Here’s Why ROMs & Hacks Are Illegal
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- ROMs are very common these days, but it can be difficult to determine what is legal and what is not. In this video, I will explore the laws in the United States related to copyright infringement and address the question of the legality of ROMs, hacks, and fraudulent reproduction and compilation cartridges that can frequently be found on online shopping websites.
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0:00 Intro
0:58 History of US Copyright law
2:23 Current Laws
3:57 Are ROMs Illegal?
4:58 Are ROM Hacks Illegal?
5:37 New Games for Retro Consoles
6:07 New Game Compilations
7:15 SD Card Cartridges
7:56 Your Thoughts
Music:
On My Way by Ghostrifter bit.ly/ghostrifter-sc
Creative Commons - Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported - CC BY-SA 3.0
All footage used under the Fair Use doctrine and for educational purposes.
#nintendo #SEGA #retrogaming #PlayStation #retrogames #NES #SNES - Hry
Here’s a list of the ROM Hacks I showed in order of appearance:
Mario Adventure (SMB3 Hack)
Lakitu’s Great Adventure (SMW Hack)
Super Mario 64 Land (SM64 Hack)
Super Mario 64 Last Impact (SM64 Hack)
Mario’s Nightmare 64 (SM64 Hack)
Super Mario Bros The Early Years (SMW Hack)
Mario In Some Usual Day (SMB3 Hack)
hi
I made a lakitu's great adventure cart and sent to the creator 😁
The one I desire is a 4-player split-screen hack of SM64 where Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Wario are playable.
@@albertmanriquez1996 hahaha no it isn't
The Waffle House has found it's new host.
I'm not paying fifteen bucks for a game that Nintendo, Sega, etc. made many millions off of 30 years ago. Also with many of these games it's either emulation or hunt down an old copy, and either way the company doesn't see a dime.
True. If the publisher doesn't provide a reasonable way to buy the game, I see it as a sign that they don't want to earn money from it anymore, and therefore should be okay with me downloading a ROM.
True
I just find it weird as to why they can do such, and care about it if they profit none from it.
@@Irreve-rsible Because if they don't defend their intellectual properties and that could be demonstrated in a court of law, they risk losing rights to those IPs.
Actually i go by the same logic
I remember when ROM sites had a warning that you had to delete the files after 24 hours and I would turn off my router for a whole day, freaking out that I'd be arrested lol
lol that was rom stes trying to hey we said delete anything you got from us thinking that got them around the courts. it didn't work.
Lol
Anti-piracy screens aren't to make fun of
Personally, I have no problem downloading ROMs. I have thousands of ROMs covering multiple systems and MAME. On a different note, a few weeks ago, I read an article that someone had scanned and uploaded almost every issue of Nintendo Power to the Internet Archive website. When I read this, I immediately downloaded all 158 issues that were available. On December 15, 2022, I read an article that NOA caught wind of their magazine being available for download and forced the website to remove the files. And Gruz, just like you said, Nintendo is extremely protective of its intellectual properties. I am glad that I downloaded them when I did. Looking at the magazines, even though they are in a PDF file and perfectly legible, brings back wonderful memories.
Sadly, I didn't get no magazines... but I got a hold of a digitalization of a japanese Super Mario 64 guidebook, with detailed maps, lotsa tips, and even pictures of diagrams of all the levels!
I wish that I'd caught that.
Oh wow, I remember both of these stories, I would've downloaded both if it had come to my atention BEFORE they were taken down lol
Re-upload is please i wanna download it
@@Seamed I hope you saw my work-around video before it was taken down.
I think the issue with downloading ROMs isn't with legality, but with preservation. If a game company refuses to give people modern options to play older titles, while also going out of their way to prevent them from having unauthorized access to obtain them, they're basically giving the middle finger to their own games. They'd rather sit on their IPs and not let anyone touch them while also not doing anything with them themselves. While piracy of these games isn't legal, to many players, it's necessary in order to keep them accessible for generations
I feel like companies treat their games and IPs like movie studios did with silent films. They saw them as a quick buck and once film did its run it was shelved and they moved on to the next, eventually letting them decay (or in worse cases they'd catch fire due to the volatile nitrate used for film stock)
@@FG-bn3qq Makes too much sense with Level-5.
On one hand I agree but on the other hand a company can't be forced to provide you with say, the 1st edition of a book. Another example would be the updates to old star wars movies. If they change something in the film, they don't need to also offer you the previous version. If a youtuber deletes a video, it isn't youtubes job to make it available. If someone doesn't want you to access something they made once, who are we to demand they do? Whether it be continuing to produce cartridges or setting up the online infrastructure to sell the games. The consumer can't make demands on the producer like that. Webster doesn't need to sell you a copy of the first dictionary when the printing press used to make it is long gone.
@@mattallred Well if they don't want to give us the experience we want, we have no obligation to give them our money or respect, and we'll simply seek it elsewhere.
"Preservation" is a lame excuse to keep illegally downloading games. I'd understand if online gamingmuseums did that for people to scroll through gaming history. But most people downloading roms and hacks are not of the "preserving" kind. so let that idea go and stay real.
I always knew it wasn't legal but at the same time didn't care. For the most part it is video game preservation and not only that but some of the games are insanely priced to own an original of it
Yeah this really seems like a victimless crime. Nintendo isn't gonna cry because they didn't get a dollar from some eBay seller's thirty year old copy of King Return Hellfire.
If you want world record in mario land you MUST use emulator for save state practice.
Because you know the developers don't give a shit about preserving their games
@@adrianamorphous Publishers, more accurately.
