Poll of the Day > "It's legal if you own the game"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is the most common phrase uttered when people justify their evil ways but can't fool arv into believing you own rare games
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What rare games are we talking about?

I own a couple of rare games, some were not even dumped until a couple of years ago.
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Everyone owns every single game that's why they emulate it
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Nobody cares about Rare games anymore.
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The only justification I need is "I ain't paying $300 to find out that Action 52 sucks".
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Dikitain posted...

The only justification I need is "I ain't paying $300 to find out that Action 52 sucks".

Arv would support that if it was said like that arv just can't stand the denialers
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Yeah I could personally care less what you steal, I grew up in the limewire era
but trying to excuse it is lame as hell
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DarkKirby2500 posted...

Nobody cares about Rare games anymore.

I just wish I could play diddy kong racing on my Wii U or switch

Nintendo, why did you fuck up your relationship with Rare ;_;

Zangulus posted...

It's not a justification regardless. It's illegal even if you do own the game. Only your own homemade copy is legal.

I don't have the equipment to dump a cartridge ROM.
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TheSlinja posted...

Yeah I could personally care less what you steal, I grew up in the limewire era
but trying to excuse it is lame as hell

So you do care about it.
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Eh? This sounds like something a teenager did who is still discovering classic video games.

Fair next.


Video games pre-2000 should basically be free at this point anyways. The DMCA and modern copyright laws are a joke.
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Judgmenl posted...

Eh? This sounds like something a teenager did who is still discovering classic video games.

Fair next.


Video games pre-2000 should basically be free at this point anyways. The DMCA and modern copyright laws are a joke.

So after a few years you should just stop getting paid for your work?
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Only the RAM component of a game is legal, and you have to dump it yourself
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The only unofficial emulator that can be talked about on this site without the mods throwing a hissy-fit is DOSBox, mainly because DOS operating systems aren't around anymore (and Windows superseded it) people can still legitimately use DOS floppies and disks to play it on them, as well as DOS games being sold legally online that is bundled with that.

Other than that, don't bother on this site.

MICHALECOLE posted...

DarkKirby2500 posted...

Nobody cares about Rare games anymore.

I just wish I could play diddy kong racing on my Wii U or switch

Nintendo, why did you fuck up your relationship with Rare ;_;

Diddy kong racing is overrated imo

green dragon posted...

Diddy kong racing is overrated imo

ur overrated
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SmokeMassTree posted...

So after a few years you should just stop getting paid for your work?

Yes, after 90%+ of estimated sales from a product is earned, especially if you are dealing with a dead product from a support standpoint.

Sitting on IP (e.g. what Patent Trolls do) is silly.
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green dragon posted...

MICHALECOLE posted...

DarkKirby2500 posted...

Nobody cares about Rare games anymore.

I just wish I could play diddy kong racing on my Wii U or switch

Nintendo, why did you fuck up your relationship with Rare ;_;

Diddy kong racing is overrated imo

You're right, all that fun I had wasn't real

Apparently downloading cryptocurrency is illegal activity.
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Judgmenl posted...

SmokeMassTree posted...

So after a few years you should just stop getting paid for your work?

Yes, after 90%+ of estimated sales from a product is earned, especially if you are dealing with a dead product from a support standpoint.

Sitting on IP (e.g. what Patent Trolls do) is silly.

I'm going to be a bit pedantic here and point out that copyright infringement doesn't really hinge on someone getting paid for work they did 20 years ago. If it did, there would be huge legal implications for selling used games. But piracy of old games does infringe on a potential market if the owner of the IP were to decide to release the games on modern platforms. It's a slight difference but one worth recognizing. If a company were to make a game and go out of business and have IPs that were not legally acquired by another entity...well, copyright infringement would make an interesting court case in this scenario.

That said, companies are unlikely to pursue damages for games made more than about 10 years ago for a variety of reasons. It's not worth the court cost, since the damages would likely be close to nil, they typically have no plans to rerelease the games (Nintendo is almost the only company that will still do this, even more so when you go back 15 years), and some even look at it as essentially free advertising:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110801/03291515340/more-game-developers-realizing-piracy-isnt-necessarily-bad-thing.shtml

TL;DR Piracy is unlikely to go away any time soon since it's a legally nebulous issues and isn't worth the trouble for developers to combat.
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Another justification for them activities arv thinks they seem to forget it's not just older games
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ArvTheGreat posted...

Another justification for them activities arv thinks they seem to forget it's not just older games

I don't mean to defend piracy. It's stupid, shortsighted, selfish, and probably (statistically speaking) illegal. But justice is blind, and you need to recognize the nuance in a given situation before you can condemn it. Piracy isn't going to go away any time soon, and that is in part because legally, piracy isn't something worth expending energy to ensure it goes away. That doesn't make it good. That doesn't make it bad either. That just means it's something you have to consider.

Personally, I am a big fan of developers putting in little defenses against piracy, assuming they have proper protections in place to prevent any false positives. Look at Game Dev Tycoon, for a good example. I think their conclusion is unfounded, but dammit if I don't love their execution.
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Piracy is justice for an industry that treats me like shit.
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DarkKirby2500 posted...

Nobody cares about Rare games anymore.

So why do I still return to Rare Replay?
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ArvTheGreat posted...

Is the most common phrase uttered when people justify their evil ways but can't fool arv into believing you own rare games

I would also argue it should be legal if you can't buy the game anymore-I have no problem paying for games but if it goes out of production/doesn't get a digital release, I'm still going to play it and do not care if it's considered legal or not.
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Syntheticon posted...

ArvTheGreat posted...

Is the most common phrase uttered when people justify their evil ways but can't fool arv into believing you own rare games

I would also argue it should be legal if you can't buy the game anymore-I have no problem paying for games but if it goes out of production/doesn't get a digital release, I'm still going to play it and do not care if it's considered legal or not.

Pretty much. If I can't give them money for it, I don't really see any reason not to pirate it.
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You can't pay them money so you steal
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Really the question boils down to:

Do you support corporatism or do you support consumers?
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ArvTheGreat posted...

You can't pay them money so you steal

Pretty much. The nature of piracy is such that no product is actually being taken from them, they just aren't getting money for their work. Therefore, if they aren't taking money for the work, it's okay to pirate it, because they've already saying they're cool with the harm piracy would do to them.
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Software piracy isn't theft. Software isn't physical property, it's all licensed to the end user. This is why different software licenses claim that you can't sell software with those licenses.
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