whatever. Anyway, oldish games for Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console are still being sold, aren't they?

[Zach]

And don't forget handheld remakes..

Although to be fair, there are a few titles out there that have been released after the original company responsible for it was contacted. However these are usually on less known systems (I think Commodore 64 for instance) that no one but true fans are interested in anyway.

Trouble is, no real way to verify those kinds of things in a timely manner, etc.

[Ryanfaescotland]

They sure are Butters you can buy old games from the Nes and SNes and probably some others at the Wii shop using Wii points or whatever it is. I don't have a Wii but I've got a friend who done some shopping this way. The usual capitalist dogs sucking that extra couple of pennies.

Copyright can also be extended for further periods if the copyright owner wishes to do so. I think after 70 years an application can be made to extend copyright for a further 20 years and if granted further applications can be made once that 20 years is up. There was a court case I read about this some where (I think I got the link from this site) quite interesting if you can be bothered finding it.

I love the term Abandonware its great. Basicly it is used to describe items, typically roms, for out of date, dead systems where most of the companies have went bankrupt and shutdown. The idea is since these companies no longer exist; are no longer making money from the material and have long forgotten about it it is ok to share it. This term is of course bullcrap. From a legal point of view there is no such thing as Abandonware, copywrite exists well after owners die or companies close down. Still a great term though, created so that stealing others work would be more socially acceptable, genius!

Zach has hit the nail on the head with regards to removing copywrite. The only way it can be removed before the 70 year time limit is by the author openly stating that he reliquishes the copywrite on his material and accepts that it is now in the public domain. And as said this is very hard to verify.

Oh I should also point out Pokemon's pretty good but there are a lot of better games out there.

So what's the rules regarding linking to Public Domain roms and Abandonware??

[Zach]

Abandonware = no.. That's pretty self explanatory.

Public domain roms are fine. EZ hosts some public domain roms if I recall correctly.

Just be careful not to link to a site that has other material besides public domain, because it would still violate the rules

[Robert]

There is Rastersoft, who makes the roms for Frog Feast, and you can download them at their site. Is that allowed here?

And, Mamedev have some roms that were handed over by the CEO of Gottlieb, for the purposes of emulation. Is that allowed here?

P.S. I'm only asking, please don't ban me!

[Ryanfaescotland]

There is Rastersoft, who makes the roms for Frog Feast, and you can download them at their site. Is that allowed here?

And, Mamedev have some roms that were handed over by the CEO of Gottlieb, for the purposes of emulation. Is that allowed here?

P.S. I'm only asking, please don't ban me!

I know what you mean I'm surprised we've managed to even discuss this rule without getting our heads in a vice lol

And I can't see me ever wanting to link to them since most the ones I've played are pretty pants but it's nice to know you can.

Have you guys found sites that ask for votes onto the Emu Top 40 or whatever site it is before letting you in and then find that there are no roms on the site anywhere? I've found that quite a lot but I'm still not 100% sure if I'm just being daft or no.

[Zach]

I've run into a lot of sites that are just one big voting circle jerk, that's why I don't use the WWW anymore. I sure do miss places like Plastic Man's site. Those days are long gone now though.

As for the rules here. We don't have a problem with people discussing the rules, like in this thread; you can do that to your hearts content. The line is only crossed when people start naming (active sites), linking to sites that have, or link to illegal to obtain materials.

Discussing the rules is healthy for the community however, and that way everyone knows what they are and what the boundaries are.

[Ryanfaescotland]

The line is only crossed when people start naming (active sites), linking to sites that have, or link to illegal to obtain materials.

Why is that? I know it may seem pretty common sense but when it comes down to it we aren't doing anything illegal and regardless of weather we send people or not the games are still going to be there.

[Zach]

It leaves the forum owners open to possible legal attacks or lawsuits.

i.e criminal facilitation of copyright infringement

[Spellsong]

Stop spamming!

[playmazter76]

To clear on the request on roms of y its wrong just think when Napster got shut down same deal roms have owners and these owners want $$ just the ppl in the music industry want money 4 their songs but news flash plenty torrents, sites, peer 2 peer programs 2 get what u like. I know this cliche here but google is defintely ur friend.:happy:

[Zach]

When you're dealing with Nintendo et al then yeah it's probably a question of money or other motives. But a lot of classic game authors don't really care about the money, and a fair share of them would probably relinquish their copyright if they could be contacted in some way.