So what? You're just a thief trying to justify stealing by the price as if gaming is a necessity of life when it absolutely is not. I don't care if people do this since I myself will read a manga or comic on an illegal website if there is no legal translation into English at the time (and then buy or subscribe later when it becomes available), but at least just admit that you're a thief and you simply want to do so. No one needs a random nobody to help them preserve their material and if you can't afford something you can either save up or do without. The only reason I think it's acceptable on any level to read fan translated manga is because I know I will also buy the original when it's available in the British market. Many East Asian products are not.
I've been on both sides. I'm a writer with chronic health issues from birth and vehicle collisions and have had my copyrighted original works copyrighted and sold. They weren't even translated so there was no excuse. The people who stole my work claimed to have sold millions of copies at £6.99 each. I was selling my own works legally for £1.99 and because I even did a promotional offer that's all I ever made. £1.99. I guess it was the thief who brought it so as to covert it and sell it. I know people find it funny, telling me that it's my problem since I'm the one who needs money, but that's exactly my point. Copyright infringement is not a victimless crime. Even if you can't see the impact there's always someone who gets effed over.
I just find it amazing that people steal entertainment and use the hefty price as an excuse but those same people who don't mind snatching money from creators' hands would never go to work and tell their boss to let them work for nothing so that some random on the other side of the planet can save money to waste time playing a game.
Takes me back to the glory days of selling packs of ROMs with emulators on floppy disks at school.
Oops, you shouldn't have let that information slip, pal. Afraid I'm gonna have to report you to the panic number for those floppy disk ROMs your comment claims you sold over twenty years ago. Get ready; the FBI will come a-knockin'.
My man
I use to sold movies not even out yet and music, got busted for it to in school.
Not all heroes wear capes
Creepy
"Do what you want cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!
Yarr har fiddle dee dee
Being a pirate is alright to be
Do what you want cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate!"
"This is fun, dancing the yarr har fiddle dee dee
Yohoho me bucko and a bottle of rum
This is fun, Nintendo is dumb
Take what you can, give nothing back
A yohoho and a free rom for me
This is the life of a pirate!"
🐒☠️🏴☠️
Set sail and conquer, maties
Hell yeah, THE PIRATE CHANNEL LIVES ON!
There are so many games that come from companies that are dissolved these days. It would be near impossible to re-release certain games, but Nintendo still claims that downloading roms of those games hurts their sales when they have no intention of re-releasing the game.
They just have to say those things. It's part of the game. Like Politicians speaking about freedom and democracy, and top models crying about world peace.
Emulators and source ports are generally legal as well due to Reverse Engineering being considered a valid way to discover trade secrets. Which is how the Mario PC port can exist. Still gets some issues when selling but generally they aren't for profit.
they couldn't get you on copyright but trademark violation for using the Mario assets.
@@gogereaver349 Except you aren't technically using the assets more than you use them to play the game normally. These PC-port projects ask you to supply them with the original game specifically because they extract the assets at setup.
Personally I have no issues with downloading ROMs of games I already own. While it might not be legal (not sure about the exact situation here in Austria), I at least don't see it as morally wrong.
Same. There's also an aspect to it where if I own the physical copy I'll take it more seriously, and not hop from game to game like I do when I have a 3000 file ROM set in front of me! Much more enjoyable IMO!
Another Austrian who watches Gruz? Seawas oida
@@rahmspinat Seawas aus Linz 😉
@@staudinga Griasdi aus Innsbruck 👍
Same. If I have a video game in real life, I’ll just use a rom
I think roms are very important to preserving history. If a game is no longer available to the masses, to purchase, or even playable in legal means, then those should be completely legal to rip, shared, downloaded, and played for no profit.
If somebody owns a game, and downloaded a rom they did not rip themselves, but wants an easier way to play that game, that also should be legal.
Newer games, where devs from studios, big or small, that's the fine line people cross. People should be paid for their hard work, and I personally think there should be a waiting period for playing roms of said newer games.
I agree, especially with the waiting period. I know there is a of PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation in the works, even though the systems and the games are still somewhat easy to obtain legally. I don't have a 360, but for now that PS3 PSN still allows purchase of games online. Gotta jump through a few hoops, but it's doable. But all support for PS2 is gone. Same for PS1, N64, Dreamcast and the like. Can't buy the game legally anymore? Get a rom. At that point, it's not hurting anyone anymore. None of the publisher are making money off the game if it's not for sale in a legal way.
@@paulhiggins6433 There are tons of ps4 roms out there as well.
@@HeavensToMergatroid88 I know there are. Which is not a good thing since PS4 games are still being made and sold commercially. The companies that make the games are actually loosing money because of that.
@@paulhiggins6433 I am aware of this and really when it comes to roms people should wait till the company decides to no longer support their old software/hardware to mod, hack, or download roms.
@@HeavensToMergatroid88 That's the way I feel about it.
As for ROMs & ISOs, yes I download them & have no issue with doing it.
Your post was flagged by another user in an anonymous website reporting tool. I am a police officer. We know you reside in the United States. A request has been made to CZcams for your IP address and other details. In the meantime cease breaking the law, it will only get worse for you
I don't mind ROMs, especially for systems as old as the NES. I do mind those illegal carts though.
I see your point and it would be morally wrong to support bootleggers who are stealing sales of the legit cartridges... but that's not happening here because those games aren't being made on cartridges anymore. There's little money for game companies to keep producing games on cartridges, so they don't. That's where bootleggers fill a gap in a small market.
My problem is when the bootleg product includes bad modified versions of the games instead of the original rom (like modified title screens, colour pallets etc). There's no good reason to do that, it's a bad way to present the game and nobody wants to see games butchered this way.
My favorite is the 64-in-1 Famicom cart from Japan,
if only it were 100 games instead.
