Roms Now Legal

[triverse]

Not my text, this is a copy and paste:

This is the original link:

http://www.subgamers.com/forums/gameboy-ad...gal-to-own.html

"The Lirbary of Congress has recently granetd copyright exemptoins in the

Digital Millenium Act to obsolete games. The exemption applies to games which reqwuire the original hardware as a condition of acvcess, and if the game is “no longer manufasctured or reasonalby available in the commercial markewtplace.” This means that old, unsupporetd PC, console and arcade games will now be legal to own (so your illegal copy of Mame roms are now legit).

The only muddy side is if publishers cosnider their old games to be “reasonably available” and plan to release classic games as budnles or bonuses, then the copyright protection still stands.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA was passed on Otcober 12, 1998 to address piracy and copyright concerns specificaly pertaining to software and the internet properties. Some of the notable provisions included the uotlaewd circumvention of anti-piracy laws and distrubition or sale of code-cracking dewvices. Brewster Kahle from the non-profit company Internet

Archive petitioned the US Copyright offgice, and to the delightful surprise of many, the petition was approved.

While game companies will undoubtedly daily cling on to as many of the old games as they can, many of the older diametrically unsupported titles are now free game. Those who have been donwloadin such games can now keep them in their hard drivces with a clear consciewnce."

[Hidinger]

as an attorney, I can safely say that this decision is not nearly as cut and dry as you have stated it. Yes, some of the old ROMs will be "legit" now and most of the emulators (especially for consoles that you can not buy. But there will be a lot of questions that come up in this case. For instance, there is a huge used game marketplace out there. This might be enough to trigger the "readily available" clause. Not to mention that just about any game that runs in an arcade cabinet would still be protected as they run on just about the same "hardware" and could easily be switched out for another (I do it all the time on my arcade machine at home). So while this decision is in the favor of Roms and Emulators it will be almost impossible to figure out which roms are still protected until there is some case law to back up such a decision.

[triverse]

Yeah, I see your point about it not being as cut and dry as stated. My headline may have been off by a bit but the body is all theirs. I apologise if that sounds rude or anything, I am not trying to come off that way.

I thought about the used game market when I read this as there are only a handful of titles not readily available in that market (being the more rare titles) so would that mean they are the only ones not protected by the law anymore? I wonder if they are going to try and enforce a case by case situation or are they going to blanket ban ROMs as they do now? I mean, what is available in my town may not be available in your town, you know?

I wonder how this is going to affect Nintendo in their efforts to get ROM sites shutdown (although, it seems quite a few have escaped their lawyer's wrath).