Commodore returns !

[PrincieD]

For anyone interested, this is the real next new Amiga (x1000) - with new architecture, the motherboards have already gone into production some time ago http://a-eon.com/

Chris.

[electrochrisso]

Guilty as charged! Next stops for you: http://www.lemon64.com for fantastic info (including interviews with major C64 developers of the 80s), and http://www.c64.com for downloadable disks. You'll really curse me now!

No not at all MC, I can fit the time in, thanks for the links, C64.com is a good site and where I have been downloading games.
You wouldn't know a link to where I can get cartridge images from. The link on CC64 is no good.

[Zach]

Ermm... isn't this technically Piracy talk? (with the exception of the few companies/programmers that have given permission for such things, but certainly not the majority)

Is that allowed on the forums?

[MachineCode]

You wouldn't know a link to where I can get cartridge images from

At http://www.lemon64.com, click the "Apps" button, then "Cartridges" button.

Ermm... isn't this technically Piracy talk?

How can you pirate something that hasn't been sold for over 2 decades?

[Thorium]

Btw. C64 games are still beeing made and sold. Protovision ia a small
C64 games publisher for example.

[MachineCode]

C64 games are still beeing made and sold

True, but what I meant was that it's hardly piracy if the actual game/cart in question hasn't been sold or in business for over 20 years. Nobody is going to lose any money from people downloading it, if they're not selling it in the first place.

[GWarner]

C64 games are still beeing made and sold

True, but what I meant was that it's hardly piracy if the actual game/cart in question hasn't been sold or in business for over 20 years. Nobody is going to lose any money from people downloading it, if they're not selling it in the first place.

Maybe not, but there may still be valid copyrights in place and if that's the case, copying the cartridge in any way for distribution not authorized by the original copyright holder is still piracy.

And copyrights remain valid and enforcable for fifty (50) years.

[Zach]

I'm just trying to lookout for the Forum's well being.

I mean, if I posted a link to a site where you could get Nintendo ROMS, or even N64 Roms or something, I'm pretty sure I would be taken to task and banned if I ever did it again.

I have visited Lemon myself over the years, and I think its a great site full of info (as well as games), but "Abandonware" on the Internet has gotten plenty of people in trouble in the past because it is a false premise. Abandonware as general society understands it, does not exist. In order to be true Abandonware a copyright holder must relinquish all claims to the source material and let it lapse into the public domain... Sure this differs from country to country, but overall from a moral stand point it is still stealing unless it is given freely (or permission to distribute given) by the original rights holders.

I'm not some holier than thou anti-piracy crusader by any means; I have quite the collection. Over 1TB worth. But I still understand piracy is wrong, and "everyone does it", "the site has been running for years without trouble" etc, aren't proper excuses if someone ever decided to take legal action against Fred for allowing such open talk on his forum.

Many emulation sites (the ones that know better) treat it very seriously, and have rules about such things, because the site owners/operators can be held liable, even if not found guilty of anything, being taken to court would destroy their lives financially (at the least).

[electrochrisso]

Not sure it is piracy until the code goes back into producing cartridges for sale, otherwise all emulators and games must also be in the same boat and lemon64 and loads of others must be in big trouble then.
And I only asked if there were any around, I did not state I was going to download them.

[Kuron]

And copyrights remain valid and enforcable for fifty (50) years.

Actually, here in the USA it is 70 years after the author's death.

[Kuron]

but "Abandonware" on the Internet has gotten plenty of people in trouble in the past because it is a false premise. Abandonware as general society understands it, does not exist. In order to be true Abandonware a copyright holder must relinquish all claims to the source material and let it lapse into the public domain...

In November 2006 the Library of Congress approved an exemption to the DMCA that permits the cracking of copy protection on software no longer being sold or supported by its copyright holder so that they can be archived and preserved without fear of retribution. The exemption is solely "for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive."

[Kuron]

Not sure it is piracy until the code goes back into producing cartridges for sale, otherwise all emulators and games must also be in the same boat and lemon64 and loads of others must be in big trouble then.

Abandonware cases rarely go to court. One of the reasons is that companies that no longer exist can't sure somebody for copyright infringement.

[Zach]

Having the work preserved by a library and archive is all well and good, but I think it probably becomes a "grey area" if that archive were to start distributing the stuff willy nilly, or in some cases even make a profit by doing it. I guess it depends on the circumstances. Again, also it depends on the country.

i.e as far as I know in the USA you still can only legally possess a ROM dump of a game CART if you make the backup yourself, for personal use. But buying/selling dumping hardware like that is illegal in the USA, except for the building of generic readers built from off the shelf items by the person doing the dumping (i.e you)

I think its also worth pointing out, even if a company may be bankrupt and out of business, another company may have purchased some of their assets in a bankruptcy/liquidation sale; which still leaves the third party purchasers in sole possession of the legal rights to redistribution.


Chrisso - Piracy is piracy regardless. It is not the Cartride, CD, Disk that is copyrighted. Those are simply distribution methods, the actual protected work are the original algorithms and ideas in the source code itself. Also Emulators are generally safe from legal problems because Emulators are produced by Reverse Engineering; Most take great pains not to use any copyrighted code, although some may require a BIOS file to work properly in some cases, those emulators do not -come- with said BIOS files. Therefore they have done nothing illegal.

The only Emulator to be litigated to death was Bleem! back in day. If I remember the case properly they did use copyrighted code from the actual PlayStation BIOS chip. Sony buried them in legal fees but eventually I think they ended up buying Bleem! out and then shutting it down. I think they did a similar thing with Connectix Virtual Game Station.

But none of the popular long standing Emulators which have been around from day one, have ever faced actual serious legal trouble in the same way. Because they don't use copyrighted code; Reverse Engineering is not illegal. It's how the first IBM PC Compatibles were made, as well as many other pieces of computer hardware.

[Kuron]

Having the work preserved by a library and archive is all well and good, but I think it probably becomes a "grey area" if that archive were to start distributing the stuff willy nilly, or in some cases even make a profit by doing it. I guess it depends on the circumstances.

The copyright law only allows for archiving, not distributing.

I think its also worth pointing out, even if a company may be bankrupt and out of business, another company may have purchased some of their assets in a bankruptcy/liquidation sale; which still leaves the third party purchasers in sole possession of the legal rights to redistribution.

This does happen in some circumstances. You also have circumstances of companies claiming to own the rights to old games, but they have no legal right to that game when it is backtracked.


It is really an issue where each person has to decide what is right for them and one should not preach morality to others. Usually, those screaming the most about moral issues are hypocrites and are themselves guilty of what they are preaching against.


Personally, I am glad that ROMs from long dead systems are widely available. It keeps the "art" alive and allows new and future generations to experience the past. It also allows us old farts to still use what we love and play games we couldn't afford as kids and games you often can't buy anymore. That said, the PB forums are not the place for such discussion and links.

[GWarner]

And copyrights remain valid and enforcable for fifty (50) years.

Actually, here in the USA it is 70 years after the author's death.

Hmm.... That must have changed or where I got the 50 years was wrong to begin with.

IMO copying the ROMs or discs from old systems to use in an emulator without a valid license to use it is still piracy.

Long ago I transfered what was important to me from my Apple // to my PC. Two of those files were programs that were written in Apple's Integer Basic, which I converted to QBasic that came with DOS. When I sold off all my Apple stuff, even though I could no long run the original program, I kept them just to be able to show that I had purchased them.

So at this point that matter is pointless to me since I have no need to emulate any of those old systems.