@@KEN-1991 those types of carts all have one thing in common: it's mostly just four games repeated again and again, sometimes with a little variations (like inf lives, different palletes and such). Some are called 50 in 1, some are 999 in one, some are even 9999999 in 1, like the one that came packed with the Ending Man Terminator, but they are all basically the same thing. Those carts were very common in Famiclone regions, and people buying them mostly knew what they were getting, but it was scummy nonetheless.
@@IrisGalaxis
I hate it when that happens, Soulja Boy pulled that same duplication trick with his "collection" of sold illegal retro games in one cheap console or handheld.
But I guarantee you the 64-in-1 has 54 in total, but with 9 sped-up hacks of some of the games.
@@IrisGalaxis The multicarts on Aliexpress these days are fairly true as advertised as far as the number of games/containing few duplicates (i.e. 153-in-1, 852-in-1, 509-in-1). The days of the "99999999 in 1" with 10 games is over.
Great video! What really irks me most with this situation, no matter the legality: That many content creators do not separate between Emulation and Piracy. And thus the majority on the internet actually just uses the two words synonymously. When in actuality, emulation can be done without piracy (dumping one's own games), and piracy can be done (and taken advantage of) without emulation (modding your console to play the ROMs)
Exactly.
The only legal use of emulation is for homebrewing, develop your games or apps and teste on emulators, dump The ROM from phisical média is a illegal copy, phisical média are for use on original console only. But... Who cares? We are ALL Pirates.
disney threw their weight behind the modern copywrite law for fear of losing mickey mouse to the public domain
They pretty much ruined USA copyright laws and even somehow got some public domain stories turned into copyrighted properties
it's copyright
@@rahmspinat its both you clown
Ah yes I learned that from Adam Conover
@@rahmspinat it's copy, rite?
The most egregious problem in this is that copyright laws aren't about protecting the creators but the corporations. Most of the times the creators are stripped of their earnings because rights were sold so the owner becomes the company and the creator just gets whatever he was paid initially, without any possibility of getting residuals down the road if they do millions with their creation.
Exactly, which is why Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night & indie games in general came into existence.
That only works if you are referring to a game or music which has been commissioned through a corporation but literature still belongs to the author just as images and any other creative work released independently still belong to the artist so copyright laws very much do protect creators. I mean I've seen some rats online teaching other people how to steal people's artwork and remove the watermark, claiming that they don't even need to bother to ask because the artists don't mind. If an artist didn't mind some POS stealing their work and getting paid for it, why would they add a watermark in the first place?
I think that you don't know enough about copyright from the perspective of a creator and that you seriously underestimate how stupid, selfish and greedy people are.
Also your comment makes no sense because if the corporations don't pay the creators for their work, where will they get money? Trying to sell their wares online themselves? Before the internet did this kind of distribution possibility exist for the independent creator? If you're a creator who works for a corporation and the company suddenly can't make much profit because their are more thieves than purchasers, how would the company commission new games? Then what happens to the creative's job. It's a symbiotic relationship.
Emulation is preservation.
When companies won't care about their old IPs and leave them to be forgotten. It's up to the fans to keep the memories alive. Let's not do what the movie industry did in the days of the Silent Era and let these games gather dust and decay.
Yeah that's what i am always thinking what if Nintendo doesn't exist in the companies anymore Nintendo is gonna thank us one day that we preserve their work and software
@@Cookieman245YO Japanese companies tend to not say that though.
That’s Japanese mindset in a nutshell. They do not respect other countries IP laws and will still go after people.
The "preservation" excuse has become an old and broken man. We can not hear that old story anymore without feeling stupid about people still bringing it. Most people downloading do so for illegal means. Preservation my ass.
A patch file is perfectly fine to distribute, it only contains the differences between the hack and the original ROM that it's based on. I wouldn't put it on a cartridge and sell it though.
Right, a lot of them, at least the ones I've played require you to own a legit copy of the game. For example Newer Super Mario Bros Wii will not boot up unless the actual New Super Mario Bros Wii disc is inserted into the console. Or like CTGP-7 won't boot unless the Mario Kart 7 cartridge is inserted.
What I hate most about draconian copyright laws and aggressive Nintendo lawyers is that their official "legal" version to play old games on new hardware is always, ALWAYS inferior to loading them up on a modern cycle accurate emulator with amazing post-processing shaders. And a huge portion of these old game libraries are impossible to distribute legally because they are long lost in IP hell after companies go bankrupt and portfolios bought by companies that don't care about anything other than swallowing a competitor. So I would encourage downloading a full ROMset for a 30 year old platform while you still can and not care too much about what Nintendo thinks about the matter.
Yeah, I buy all the retro collections and indy stuff. But if they're 30+ year old games that Nintendo (or any other company) simply refuses to put out, then I'm 100% for emulation and game preservation as a whole. No wonder so many of these greedy companies are only putting out multiplayer games and games that can only be played online or through the cloud. Ubisoft, Activision/Blizzard, and EA don't want to deal with this down the road.
@@attackofthetheeyecreatures3472 I'm sure hackers have given them problems trying to find the game files.
You'd think Nintendo would be more on the ball on their emulation with their immaculately maintained source code.
God forbid if Nintendo doesn't get another $5 on a 30 year old game that was originally $50-$60.
they don't even get any money from it. the reseller does
Dude they were cheaper then that
I knew it was illegal, but in some cases it's the only way we have to preserve games (anything on the Satelliview for example minus Radical Dreamers which was released again by SE).
Personally I try to buy games that get re-released or put onto a service (like NSO) but if the company is unwilling to sell me the game, I am all for getting a rom (or iso). Especially for a game like Paper Mario TTYD, the game physically goes for way too much and Nintendo won't be seeing that money anyway.
