Once you purchase a game, do you own the contents?

[T-Pac | 7,534]

People often overlook that the most poignant legal issue with dumping your own ROMs isn't justifying it by archival / format-shifting standards, but breaking the DRM of the media. Ethically, though, I see nothing wrong with ripping games for personal use (assuming those files are never distributed).

And as far as ownership - you don't own any of the IP or data of the games you buy. You just "own" the right to play your copy.

-CasualCart

[Sumez | 2,941]

7 hours ago, CasualCart said:

People often overlook that the most poignant legal issue with dumping your own ROMs isn't justifying it by archival / format-shifting standards, but breaking the DRM of the media.

Breaking DRM isn't illegal outside of DMCA bs.
Also I'm not sure I can think of any cartridge games that do have any kind of DRM. The data is available right there and unencrypted on the rom.
Now, some arcade games, that's a different matter...

[T-Pac | 7,534]

14 hours ago, Sumez said:

Breaking DRM isn't illegal outside of DMCA bs.
Also I'm not sure I can think of any cartridge games that do have any kind of DRM. The data is available right there and unencrypted on the rom.
Now, some arcade games, that's a different matter...

I remember finding that dumping carts required some sort of DRM circumvention, at least in a broad sense, when I wrote a research paper on the topic back in college. I could be wrong though (and in this case I hope I am haha).

But yeah, the DMCA is too heavy-handed and its definition of DRM is excessively broad. An overhaul on those laws is long overdue, especially for the sake of preservationists.

-CasualCart

[Sumez | 2,941]

DMCA only applies to the US though as far as I'm aware. Most places don't enforce insane anti-consumer laws like that.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

DMCA can loosely be interpreted if you're on the losing side of things, that using a device that copies the games IS slicing through hardware DRM.  It's bs, but it's functional bs considering you could buy VHS copiers, DVD copiers, etc to make backups of videos on the consumer market.

[phart010 | 1,707]

On 11/25/2021 at 9:23 AM, Vectrex28 said:

Buying a game essentially entitles you to owning a licence to play the game, and you can do that on any platform you want. Pretty sure I still have ROMs of a few games I dumped some time ago and there's nothing wrong with playing these on an emulator or an everdrive

I don’t know if I agree with what you are saying, though I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the way it is phrased.

If you buy a Mario NES cart, you can’t download the rom on a hacked Wii U and play it there thinking your in the clear. You can only play the rom on the original platform that it was sold for.

Nintendo is reselling the old game on the new platform as a new product. Even though it’s the same old game, it has been repackaged (they had developer costs involved in porting it to the new platform), and it comes at a new price point. As far as Nintendo is concerned, it’s a new product. And in some ways I agree, as it has new features that were not present in the original NES version, such as playing it in handheld mode, changing the display settings, savestate, etc.

In some games, the additional features are more pronounced. For example, GBA SMBA4, they give you all the e-reader card levels from the start. These levels were not included in the original GBA game, you’d have to purchase them all separately. And even if you were to purchase all of the cards, it was not even possible to have them all on the GBA cart simultaneously because there was not enough memory storage space on the cart. So having this all present on the Wii U version amounts to it being a new product. (Although even without the new levels, just the fact that you are playing a GBA game on a new platform is really enough to justify it being a new product).

Not sure if you were arguing that purchasing these games on the original platform would entitle you to also downloading “copies” on other platforms. But I’d have to disagree if this is what you were implying 

Edited December 4, 2021 by phart010

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

On 12/1/2021 at 6:46 PM, CasualCart said:

People often overlook that the most poignant legal issue with dumping your own ROMs isn't justifying it by archival / format-shifting standards, but breaking the DRM of the media. Ethically, though, I see nothing wrong with ripping games for personal use (assuming those files are never distributed).

And as far as ownership - you don't own any of the IP or data of the games you buy. You just "own" the right to play your copy.

-CasualCart

It all depends on whether there is any actual DRM in effect in order to dump or rip the game's content.  I've never heard of any on any era-specific/correct cartridge based games, nor any of the era-specific/correct CD-based games.  Some cartridges apparently require more "effort" usually due to additional/odd chips onboard, but that has to do with how the hardware interprets and understands the data on the chips, not any sort of actual DRM.  Similarly with stuff like the Dreamcast and the GD-ROM format used, there wasn't any specific DRM to have to break, just hurdles to leap over in order to talk to real hardware and get the data on discs to dump properly or to manipulate non-correct hardware to do the same job.  I think DVD based games might be the only physical game media I can think of that has any sort of DRM, and that was established by the format creators themselves, typically not the game creators/publishers.

Another couple of things to consider (at the time you're trying to dump/rip/whatever) is whether you're in the US (where the DMCA could/would actually be held against you most directly), and whether or not an exemption has been granted for the specific action(s) you're trying to perform by the Librarian of Congress.  Such exemptions are granted (and/or extended) every 3 years.  While the DMCA still has far too broad of a reach and grip on things, the Librarian of Congress occasionally recognizes this and semi-temporarily removes the illegality of things that would previously have been absolutely against the law under the draconian and overbroad terms of the DMCA (such as rooting and/or jailbreaking your phone, for instance).

