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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.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER:
This article DOES NOT contain all the information about copyright law.
Therefore, you should NOT DEPEND on this as your legal reference if
you're getting sued here.
- What is an emulator?
- Why do emulators exist?
- Are emulators legal?
- Why do people use emulators?
- What are ROMs?
- Are ROMs legal?
- Why are most ROMs illegal?
- What's the penalty for having a ROM?
- How often does a ROM holder get caught?
1. What is an emulator?
Emulators are a piece of software that takes the place of an actual
piece of hardware. The emulators are designed to run software that
the actual hardware is suppose to run. Most emulators are game systems,
but there are some emulators for old computers as well. A few examples
of emulators are MAME (Arcade machines), NEStopia (NES), ZSNES (SNES),
Stella (Atari 2600) & Dos Box (MS-DOS).
Please be aware that some systems (like arcade games) use specially
designed chips to optimize the execution of the program. Since the
emulators have to do this virtually, the computer or system running
the emulator has to compensate with brute force (by using more processing
power). Some emulators may not be designed to take full advantage
of a computer's hardware as well, which could have helped alleviate
some of the processing demands.
While older systems (like MS-DOS & Atari 2600) may not require
that much processing power (like 500 Mhz), newer games tender to require
a lot more processing power (like 2 Ghz or more) to properly run an
emulated program at it's desired speed.
2. Why do emulators
exist?
Emulators were originally created as part of a development kit to
allow companies to develop & test games for a specific (non-PC)
game system. The development kit usually contains a specialized version
of the actual hardware to help alleviate some of the hassles as well.
It's a lot easier (& more cost-effective) to do Quality Assurance
through an emulator (& the dev kit) before the game gets published
than to make a test version of the game each time they wanted to test
something out.
The publically available emulators (like the ones available online)
are created by 2 types of people: Those who want to preserve the games
in their original format & those who want to play the games without
paying for them. Those who want to preserve the games usually go with
the older, "market dead" systems while the other group tends
to focus on the most recent game systems.
The old games slowly die because the hardware that's required to
run the games (as well as the game itself) eventually wear out without
any replacement components available for them. This applies more to
non-optical disc formats like arcade machines & game cartriges.
Disc formats (CD's, DVD's, Blu-Ray, ect.) have a theoretical lifespan
of 75 years & optical drives can be designed to be backwards compatible
to access the data on the discs. However, the optical drives may not
be able to comprehend that data without an emulator.
3. Are emulators
legal?
Despite the stance of the Entertainment Software Association &
various game companies state, emulators are COMPLETELY
LEGAL. The legal precident here involves "Hollywood
vs the VCR". While VCR's can be used for illegal activities (like
copying a movie, which is copyright infringement), it can also be
used for legitimate reasons as well & has actually help the entertainment
industry in the long run. The makers of the VCR's had no control over
the usage of their devices, once in the hands of the public, so they
couldn't be held liable.
Jump ahead to today & the same legal rights carry over to CD,
DVD & Blu-Ray burners as well as Peer-to-Peer networks & emulators
as well. Again, these can be used for legitimate purposes (like backing
up or sharing personal files) as well as illicit activities.
While the entertainment industry tends to focus primarily on the
negatives of emulators (the publically available ones), they can't
effectively create or test games without some type of emulator...
especially as they start to re-release their older games in this method,
which kind of makes the gaming industry a bit hypocritical of themselves.
4. Why do people
use emulators?
As somewhat stated above, emulators were made to make & test
games as well as preserve them.
Most emulator users do so for roughly two reasons:
- To play games they weren't able to play before for some reason.
- To play games without paying for them
For example, a kid who was born in 2000 would never have access to
the original NES or SNES systems. Therefore, that kid may resort to
emulators to play those games.
5. What are ROMs?
ROM, in the technical sense, stands for "Read Only Memory"
& it contains all the programming for the game. When a game is
made for a game system, it's stored on either ROM chips (build into
a game cartridge) or on an optical disc (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, ect.).
ROM files (commonly referred to as ROMs or ROMsets) are the files
made from copying the game code stored on ROM chips or an optical
disc. The code in the ROM files can only be executed by an emulator
for the system it was designed for.
6. Are ROMs legal?
This is a thorny issue (mostly involving copyright law), but generally
ROMs are considered illegal due to general
copyright law.