Considering the fact that many of these old games are becoming very pricey on eBay just for the copy of the game with nothing else, and especially those digital only games from the Nintendo DSi Shop, the Wii Shop Channel, and the Nintendo eShop for the 3DS & Wii U, which have disappeared or are disappearing forever, I think law must consider the concept of video game preservation. I personally play using original copies of games and with official emulation, but I can understand the pain some people might have from companies like Nintendo who are chasing them for doing something related to a law that is probably not working well.
Lmao "ninetendo considers illegal" brought a tear to my eye.
As long as people not selling them I don't see any problem
Clarification of a few points;
1. No, you're not going to get in trouble for DOWNLOADING old games. However if your download method method is BitTorrent, you are also UPLOADING those games at the same time as you're downloading, and companies DO care about that. If you're using BT to download ISO files for the Gamecube or Wii, chances are that you're going to get a copyright warning from Nintedno through your ISP.. Same for Sony and Microsoft, and possibly even Sega. If you're downloading them from a website, you'll be safe. Well, mostly. If a site says that you need to install some program to download anything, find another site. And if you get a popup ad telling you that you have a virus or other BS, just close it.
2. According to the law, you have a right to make backup copies of the media that you own, however the DMCA makes it illegal to bypass any form of copy protection to do so. Beyond that, the DMCA also makes it illegal to modify a game console to actually play those backups. Even the tools to do so are illegal.
3. Video games from the 80s and 90s SHOULD be well out of copyright by now, but they're not. In fact, unless a company or author specifically releases their work (game, movie, song, book, etc) to the public domain, absolutely NOTHING created in your lifetime will ever become public domain. You can thank Disney for that.
See, when copyright was first put into law, it only lasted for 14 years, with an option to renew the copyright for another 14 years. The idea was that a creator would have a decent amount of time to profit from their work before it INEVITABLY became public domain, at which point, they would probably need to create something new. They COULD keep selling their previous works, but so could anyone else. THe creator gets time to profit, the work becomes public domain, at which point, anyone can make use of it, and society benefits.
However, Disney and others, while drawing on the public domain for the inspiration for many of their works, absolutely, positively, under no circumstances, wants to allow anything that they've ever created from becoming public domain. So they lobbied the government into repeatedly extending copyright, such that it now lasts 70-90 years AFTER the death of the author. Or after the date of publication, it differs for individuals and stuff created for someone else. So long after the original author is dead and buried, their descendants are still collecting royalty checks from their works.
NES games will be under copyright for another 30-50 years. And that's if Disney doesn't convince the US government to extend copyright AGAIN. Which they might do, as Steamboat Willie's copyright is set to expire soon. Although some people claim it's already in the public domain.
Wait, so how does what happens in the US affect the rest of the world? Through trade deals! They make it a condition that other countries have to apply similar copyright terms, and this then makes it harder to loosen copyrightm because doing so would violate the trade agreements that THEY forced on other countries.
Basically, copyright law is a huge, stinking mess that favors mega-corporations and the descendants of long-dead authors.
The notion of copyright being life + 50 years started long before the Walt Disney company existed. Also 14 + 14 was the first copyright law but that term is not mandated by the constitution to stay that long. Congress is well within it's authority to extend that length(which they did before Disney even existed) as long as the term is limited and like it or not Life + 70 is still limited.
@@Guy-cb1oh Life + 70 is only limited in the technical sense. For all practical purposes, it's unlimited.
If I said I needed to borrow your car for a "limited" amount of time, would you expect me to keep it until 70 years after your death? That's not a limited amount of time for you, in effect that's an unlimited amount of time, since you'll be dead before it expires.
Something that's created today will never pass into the public domain until everyone who was alive at the time, is long dead, so it's not limited for any of them.
The thing that blew me away the most about copyright law is that everything with an "End User License Agreement" / EULA *isn't my property. I have a license to use it.*
Unreal
@@TheRealBatabii In my comprehension of copyright and license laws in the US, anything that we "own" that has a copyright is the property of someone else; our "ownership" of it is possessory in nature ("possession is 9/10th of the law" addage) and governed by an implied or express license.
Books, for example, are the technical property of the author since they own the copyright. The author gives a license of sole-right to distribution to the distributor who can then sue someone for taking copies of the book and selling them. While we "own" the book in the public perception because we purchased it, we technically only have an implied license to use through purchase.
Movies, as another example, are more blatant that our "ownership" isn't actual ownership; look to the piracy warning on most all VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray releases.
Music is yet another example, as we *technically* cannot play music publicly without the consent of the distributor.
Ah, private property "ownership" 🥲
@@TheRealBatabii On PS Vita a lot of games had expiration dates and usually the games weren't available for download or wouldn't be available for download once the shop shut down.
@@TheRealBatabii This is correct. The copyright owner of IP cannot change his mind, be like 'I don't want to _you_ (in particular) to have a copy of my book anymore, I'm going to take your copy away from you." Such a hypothetical _would occur_ if this distinction between IP and PP didn't exist.
The entire concept of EULA is a way copyright holders try to extend the rights of their IP, but it is not something guaranteed by copyright law expressly (only implicitly) and is more governed by contract law. Which is why due to the way most EULAs are presented cannot be enforced. However, companies still provide them because it helps limit liability damage by providing proof of how they intended their software to be used
Yeah I'm gonna continue to download whatever I want, maybe if copyright law wasn't so one sided I might consider purchasing, but it is and so I won't. Great video for sure though!
This is definitely easier said than done, especially since the price of ORIGINAL retro games have climbed through the roof! Yeah I own some Chinese multiple-in-1 carts, but at least I'm not making copies and reselling them.
Law is only tangible in so far as a government's ability to enforce said laws. Preventing people from stealing physical video games was easy enough before the age of the internet. However enforcing the whole, "downloading roms is illlegal" thing is impossible.
