I was wondering if third party developers held the rights to the ROM Images of the games they developed for NES or if Nintendo hold exclusive rights through the lisensing agreements.
You can create a ROM image from a hard copy you own. However you cannot legally distribute that copy to others. It's the same idea as with DVDs... you can make a DVD copy of a movie you already own... but you can't make a million copies and give them away to other people.
So I guess you could say the ROM image belongs to the person who originally dumped it... but it seems kind of silly to make that connection.
> I mean the information in the ROM. The game itself.
Almost certainly the publisher. Same goes with any book or album. Ever see "lyrics reproduced with permission" on the sleeve note? It's because the record company owns them, in the same way that a publisher owns the code of games it publishes, unless ownership rights were somehow reserved in the contract (but the developer would have to be in a pretty strong negotiating position to manage that - maybe someone like Peter Molyneux could get away with it).
As for the license-holder (eg Nintendo, etc), so far as I understand, that's more to do with rights and permissions to have games released on any given system, sometimes exclusively. It's not at all related to ownership rights for the intellectual property.
Nintendo makes it pretty clear that ROMs are illegal. They prevent Nintendo from releasing 4 NES games in a Gamecube Package for 25 bucks whenever they want. GBA ROMs, I would say, is warez pure and simple. The information in the copied game still belongs to it's respective owner 100%. It's just like scanning a work of art... the scan of the work of art isn't yours, it's still the authors.
Frankly, I still have the lost hope that Nintendo would join the emulation community in making romhacking tools and cool emulators on the freeware market, just to see the smile on our faces.... but then again, I'm delusional
> Nintendo makes it pretty clear that ROMs are illegal. They
> prevent Nintendo from releasing 4 NES games in a Gamecube
> Package for 25 bucks whenever they want.
They do? Wow, that's news to me, since there are 19 emulatd NES games available in Animal Crossing, which was made by Nintendo.
Posting links does not change the fact that I own two games that Nintendo have released that contain emulators. Those legal comments are only applicable people who, you know, don't actually own the rights to the games. Like you and I. No matter how much you claim otherwise, those links will not cause all of the Animal Crossing discs - emulating Balloon Fight, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Ice Climber, Punchout, Wario's Woods, and 10 other NES games - to vanish into the ethereal realm, it will not suddenly negate the existence of the Wind Waker bonus disc with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Master Quest emulated, it will not erase all memories of the additional Zelda bonus disc with Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 emulated on it, it will not warp all copies of Metroid Prime - each of which contains an emulator and ROM for the original Metroid - beyond use, nor will it prevent the release of Fight Night 2, which emulates Super Punchout.
I'm not judging or anything, I'm just stating the facts. I play ROMs daily, I'm in the process of beating Master Quest on project64 right now. I love emulation dude, why else would I regular here <img src=smilies/cwm11.gif>. I'll drink to the progress of emulation everyday!!
> I'm not judging or anything, I'm just stating the facts. I
> play ROMs daily, I'm in the process of beating Master Quest
> on project64 right now. I love emulation dude, why else
> would I regular here . I'll drink to the progress of
> emulation everyday!!
Well, yeah, but I'm just trying to point out that while it's true Nintendo likes to claim that emulation is illegal and so on, they obviously don't apply it to themselves. <img src=smilies/magbiggrin.gif>
Well, not only that, they're also bullshitting to a certain extent. Under the DMCA you CAN make a backup of your own game if you have a copier. Emulators and copiers are not illegal.
In all fairness to Nintendo, it's their lawyers using the harsh, meaningless rhetoric and not necessarily the gamemakers we come to respect for their talents.
> Well, not only that, they're also bullshitting to a certain
> extent. Under the DMCA you CAN make a backup of your own
> game if you have a copier. Emulators and copiers are not
> illegal.
"Personal Websites and/or Internet Content Providers sites That link to Nintendo ROMs, Nintendo emulators and/or illegal copying devices can be held liable for copyright and trademark violations"
Since when does Nintendo have the right to say that people can't program an emulator for a 6502 computer?