On 12/3/2021 at 11:02 AM, Tanooki said:

DMCA can loosely be interpreted if you're on the losing side of things, that using a device that copies the games IS slicing through hardware DRM.  It's bs, but it's functional bs considering you could buy VHS copiers, DVD copiers, etc to make backups of videos on the consumer market.

If that should ever come to court so loosely interpreted, I truly hope someone throws up the example of Nintendo obtaining and selling "illegally" created and distributed versions of ROMs of their own games.  (Quotes because most of that is and always has been a someone gray area of the law, with no definitive case having yet occurred to set any sort of precedent in stone.)

On 12/3/2021 at 11:25 PM, phart010 said:

I don’t know if I agree with what you are saying, though I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the way it is phrased.

If you buy a Mario NES cart, you can’t download the rom on a hacked Wii U and play it there thinking your in the clear. You can only play the rom on the original platform that it was sold for.

Nintendo is reselling the old game on the new platform as a new product. Even though it’s the same old game, it has been repackaged (they had developer costs involved in porting it to the new platform), and it comes at a new price point. As far as Nintendo is concerned, it’s a new product. And in some ways I agree, as it has new features that were not present in the original NES version, such as playing it in handheld mode, changing the display settings, savestate, etc.

I understand what you're getting at, but something to throw at least somewhat of a wrench into your argument is the provable examples of where Nintendo wasn't producing the content on their own.  They packaged an emulator for the Wii/Wii U on their own (although I believe I recall reading somewhere that someone digging through the code believed they'd lifted a lot of it straight from open source efforts created independently by fans), but many, many ROMs that Nintendo sold to folks via their online shops weren't created, packaged, etc., by Nintendo.  Instead, Nintendo simply grabbed a bundle of pre-ripped and packaged ROMs and uploaded them to their own platform without doing anything else.  This was proven due to the fact that one of the more famous rippers included what equated to their signature in header code that they helped create (and which wasn't actually part of the ROM code ripped from any of the original games) which was still present when you paid Nintendo and downloaded the game straight from them.

In that light, if Nintendo doesn't care about that, why should I?  Or anyone else?  Throw all the laws and legalese out that you want, but if owning a ROM of a game that I own and using it however I want within the realm of my personal use puts an eyepatch on me, I'll wear it with pride.  ARRRR, matey.

[Vectrex28 | 366]

On 12/4/2021 at 1:25 PM, phart010 said:

I don’t know if I agree with what you are saying, though I may be misunderstanding what you are saying due to the way it is phrased.

If you buy a Mario NES cart, you can’t download the rom on a hacked Wii U and play it there thinking your in the clear. You can only play the rom on the original platform that it was sold for.

Nintendo is reselling the old game on the new platform as a new product. Even though it’s the same old game, it has been repackaged (they had developer costs involved in porting it to the new platform), and it comes at a new price point. As far as Nintendo is concerned, it’s a new product. And in some ways I agree, as it has new features that were not present in the original NES version, such as playing it in handheld mode, changing the display settings, savestate, etc.

In some games, the additional features are more pronounced. For example, GBA SMBA4, they give you all the e-reader card levels from the start. These levels were not included in the original GBA game, you’d have to purchase them all separately. And even if you were to purchase all of the cards, it was not even possible to have them all on the GBA cart simultaneously because there was not enough memory storage space on the cart. So having this all present on the Wii U version amounts to it being a new product. (Although even without the new levels, just the fact that you are playing a GBA game on a new platform is really enough to justify it being a new product).

Not sure if you were arguing that purchasing these games on the original platform would entitle you to also downloading “copies” on other platforms. But I’d have to disagree if this is what you were implying 

If the game is rereleased on other platforms and is a different ROM, then yeah you'd have to buy the rerelease to own a copy of the prerelease.

However, while you could buy a virtual console copy of Mario 3 on the Wii U, I'd argue that if you homebrew your Wii U, install an emulator, and dump your copy of NES Mario 3 to use on your Wii U, it's perfectly legal to do so.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

10 minutes ago, Vectrex28 said:

If the game is rereleased on other platforms and is a different ROM, then yeah you'd have to buy the rerelease to own a copy of the prerelease.

However, while you could buy a virtual console copy of Mario 3 on the Wii U, I'd argue that if you homebrew your Wii U, install an emulator, and dump your copy of NES Mario 3 to use on your Wii U, it's perfectly legal to do so.

To me, if it's literally the same ROM, just in a different wrapper (packaged emulator, usually), I'm fine with someone buying it once then moving that file around whever/however they need it.  If the original dump of the game doesn't change, what you paid for (and will be using, presumably) hasn't changed either, so there you go.  BYOE(mulator) if you're going to put the ROM onto a system that Nintendo has sold their own emulator for it, though.

Edit:  The one addition/modification I'd make to this is if/when folks choose to back up digitally purchased games for systems that are no longer being actively supported and in danger of losing any/all online support (such as the online store for the Wii).  With such games more or less packaged as "apps," I have zero issues with someone making a backup of the app version of the game they legitimately paid for in case their physical hardware dies and they want/need to be able to play it on another console (that can no longer just connect online and re-download a copy of the game, IF Nintendo would allow that, which they didn't on all hardware at all times).

Edited December 10, 2021 by darkchylde28