With all that said, the law doesn't care about stuff that we care about, like backing up our games, convenience, video game preservation, and availability. It's kinda hard to legally purchase entire arcade machines that never got a home release. But the law doesn't care about that, or rare games that aren't physically sold anymore, or are unreasonably overpriced by scalpers and run on hardware that is dying.
Imagine a world where emulation was never invented. Retro gaming would be dead. Emulation is essential for video game preservation, not just for us, but for future generations. Take a look at a list of lost films from the silent film era. It's inevitable fact that all art is doomed to be destroyed. Unlike anything else, art is impossible to replicate if it's lost. If all copies of a silent film are gone, it's gone forever. The same is true for any art, including video games. While we can't prevent art from being lost forever (it's inevitable), we can delay its eventual demise, and preserve it for as long as possible for future generations, and emulation is absolutely necessary for that.
With all that said, use your moral compass. Emulate the old stuff, buy the new stuff. And if you already own a new video game, you don't have to feel bad for acquiring a copy of it as a backup or for convenience. Simple. Emulation naturally favors older stuff anyway, so it all works out in the end.
The way I see it, roms and emulators are perfectly legal to have so long as you dont make a buck off them. Stay as an end user and you're golden i think
I am so glad to see your channel growing Gruz. You are one of those good people that I really want good things to happen to.
In essence ROMs can be used under the Fair Use Act, you can use and showcase games so long as you are non commercial non profit and give the proper credits where they are due.
Some companies are no longer in business either. Bottom line if you can pay to support the devs, do so. If not give credits where due and stay non profit on others work.
poggers!! I'll continue to download ROMs regardless of if I own the game physically or not tho
I always download ROM's, but never distribute them. I make my own backups but it's really difficult to back up cartridges. In my honest opinion, these copyright laws are really outdated and need many updates to work in today's times.
No. Just because you want games for free? Forget it.
@@niemand7811cry
I typically opt to purchase the game in question in its original form, if it's affordable and/or accessible through other avenues. However, if it's out of this world price wise (and rarity) to get in its original form and not accessible through legal ways such as re-releases (i.e. M2, Hamster Corp, City Connection, misc. compilations) I would resort to downloading the ROM to play and enjoy the game.
There's legality and morality. The two aren't the same thing. I'm all for paying for stuff but you can't buy what they're not selling. If something isn't available to buy, probably been out of print for decades, you're not hurting the companies that made the game by obtaining a rom in another way.
"There's legality and morality. The two aren't the same thing." No but that doesn't give you the right to break the law.
@@Guy-cb1oh From a legal point of view, you're right. But the legal option of buying used games hurts the game companies because they don't see any money from that. It's better to spend money on current products (new games, re-releases of old games on new platforms etc). So, that's what I do.
Depends on the Rom I suppose. There are numerous games that won't see a rerelease and are impossible to buy now. Even if you do the money goes to a secondary market so none of that goes to the license holder. Which is unfair for the media. Additionally games now a days even if you own the disc you don't really own the game. The games as a service practice where what you are doing is buying the privilege to play the game that way any copies not paid for are considered theft. Your big companies like EA and such being guilty of this. Even Nintendo feels this way too which is why they use to only let certain people stream and record video of their games.
"Depends on the Rom I suppose. There are numerous games that won't see a rerelease and are impossible to buy now". In the US laws, if they're too obscure to obtain, they are legal to download. (most arcade games are a perfect example). This is an important fact the gruz failed to mention. (Edit: I changed "laws" to "US laws", but I still don't state any sources).
@@christianb8900 i don't recall reading that (can't refute either)
@@JD-mz1rl I recall reading about the US laws loosening things with this, maybe 10-15 years ago or so. There was quite a buzz in the rom community about it. But a quick google search found me nothing on that. I'd have to do more research. (maybe it was a bill that didn't pass, or the law got reversed). -- I have noticed several instances of certain things online that seem to get scrubbed off the internet, but I still remember them. (Edit: I re-phrased "scrubbed offline" since it made little sense).
@@christianb8900 Stuff like that is bound to get scrubbed off the internet by very obscure undumped game hoarders.
Ok... This question has been on the back of my mind for decades! Thanks for making a video I didn't know I needed!
Most cases these ROMs, the creators of the games are not making profits from particular games anymore and anything that is still available are mostly 2nd hand and some are considered collectors that are too pricey so I myself do not see it as a big deal to download ROMs. If the games are still being manufactured then I think they can do something about it.
Being a Translator, it's always a juggle to figure out if a company will come after you, despite us owning and dumping our purchased games.
I have zero problems with roms. I remember when I was younger, I was thinking the FBI would kick my door down with the roms I had back then.
Same
I always download roms from direct downloads and never torrents. Direct downloads are often not tracked, but torrents are. People using torrents get caught all the time. I download Switch ROMs via direct downloads; no isp (internet service provider) warnings at all. When pirating, never use torrents.
Some issues with your analysis.
- Laws are prohibitive, they do not grant you the ability to "do" things. It's a free country, so unless a law expressly forbids it, it is allowed.
- Copyright applies to the creation of copies, not to the obtaining of copies someone else has made.
- If you know for a fact that someone made copies illegally, then you could be guilty of other laws if you participate in this activity with them.
"Activity"? What kind of activity? Downloading? Sharing? Or selling? -- Also, can you give me an example of a case to where anyone was found guilty of merely downloading? (perhaps in your context, "guilty" would have a different meaning than "found guilty".
1 - Limitations of copyright holder rights / customer rights. This is pedantic -- you know exactly what I mean.
2 - Absolutely, although you can authorize a 3rd party to create a backup for you.
3 - I agree, but I didn't even touch on this.
@@christianb8900 the illegal activity. Which is the creation / distribution of unauthorized copies (or distribution of copies for unauthorized purposes).
