Poll of the Day > rom site owner made $30,000 a yearnow owes Nintendo $2.1M

(+) Yeah! (+)

Gotta love the mental gymnastics of pirates.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

That's not a requirement that adji put forth.

adjl posted...

If your livelihood depends on selling exact duplicates of your possessions? Yes.

I dunno about you, but I generally interpret "your possessions" as indicating ownership.

Zeus posted...

On general principle, whether or not something is lost doesn't entitle somebody to pirate and, more importantly, it doesn't entitle them to profit (either directly or indirectly) off piracy. Even if you could reasonably that they lost nothing (which is debatable), anything he earned should go to them and then damages on top of that.

It doesn't morally entitle it, but it does mean that claiming damages is a whole lot harder. That said, I agree that any profit a pirate earns from their piracy should be going to the content owner. There's an argument to be made in favour of allowing them to cover operating costs, but profit is never going to be okay.

Zeus posted...

And, honestly, most of the things being pirated are likely to be popular titles that have been re-released. Few people go for the really obscure s***. And in the case of something like SSBM, Nintendo is making a deliberate choice not to re-release to aid sales of the more recent titles.

In general, yes, most people downloading roms are looking for either current games or more popular games that are likely to be rereleased (although Nintendo really is not in a rush to release even more popular older stuff, given the agonizingly slow drip-feed of content into their current VC offering and the notable lack of many higher-profile titles). That's a more practical consideration if we're looking at the overall impact of piracy, such that treating "it's the only way to play old games!" as a broader defense of piracy doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Looking at the value of games as art, though, there are many games that simply would cease to exist if not for piracy, which is generally quite undesirable. Sometimes, that's because they're really not very good. Other times, it's because they've slipped through the cracks due to licensing issues (Scott Pilgrim and DuckTales Remastered, to give a couple examples) or other corporate shenanigans (Silent Hill PT). There are plenty of examples, however, of quality games that simply have not been rereleased, without a clear reason for that deficiency. Even the Wii's Virtual Console (by far the most robust effort Nintendo has made to distribute older content, though now completely shut down) had only 74 SNES games available, and you know there were far, far more than 74 worthwhile games on the SNES. A good chunk of that was due to third parties not providing their licenses, for whatever reason (sometimes their own rerelease plans), but whatever the reason, the fact remains that a ton of games simply aren't seeing the light of day outside of ROMs.

Personally, I think piracy laws should be amended to more explicitly define abandonware and require companies to make a definite decision one way or the other, releasing games to public domain if there are no concrete plans to do anything with them after a long enough period (probably somewhere in the range of 10-15 years). I would absolutely love to see official "streaming" services for retro games that did offer entire system libraries for a reasonable subscription fee (comparable to Netflix), which would prevent them from ever qualifying as abandonware, but if nothing like that (including individual rereleases) is ever going to happen, there's really no reason not to let people make and distribute copies of the abandoned games for the sake of ensuring they remain possible to play.

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adjl posted...

I dunno about you, but I generally interpret "your possessions" as indicating ownership.

I interpret "your possessions" as things you are in possession of. The site owner was in possession of ROMs.

Zeus posted...

So to bring back your insurance argument, you're basically suggesting if somebody broke into an apartment where you were storing something for a friend, you should be personally compensated for that lost property instead of the friend?

There's a chain of quotes you aren't applying context from. I was asking if adji thought that.

Zeus posted...

he'd be breaking the law because that violates copyright law.

Laws are made by people. People are imperfect. Thus the laws are imperfect. I think the damages being awarded are an example of that.

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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I interpret "your possessions" as things you are in possession of.

You might want to fix that, then. In colloquial speech, talking about people's possessions generally carries the implication of ownership, even if that isn't explicitly stated. That's even more true when the conversation in question isn't even about possessions in the first place, but rather the ownership of distribution rights, and possessions were only ever brought in as an analogy.

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Sarcasthma posted...

This included direct revenue from the sale of "premium unlimited accounts" for $30 per year that provided users with faster downloads and no limits.

Execute this man.

Don't actually execute him but seriously, fuck that guy.

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He's just gonna declare bankruptcy, pay almost nothing and have to get a real job

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I'm surprised he didn't settle for an out of court agreement. guy was an idiot for agreeing to go to trial and representing himself.

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An article I read made his self representation sound very comical

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Dmess85 posted...

I'm surprised he didn't settle for an out of court agreement. guy was an idiot for agreeing to go to trial and representing himself.

People who represent themselves tend to be a specific kind of person (sovereign citizens *cough*)

BlackScythe0 posted...

People who represent themselves tend to be a specific kind of person (sovereign citizens *cough*)

That or poor people. It is a civil case so he doesn't get a court appointed attorney if he can't afford one.

Zeus posted...

Likewise if he copied the disc, he'd be breaking the law because that violates copyright law.

Fair Use allows a person to make a copy of something they own.

adjl posted...