Having that said, there are some legal options with ROMs that most
try to hide.
- You created the game itself. -- You own the copyright, therefore
you can do whatever you want with the game (like keep it as a ROM).
- You created the ROM as a back-up. -- Copyright law (under the
Fair Use Policy) allows you to make ONE back-up copy of the games
you own, reguardless of the format. This DOES
NOT MEAN that you can download a copy of the ROM
from somebody else (as it's NOT a direct copy of your game). You
have to dump the ROM information to your computer yourself. HOWEVER,
this option his hampered due to the Digital Millenium Copyright
Act (DMCA) as you cannot bypass any copyright protection schemes
in place.
- The copyright holder releases the game into public domain -- This
is a rare occurence, but the copyright holder can choose to declare
the release of their copyright. Most of these examples are done
for non-commercial purposes.
- The copyright holder games the freely available -- This is more
common occurence, but it's still uncommon. The copyright still applies
to it, but since the game is avaialble freely, the copyright holder
most likely won't press charges. Rockstar Games is a good example
here as it provides Grand Theft Auto & Grant Theft Auto 2 for
PC on their website for free.
- You've purchased the rights to the game -- Another rare occurence,
but it likely happens when a game company goes out of business.
The (copy)rights to a game are considered an asset & can be
legally sold.
- You've purchased the game from a licensed dealer OR from the copyright
owner -- There are some sites that's actually got legal permission
to sell the ROMs for their games. These sites must pay royalties
to the legal owner of the game (just like radio stations must pay
royalties to broadcast music) for each copy they sell.
7. Why are most
ROMs illegal?
The biggest issue with ROMs are copyright-related. Under US copyright
law, all copyright on an item lasts for 75 years or death of the copyright
holder for personal copyrights & 95 years for corporate copyrights.
For arcade games, PONG (the oldest game) was released in 1972... which
means it won't come into public domain until 2067. Most of the old
arcade game that were released by 1980 wont be in public domain until
2075.
On the console side, Donkey Kong for NES was published in 1981, so
that won't be in public domain until 2076. Super Mario Bros. for NES
was published in 1985, which places it's public domain date in 2080.
Please be aware that the public domain dates only apply to the ORIGINAL
FORMAT of the game. This doesn't mean that remakes & re-releases
on newer systems will fall under the same copyright. When a company
re-releases a game on a newer system, the copyright is renewed for
THAT FORMAT.
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.
UNLESS THE WEBSITE HAS PERMISSION TO DISTRIBUTE
THEM, ALL ROMS ON THE WEBSITE ARE ILLEGAL! There is no 24 / 48
/ 72-hour rule on ROMs! It's only a ruse to make their site SEEM
LEGAL to host ROMs. Unless you take a legal route to obtain
them, it's illegal to possess & share ROMS, no matter what the
website claims.
8. 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, as
long as you're under $50,000,000 & unarmed) 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.
Usually the copyright owner of the ROM will usually have their legal
advisors send the webmaster of the website a legally threatening letter,
telling the webmaster to delete all ROM files from their website (&
any offline repositories) & contact the legal advisor stating
that you're complying with their requests as well as promising not
to provide any other ROMs under penalty of a lawsuit... offering of
your first born is usually optional here (like it would really be
part of their request, which would be illegal as well as immoral in
the US... but since these lawsuits tend to have exorbant amounts,
it may come to it.).
9. 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 (like MAME &
the arcade games it emulates). 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.
Fine Print:
While this article does express some facts, this article may not express
all correct or legal information. NESpresso Multimedia Entertainment
are not legal experts on this matter & should not be used as a key
resource in any legal hearings (but it might give you a push in the
right direction to key resources). N.M.E. does not provide ROMs to any
person in any format in any method... besides, any idiot can find ROMs
on their own with a search engine.
Please contact your legal advisors
(lawyers) about copyright laws & your legal rights. You wouldn't
talk to your friends about legal issues before going to court (unless
one of your friends is a lawyer), you really shouldn't trust a website
as well, unless it's a trusted government website (like a website that
has all the laws for your state on them... usually with a domain name
that ends in ".gov"). While N.M.E. doesn't like to write this
stuff on their webpages, it's there to protect themselves from idiots
who may trust the wrong website & then tries to blame the makers
of the website.
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