Downloading, unless it is part of the above, is not a prohibited activity. It is akin to finding a box of unauthorized copies of a book in a public street with a sign that says "abandoned" or "free". If you had nothing to do with putting that box in the street, you would have the right to take such a box. With downloading from a publicly accessible site, it is a similar thing -- the links are there freely available for all to consume, it is not your responsibility to know how the content was made available on the link.
It's possible if the copyright holder can prove that the content you took (box of unauthorized book copies in the street, unauthorized material hosted on website) was in fact unauthorized copy, then you could be ordered by a court to return / destroy your copy. But you could not face legal liability for obtaining such a copy in the first place, absent proof that you were involved in the actual creation of the copy
@@itsgruz My issue was more with 2:58. "It doesn't _allow_ you to use your backup in tandem with your original copy".
My point was simply that unless the law prohibits it, you are allowed to do it. So whenever I hear "the law doesn't allow you to do X" -- that makes it sound like "the law must say X is allowed for you to be able to do X" -- when in fact, unless the law says "you are prohibited from doing X", by default you are automatically allowed to do it.
A competing rights issue (copyright holder vs consumer) would automatically be a civil issue and not a criminal one, which is important distinction for several reasons
ok but what if i dont care about the law implication of buying or downloading abandonware or 50 year old software?
50 years huh? I think the only game software that old is pong, lol.
If you don't care then you don't care! I've found most people don't anymore...
Nothing will happen if you download roms because most of the companies don't care about it
I own a few multicarts one in a Nintendo style cartridge and about six in Famicom style cartridge's. Of course I don't plan on selling them, but this is some great information to know. Thank You Gruz. Happy New Year by the way.
should add that in some places it's not piracy if the company in question is not officially in the country... or if the company/rights owner doesn't exist anymore. (abandonware)
The thing is, I want physical cartridges. But I'm not going to pay over $100 for one. So I'm just going be.... outsourcing.
If they make official cartridge reprints at a reasonable price, we can talk.
My whole channel is playing Zelda Rom Hacks. I think they're brilliant.
Emulation to me, is being able to play games that aren't for sale anymore. If I can buy a brand new copy of a game, I will. I'm not paying collector prices for a game I'm going to play once and stick on a shelf. I've given Nintendo THOUSANDS of dollars. I think I should be able to play a few ROMS here and there.
ROM hacks usually come in patches so you have to dump your ROM and patch it yourself to prevent copyright law infringement!
I simply look at it as game preservation. If the older games & systems go away & if emulation wasn't a thing, how would people be able to enjoy many of the retro games we grew up with? This especially goes for arcade games since arcades are nearly extinct.
And this point of view must be shared by most legal authority. That's why we don't hear all these crazy cases of people being arrested and fined for playing emulated games. Literally no one cares.
It's not just a question about legality but ethics as well.
Many gamers might look at downloading roms for the sake of preservation as ethical while others disagree.
Honestly it's hard to tell if there is a right or wrong answer regarding the ethics of it.
This video is awesome. Thanks for the great content, Gruz!
Fun fact. The original copyright length in the United States was 14 years with an occasionally granted 14 year renewal. Patents were originally 40 years.
As technology and society move faster patent length has been halved to 20 years because the amount time where something is new and cutting edge is much shorter. Copyright length on the other hand has increased to 70 years after the death of the author, or 95 years in the case of corporate works. Nothing off there...
Blame the Disney company on the copyright length madness.
A lot of this shit wouldn't EVEN BE A problem if copyrights were closer to their original duration/limits, IMO.
The only time I say screw the law is when it comes to games that can’t be re purchase by the consumer due to licensing issues. Like WWF no mercy will never be in the e shop or NSO, so there is only one way to play it outside native hardware. What about the games that just flat out disappear from digital stores?
What are your thoughts on companies that no longer exist? If no one owns the license to the game anymore, is it okay to download it then?
Probably. I'm going to take Scurge: Hive on GBA for instance, one of the best GBA games and a game from a developer who no longer exists, published by a publisher who no longer exists.
Man... I remember when I was a kid, my brother downloaded a Snes emulator with basically every single rom for the Snes. We didn't care about laws and stuff (even if it is one of the most important things ever), we just wanted to play Super Mario on the PC. Good Times! Also at 0:22 you showed my rom-hack! That's awesome!!!!
My uncle was a judge and he had tons of pirate games back in the 90's LOL.
I can see both sides and don’t blame Nintendo for wanting to get paid. With that being said, as with any decision, you weigh the pros and cons of downloading roms online. For me it’s a no brainer. I have had a blast over the last couple years downloading and replaying my childhood. It really makes me appreciate the developer for their hard work! It’s art. I can remember the stress of having enough money for one game and the risk involved in case the game sucked after getting it home. Now I own them all, and it’s glorious!
What many people misunderstand is, that copyright infringements are not prosecuted by the government itself, but only if the copyright owner goes to a lawyer and he succeeds filing in the case to a court. Copyright is not a basic human right or need, but still a completely private matter.
You could basically download a ROM next to a police officer, chances are, he won't give a damn.
There's always been massive misconception that all ROM hacking is purely illegal. As an NES ROM hack creator, I've done some pretty extensive looks into 17 USC § 117. I would recommend checking out 17 USC §107, and 17 U.S. Code § 102 as well, which covers fair use in the argument of copywrite.
In the case of preservation, patches, de-compilation's and mod's it's all perfectly legal to do IF you stay non-profit. A major portion of what makes copying, selling and distributing ROM's illegal is the potential damages in sales done to a company. Hacks of new titles that still make a lot of profit are more likely to get DMCA'd. I recommend always getting or finding permission from the creator or company before you start hacking.