DuckTales Remastered, to give a couple examples) or other corporate shenanigans (Silent Hill PT). There are plenty of examples, however, of quality games that simply have not been rereleased, without a clear reason for that deficiency. Even the Wii's Virtual Console (by far the most robust effort Nintendo has made to distribute older content, though now completely shut down) had only 74 SNES games available, and you know there were far, far more than 74 worthwhile games on the SNES. A good chunk of that was due to third parties not providing their licenses, for whatever reason (sometimes their own rerelease plans), but whatever the reason, the fact remains that a ton of games simply aren't seeing the light of day outside of ROMs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/237630/DuckTales_Remastered/ ?

Also they overcharge for the SNES games they do have. Should be no more than $5.
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Never heard of this particular site so Nintendos claim that it was one of the most notorious is basically them just playing up as the victim.

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Revelation34 posted...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/237630/DuckTales_Remastered/ ?

Oh hey, it's back. It was taken down for a period because the license expired. I guess it got renewed. Mickey's Castle of Illusion is another one that was disappearing, but it also seems to be back now.

Revelation34 posted...

Also they overcharge for the SNES games they do have. Should be no more than $5.

$8 isn't exactly unreasonable, given that many of those games provide no less robust an experience than modern game releases (the same cannot be said for most NES games, since technical limitations of the NES era really held games back), but regardless of how they choose to price them, they are still selling them. Pricing decisions are their right as the content owner; resorting to piracy because you don't like the pricing really isn't morally defensible.

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adjl posted...

Oh hey, it's back. It was taken down for a period because the license expired. I guess it got renewed. Mickey's Castle of Illusion is another one that was disappearing, but it also seems to be back now.

$8 isn't exactly unreasonable, given that many of those games provide no less robust an experience than modern game releases (the same cannot be said for most NES games, since technical limitations of the NES era really held games back), but regardless of how they choose to price them, they are still selling them. Pricing decisions are their right as the content owner; resorting to piracy because you don't like the pricing really isn't morally defensible.

Earthbound is $10 on there and isn't even on Switch. That example is a moot point for me anyway since the last time I played that game was before virtual console was a thing anyway.
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The Scott Pilgrim game was also brought back recently in a complete form including all DLC. I am not sure if it's still for sale but it was just a few months ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgfO0XL0NY

Really the most common abandonware games are ones from companies that are defunct and the games get lost to the sands of time. Many companies that made games back in the 80s and 90s no longer exist in any form.

Monopoman posted...

The Scott Pilgrim game was also brought back recently in a complete form including all DLC. I am not sure if it's still for sale but it was just a few months ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MgfO0XL0NY

Really the most common abandonware games are ones from companies that are defunct and the games get lost to the sands of time. Many companies that made games back in the 80s and 90s no longer exist in any form.

Not available on Steam apparently.
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Revelation34 posted...

Earthbound is $10 on there and isn't even on Switch.

Yeah, they charged extra for Earthbound in particular. I believe there were some music licensing issues involved in porting it (hence it took so long), which may have added extra costs. They also charged extra for titles on the Wii VC that had previously been Japan-only, like SMB Lost Levels and Sin & Punishment. Regardless, $10 for a quality 30-hour RPG is still hardly an unreasonable ask.

Monopoman posted...

The Scott Pilgrim game was also brought back recently in a complete form including all DLC. I am not sure if it's still for sale but it was just a few months ago.

It was indeed. Expired licenses aren't necessarily a death sentence for games, since they can be renewed if there's enough demand to make the cost worthwhile, but they nonetheless make the game's future very uncertain.

Monopoman posted...

Really the most common abandonware games are ones from companies that are defunct and the games get lost to the sands of time. Many companies that made games back in the 80s and 90s no longer exist in any form.

While true, that's really only made true by the fact that the IP holders are no longer around to pursue copyright claims against anyone distributing them. If we expand "abandonware" to include games whose owners haven't done anything with them in 20 years (but will still pursue copyright action against anyone that tries to distribute them), that becomes less true.

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I think the problem with most piracy sites is they offer games that are far more popular and are not truly abandonware.

I have never seen a site offering game downloads that are only abandonware. The one exception way back in the early 00's was a PC site that only offered abandoned games I am not sure if that site is still around.

Some sites will even claim they only offer abandonware but then you look on there and you see like Resident Evil older games right on the front page.

Monopoman posted...

I think the problem with most piracy sites is they offer games that are far more popular and are not truly abandonware.

I have never seen a site offering game downloads that are only abandonware. The one exception way back in the early 00's was a PC site that only offered abandoned games I am not sure if that site is still around.

Some sites will even claim they only offer abandonware but then you look on there and you see like Resident Evil older games right on the front page.

Not sure if that one is still around. The most famous one seems to have been around first in 2008 according to archive.org. I remember the one you're talking about but can't remember the name. It had a really ugly yellow and black color scheme right?
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Blightzkrieg posted...

Nintendo would sooner behead Mario live on camera than provide a meaningful digital alternative to ROMs, or any kind of worthwhile online service for that matter.

Truth.

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