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Emulations,
Copyrights & You
A Public Service Article from N.M.E.
As we're now in the 21st Century, emulations is beginning
to gain popularity with older games. As a public service to everybody.
We at N.M.E. would like to tell everybody the facts about Emulator &
ROMS as well as the copyrights & what this really means to you.
The best way to do this is to write this article in a Q&A format.
I hope you enjoy.
- What is an emulator?
Emulators are the software equivelence of an actual game machine
that your computer can run. The emulator runs game software (either
in physical form or in soft form as ROMS) that was designed for
that machine. A few example of emulators are MAME (Arcade), NESticle
(NES) & FCE Ultra (NES).
Please be aware that some games (to more specific, arcade games)
may use specially designed chips. Since the emulators may not
have the support for that chip, it may compensate by working harder
to run the game. Please be aware the majority of today's arcade
games may require large ammounts of processing power (around 2
Ghz or more) to replicate the arcade hardware.
- Why do emulators exist?
Emulators were originally created to allow game programmers &
testers to run the game on their computer for the purposes of
programming, testing & most of all, debugging. It's a lot
easier (& more cost-effective) to test the game through the
emulators before the game gets sent to the publisher for production
than to make an alpha of beta copy of the game to test.
- Are emulators legal?
Emulators are COMPLETELY LEGAL,
reguardless what the game companies say. Emulators have the same
legal rights as VCR's & CD burners. Emulators can be used
to commit copyright infringement, but the same goes with VCR's
& CD burners. You are not violating the law for having an
emulator on your computer.
- Why do people use emulators?
Emulators were primarily used by game programmers (starting with
the NES) as part of the development kit to create & test the
game before the game was sent to the publishers. Nowadays, most
emulators are created for two purposes. The main purpose is to preserve
games in their original form, long after the physical hardware is
gone. As noble as the primary purpose is, it leads to the second
& the darker purpose of most emulators, to allow players to
play the games of that system for free. It's with this purpose that
some people use emulators, even with the most modern systems.
- What are ROM(S)?
ROM in the technical sense stands for "Read Only Memory",
which contains the all the programing instructions for the game.
When a game is made, the game code is stored either on ROM chips
or on CD's. ROMS are the software-equivelence of the of game code
that's taken off the ROM chips or the CD. ROM files are designed
specificially for the machine that they were made for (like an arcade
machine or a console).
- Are ROMS legal?
The short answer is: NO, ROMS are Illegal
to own as they violate copyright laws.
The extended answer is: depends on your legal status for the
ROMS you have. You can legally keep any ROMS you have if you fall
under one of the following conditions.
- You created the game itself. -- You own the copyright, therefore
you can legally keep the ROM.
- You created the ROM as a back-up. -- Copyright law allows you
to make ONE back-up copy of the games you own. This DOES
NOT MEAN that you can download a copy of the ROM from
somebody else. You have to dump the ROM information to your computer
yourself.
- The copyright owner is giving the game (or the game ROM) out.
-- This is rare & highly unlikely something like this will
ever happen, but if the copyright owner is giving the game out,
they won't go after you. There are at least 3 occurances of this.
The MAME ROMS Robby Roto & Gridlee have been released to the
public by their respective copyright owners. PolyPlay (a German
arcade game) is also publicly available as the copyright owners
of the game have vanished after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Rockstar
has released the PC version of the original Grand Theft Auto on
their website as well. Even though it's not a ROM, it still serves
as a good example.
- Why are ROMS illegal?
As I have said before in the question above, ROMS violate copyright
laws. The copyrights on the games last a minimum of 75 years,
but it can be extended indefinately. For arcade games, the oldest
game (PONG) was created around 1975. This means that the game's
copyright won't be released to the public until 2050 at the earliest.
For all games created by Nintendo or for a Nintendo system, the
oldest game (Donkey Kong, arcade) was created around 1981 in the
US. Therefore, you can't legally keep the ROM of the game until
2056 at the earliest.
Again, the years that were stated here are only the earliest
these games will be released to the public domain. Since most
of these games have been released & re-released so many times,
the copyrights have been renewed further. A good example is Mickey
Mouse. Mickey Mouse is over 75 years old (original copyright is
like 1919), but Disney still holds the copyright due to renewal
laws (which would have expired in 1994). The same renewal laws
hold true to the majority of the games that have been made.
ROM files also cost the game companies money. The game companies
don't receive any money from the distribution of the ROM &
if people have the ROM of the original game, they're unlikely
to pay for a re-released version on a more recent system.
REGUARDLESS WHAT THE WEBSITE STATES,
all the ROMS that are presented on a website (with very few expections)
are illegal! There is no 24/48-hour rule on ROMS. It's only a
ruse to make the site SEEM LEGAL to host ROMS. It's illegal to
possess & share ROMS, no matter what the website claims.
- What's the penalty for having a ROM?
Copyright infringement usually contains heavy fines (in the civil
sense) & on occasion, jail time (in the criminal sense). The
fines are at least $100,000 per offense (as in per ROM you have)
& possibly 5 years of jail time (most likely in a minimum
security prision) if you're convicted. This
also applies to those who provide links to ROM sites, even if
it's posted by another person.
Since the person/company that operates (& runs) the website
is responsible for all information that's posted on their website,
even if it's posted by a user of that website, most honorable
sites have rules against posting links to ROM sites as well as
asking for links to ROM sites. Breaking this rule usually means
getting banned from the site (either temporarily or permanently)
due to the legal issues that are caused by the links.
- How often does a ROM holder get caught?
At the time this article was written, there's been no public
record of any ROM holders that have been prosecuted. The only
known record of prosecution was from those who have obtained a
bootleg copy of an unreleased game (like Doom 3).
Those who offer ROMS online are the people who are usually caught.
However, the website owner usually receives a kind request from
the legal department of game owner or the Entertainment Software
Association (ESA, formerly the IDSA) to remove the offending ROMS
from their website. Since most website owners usually don't have
the funds to fight them in court (as well as the funds to cover
the fines), they usually pull the ROMS offline.
Those who have ROMS usually don't get caught because the game
companies don't know about it because they don't announce that
they have it (the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy) &
the ROMS are usually old & beyond their original market life.
Usually the old (or "Classic") ROMS have a low potential
to cause financial damage. Those who do get heat from a legal
department, usually comply with the legal department's requests
to avoid prosecution.
When it comes to some of the old games, you have to play "Who
Owns the Copyrights?" as the original company that made the
game is either no longer in business OR was bought out by another
company. With the Sim series (like Sim City & Sim City 2000),
Maxis originally owns the copyrights. However, since Electronic
Arts (EA) bought out Maxis, EA now owns the copyrights. This part
of the legal mumbo-jumbo is hard to figure out (especially if
you own stock in a bought-out company), so the companies that
hold the copyrights usually don't go after the ROM holders.
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