Companies like SEGA and Konami are really lenient on non-profit fan developers and will sometimes even promote indie content like SAGE. In some cases hacks can actually help boost the sales of the companies you love by re-introducing legacy and untranslated content to new fans. If your interested in making your own hacks, I would highly recommend checking with the developers first to ensure your in the clear.
I always get excited when I see you post another video
I would like to see a video of the legality of emulators and FPGAs, as there are many different methods of how some of these are made, where some use a ripped bios.
completely legal cause no original code is used its all reverse engineered which is perfectly legal to do as for the bios it's the same as the rom you can dump the bios from a console but if it is included already it is illegal
This is a law that's largely unenforceable. ROMs and emulators allowed me to experience games I wasn't able to play because I couldn't afford them when i was younger.
Gabe Newell: Piracy is an issue of service, not price.
Really interesting video I really enjoyed it. Thanks for making it.
Once a company is no longer making its game available for sale why would it care? What are they losing?
Great video I enjoy watching it and learning from it. 😁👍✌️😎
I can't believe how many video game stores I go to that sell carts of NES and SNES hacks, as well as reproduction carts that contain "translated into English" roms of games that were originally only released in Japan. There are also online sellers who specialize in selling repro carts and hacks. I don't know how these people continue to avoid getting in any legal trouble.
I Really enjoy this video, waiting for your next one.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is only valid if they have bought copyright protection, which eventually EXPIRES. Once it expires, you can download and play it all you want.
This is way you may see old cartoons be played and modern movies or TV shows, because it's so old the copyright has expired.
Copyright protection isn't something you "buy". Anything you create in a tangible form is automatically covered by copyright law.
@@metalmachine76 it depends. When it comes to games, you definitely have to. It's called IP (intellectual property) copyright protection. If you do not buy that, someone can download your game and resell it and there's nothing you can do. And these IP's aren't too cheap either, which makes indies even harder to succeed.
I have only one rom for golf on gameboy which i also own the physical gameboy and game. You do an excellent job with these videos. Smart dude, thanks for the videos.
Fun fact: Nintendo LOST THE CODE to the original Super Mario brothers, and had TO GO A ROM SITE THEMSELVES to use in one of their compilation releases.
Romhacks are essential, especially for translations when the game never appeared outside Japan
4:02 man i hate that
Like i'm not going to spend thousands of money for a rom dumper
I'm new to emulation and am happy for this video giving me more simplistic insight. I want to keep out of piracy and backup my own physical games. However, I get downloading online ROMs are wrong (unless they're public domain), but what about getting a console's BIOS files? Based on my research so far, the only means I found is either getting one online or jailbreaking your console to copy its BIOS to PC. The latter involves making your console contraband and the former sounds like piracy (debatable if a pirate broke the law so that I'd only bend it). The idea of doing one illegal act or the other for a legal purpose feels like a gun without bullets.
Granted I'm in no "immediate" danger for either method, but I'd like to know if there's legal means to get BIOS.
It's good to know that the hack of Pokemon Soul Silver I'm aiming to create is probably legal.
So hopefully the story of the trainer that just gets worse and worse and less and less likeable as time goes on is gonna be fine.
Well, hopefully I'll figure out how the heck I can even hack it properly as well.
By the way - I do think downloading some certain roms is fine, if you own the cartridge legally and don't have the money/ability to dump it, or if the game is extremely hard to find. Even so, I rarely play games I haven't before on emulator, when I do it's to test them before looking for a real copy. I'm still hunting for a copy of Fossil Fighters 2 so I can play legally.
I actually own Fossil Fighters 2, and I was floored to discover how crazy expensive it is now.
This was very informative and funny for me because it made laugh at wasted birthday gifts. When I went to the Philippines during summer to visit family, I would ask my aunts and uncles for an early gifts for my birthday which was in September. I was seven and a very impulsive buyer that wanted new GBA games but didn't know game stores there sold fake cartridges. When I bought my first Sapphire game the plastic was black not the signature blue until I came back to the US. Granted the first time I was first introduced to piracy was with the original PlayStation, because the stores would have a hard time selling an unmodded console and whited9sc -games due the economy and the local currency having an moderately low exchange rate during the early 2000s (which my favorite cousin, Joseph, had a lot of).
Interestingly, many randomizers are used in races, which amount to being rom hacks. These are in fairly big tournaments, sometimes with cash prizes. Link to the Past and Super Metroid come to mind as big names in randomizer races. I don't think they are considered to be breaking any laws, though there is no way to prove where they acquired the ROM.
I would think they fall in a similar category to remixes of music. Might be worth considering. I know some of these tournaments are fairly large and would probably garner some attention if they were illegal, so I'm thinking they aren't. The tournaments are very strict about any custom music used in the games too (changing the music is possible) so they might be taking copyright very seriously.
I'm a man of minimal risks. I'm aware that game companies will 99.99% not care about online ROMs of games gone out of commission decades ago. But on the off chance they do, I only go for ROMs of games that I legally own or HAVE legally owned before. I only pirate in a way that makes the companies not lose any money.
This is pointless. The FBI isn't going to kick in your door for downloading old NES & SNES games. Besides, there's benefits to playing these old games digitally.
#1 - Digital storage beats physical storage as your collection isn't subject to physical damage (especially PS1/2 games stored on DVDs which could be easily scratched & become unreadable).
They don't take up physical space, which is always a good thing. Also, digital files can be infinitely copied, in case something happens to your computer, copy to a flash drive or external hard drive.
#2 - Patching Bugs & Glitches. ROM Hacking has brought many fixes to old games with really bad bugs & glitches which was never fixed. This meant that actual Beta Testing was needed before releasing a game because what you put on the cart or disc was final, unlike nowadays where constant internet connection is required & allows developers to modify the game after it's been released, which is why Beta Testing is no longer a thing anymore. You are paying to beta test the game now (Pokemon Scarlet & Violet).