[gforce75]

Because there is no real consequence to it and plus some users IM me about it... so... people will do what they can do to find it. Well, just to help out, it can be found out at the one site... just google it and type "xoijljlj" then press the power button on your computer, watch the sky and the roms shall come :p

[zionprophecy]

I think....that....in todays day in age, covering your butts from legal matters should be priority number one. And the questions that are being banned to ask here are prolly some of the easier ones to find asnwers to from google and yahoo.
I mean try and search without posting why an emulator isn't working and giving your PC specs in the little search bar haha. I think its great we can discuss the emulators without worrying about legal matters.
The things we cant...well....like i said, its an easy search.

[Alucard_The_Dex]

Honestly i dont see WHY people need to ask in the first place. Just like everyone answers back with Search google the fact is people are to lazy to look for roms themselfs yet they would sign up for an acount on a forum with people they dont know and post such questions in hopes of people posting links to proper sites. Its amazing the lenghts lazy people would go threw to avoid doing a task that is more simple then the work around. And the fact they say "where can i get (insert console here) roms?" means they know exactly what they are looking for and not just a clueless person wondering around forums in hopes to find the all in one answer.

Not to mention the fact no one reads rules stems to lack of enforment befor signing up to the forum. A simple Please read this even if the site has a timer befor you can move along people will walk away and make toast instead of reading. Better ways of implimenting people to read the rules like have a "quiz" with Asorted questions like true or false would engage the person to actually read the questions and answer it properly befor allowing to sign up.

But all in all the truth will be you will get that one asshole that goes threw all the trouble to just break the rules thinking they will ither get a answer or distrube the peace for a entertaning minute will always happen. So honestly If better implimented ways of forcing people to read the rules first would prevent the "harshness" of banning and deleteing posts instead of a polite read the rules or google it by the simple fact of knowing that they HAD to have read the rules and didnt follow them anyways.


Just my thoughts cuz i see rule breaking on forums everywheres and felt a need to vent XD sorrys.

[Zapotech]

This discussion is laughable. For one, without copyrighted and/or commercial ROMs available there would be no practical use for emulators. Secondly, sites which host emulators only rely on other sites hosting the ROMs(and paying for the bandwidth) in order to exist. I'm sure this site is run on a relatively small inexpensive server since it hosts no ROMs and I still get server busy messages. Letting the guys hosting the ROMs pay for everything and avoiding the server headaches, that's the real reason behind this. The legal issue is the smoke screen. Take the most recent emulators, for example... in order to make them function most of them require a copyrighted BIOS. Sure, this site doesn't host the BIOS files but it facilitates the commission an illegal act. A good analogy would be giving away unloaded guns, emulators don't kill people; people kill people.

edit

There must be a blue moon phase lately, me posting here is a rarity. You can ban me now for nonconformity, thanks.

[Alucard_The_Dex]

Theres really no easyer way to put this....your an idiot....

[Zapotech]

Theres really no easyer way to put this....your an idiot....Coming from a Howard the Duck impersonator kissing up to the management I find that rich. If you're going to call some one stupid, Al... I suggest you do it with proper spelling. Also, if you're such a proponent of upholding the rules of this forum you should start by not flaming other members. Rest assured that in a war of words I would be the victor, but that would leave me with an empty feeling inside; there would be no challenge in defeating someone who already lines the bottom of my shoes.

[Ryanfaescotland]

This discussion is laughable. For one, without copyrighted and/or commercial ROMs available there would be no practical use for emulators. Secondly, sites which host emulators only rely on other sites hosting the ROMs(and paying for the bandwidth) in order to exist. I'm sure this site is run on a relatively small inexpensive server since it hosts no ROMs and I still get server busy messages. Letting the guys hosting the ROMs pay for everything and avoiding the server headaches, that's the real reason behind this. The legal issue is the smoke screen. Take the most recent emulators, for example... in order to make them function most of them require a copyrighted BIOS. Sure, this site doesn't host the BIOS files but it facilitates the commission an illegal act. A good analogy would be giving away unloaded guns, emulators don't kill people; people kill people.

edit

There must be a blue moon phase lately, me posting here is a rarity. You can ban me now for nonconformity, thanks.

Regardless of whether or not emulation appears to condone copywrite theft is irrelavant. The rules should be followed by all users for what ever reason they are in place, be it a "smoke screen" or not.