#3 - ROM Hacks! They breathe new life into old games by redesigning them and/or adding Quality of Life features that weren't thought of back then. For example, Mega Man X3, Zero was a playable character, but barely functional. Then Justin3009 comes along & makes Zero into a FULLY playable character, making his hack the definitive version to play. Then there's also Randomizers for games like Zelda LTTP & Super Metroid, which reshuffles item locations to make a somewhat new experience. Zelda 2's randomizer is even better because it actually randomizes the world map layout, along with the interiors of the palaces.
Moral of the story is, keep pirating & give the finger to the now corrupt & greedy video game industry, who brought us bullshit like Loot Boxes (gambling for children, but then again, so was Trading Card Game booster packs), DLC (give us more money for useless costumes!) & Pay2Win bullshit, etc.
“Never talk to me or my 6000 roms ever again”
I don't see anything wrong with hacks & homebrew. Seems like it's the SELLING of said items is the big issue. Corporates hate sharing.
So would translations like the mother 3 English rom be protected? Or would languages patches be another gray area?
In my opinion patches are perfectly fine 👍
Should be fine, especially considering you can play with patches or romhacks on consoles like Retron 5, which patch .ips files on the memory of a real cartridge. It doesnt even work with pirate carts
I feel like Nintendo*, Sega, and every other major company would applaud you for clarifying this
*but also say even the lightest gray isn’t recommended to anyone for their games
i take it as the websites are the ones committing an illegal act, not the downloader. i've taken it as buying software for $0.00.
I actually used to play Famiclones and online emulators; I never had an NES, SNES, or Famicom Disk System, and I actually still use ROMS because even the games I DO have aren't enough.
i would pay for those games, but i don't have the money or the urge to play longer than minecraft of hill climb, and i will play it on my chromebook that i am on now
Most rom hacks that are well known are distributed as patch files. Patch files don't distribute any of the original game's data. Only what was modified.
This was funny to watch, especially being that maybe a little more than a year ago I bought myself a new SD flash cart for DS from Amazon which also came with a 32GB micro SD card. To my surprise, the SD card was full of ROMs.
Nintendo is high if they think I'm NOT going MAME out my near-one of kind Radar Scope arcade game, which is 90% original, un-restored, serial number 17 of 2000, with nearly 50 year old four board PCB, so they can't protect the copyright on a game that hasn't been sold since 1977. This is just about a museum piece
From what I understand it's illegal to distribute games but it's not illegal to download games. That's what I heard on MSNBC during a show that was completely unrelated to piracy but an example of piracy was used as an analog...
Don't take my word for it because you should do what you think is right but that's my understanding of the law...
I rip my own games using a retroblaster or the actual console, use flash carts, use patches for hacks, and don’t have Internet. I think I’m good
unfortunately according to nintendo, game ripping/dumping is also illegal along with using patches for romhacks, they really just wanna get rid of it entirely
@@penguinlambz and they know its not gonna happen.
My understanding of it all is that whatever we buy is under a perpetual license. We don't own the rights to the intellectual property, but we do own OUR copy of it. If a car owner is allowed to modify their car, we should be allowed to mod our copy of our game we bought. The seller has no say in what we do with the thing sold to us after the point of sale. Issues arise when someone sells their copies or modifications without consent of the IP owner.
.ips, .bps, and like files are 100% legal in (and only if) they contain no code from the game they are patching. The precedent is the finding in the Nintendo vs Galoob case in that "The court determined that the Galoob did not violate Nintendo's exclusive right to make derivative works of their games, because the Game Genie did not create a new permanent work. The court also found that the alterations produced by the Game Genie qualified as non-commercial fair use, and none of the alterations were supplanting demand for Nintendo's games." This only stands if the patch stays in an unpatched state, however. Once the patch is applied to a ROM it becomes unknown if the resulting file is a fair-use derivative work. Selling the resulting file is a no-no though. It would be interesting to see a case of a modder suing a person selling an unpatched patch file, but... I doubt that would ever happen.
Once you get in ODE (optical drive emulator) territory it's a different beast entirely. If the ODE uses FPGA or is built with entirely new code then it SHOULD be fine unless a court were to find the copyright checking to be on the motherboard of the console and being bypassed. If the copyright checking were to be on the original optical drive then there should be no issue because copyright protection wouldn't be bypassed as the drive is totally replaced. However the ODE would "cause" the end user to download ROMs which might deem the device illegal. This is all speculative I guess as I don't know of any case involving any ODE. I guess we'll wait and see.
Until company N allows me to purchase my digital game outright and not be stuck to a console they’re going to discontinue in 6 years and my digital game will be lost, I will continue to legally rip my games and keep them in backups for when I eventually get the nostalgia bug and want to relive one of the greatest adventures I ever lived.
Okay, but what about downloading game which was not released in a specific region? I can't pay for it in a video game store, but even if I find and buy a copy it will not boot on a region locked console. The obvious way is download these old games. Some games were never re-released and downloading such roms will not harm the developer
Regardless of the legality and the opinions in the comments, i really appreciate the rundown of what is allowable and the history of why and specific examples. Subbed.
I have dumped every NES, SNES and Megadrive cartridges i own.
Some games are so rare they need to be reproduced. Expecting people to shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars per game to a private seller who will never profit the makers of that game just to play the game is absolutely absurd. Please help me understand how it makes more sense to pay someone on eBay $600 for a game than to pay someone on Etsy $10 for the same game. It's ridiculous.
copyright is such a joke that I honestly don't even care if what I am doing is "illegal" cause unless I am publicly distributing pirated games then I don't see myself going to jail for downloading ROMs on the internet
People will always challenge the copyright laws, and his own way where they could have a game to play for free, some of the games on eBay is quite ridiculously hard to flnd and expensive.