3 ms·

bleem! (PlayStation emulator) was sued by Sony and was forced to close down because of legal fees, so I guess that counts as a success for Sony. I seem to reca

by diggan 3y ago

bleem! (PlayStation emulator) was sued by Sony and was forced to close down because of legal fees, so I guess that counts as a success for Sony. I seem to recall a bunch of ROM sites disappearing as well, but not sure if that's because they got sued or for other reasons. Some must have been sued and consequently shut down, so maybe not a bad idea (for the companies) to at least try?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dartos 3y ago
ROM sites are actually illegally distributing copyrighted content. Emulators are usually not stolen and are just reverse engineered.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Modern consoles and arcades have anti-circumvention measures to restrict access to their internals. Software that bypasses such protections runs afoul of the DMCA even without any copyright violation.
- DinaCoder99 3y ago
  Those sites are not illegal in all countries.
ender341341 3y ago
ROM sites are different in that they are distributing the copywrited media The only 'emulator' cases I've seen be successful are due to the same, they didn't get in trouble for the emulator, they got in trouble for distributing ROMs. I wonder if there's some firmware code being distributed here? that's a common annoyance when it comes to using an emulator.
- tuetuopay 3y ago
  AFAIK yuzu requires you provide your own firmware dump, so no redistribution happening
  - bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
    not true, just grab a copy of firmware files online and be gtg. its just yuzus docs thats written in such a way, most likely to avoid nintendo suing them…
    - tuetuopay 3y ago
      By "online" do you mean a random ROM website, or any Yuzu provided/hosted/whatever page? I.E. are they linked to such firmware and key redistribution? I was under the impression there was no affiliation, but I may be wrong there. By affiliation I mean something like hosted on the same server but officially unlinked, not obvious affiliations. If a core maintainer redistributing them on their personal website.
      - bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
        i mean a random website, can be found with google
Feorn 3y ago
I think ROM sites were an artifact of the internet speeds we had access to early on. Where it wasn't practical to just download an entire library for an older console. Downloading an N64 ROM over dialup still took a little longer than an mp3, whole collections of them were out of the question. Even early broadband in many areas was limited to speeds where a single ROM was more practical to download. Complete ROM collections were, and probably still are, available for most old systems as torrents and on usenet.
- gamepsys 3y ago
  Downloading entire ROM collections quickly becomes too much data for local storage, starting with Saturn/PS1 and escalating from there.
  - plussed_reader 3y ago
    Nah, you just need to scale up your storage expectation; I think 8TB will cover most of a PS1 localization.
    - pierat 3y ago
      Sony Playstation NTSC-U dump is only 472GB. Oh, and they're available on Archive.org :) https://archive.org/search?query=Sony+PlayStation+-+%28NTSC-U%29 https://archive.org/search?query=Sony+PlayStation+-+%28NTSC-...
      - plussed_reader 3y ago
        Maybe it was PS2 localization, but those quantities are well within the consumer reach to maintain archives. It's just work, like anything else.
  - Acrobatic_Road 3y ago
    You don't need to do this. I bought a 1TB sd card because I heard that was enough space to store every retro game up to n64. I ended up copying over a small hand-picked selection of games rather than the full romset. We need some people to keep copies of the full romsets for the sake of preservation, but typical users only want certain, popular games.
hellotomyrars 3y ago
Sony also sued Connectix and lost. Sony purchased the rights to the emulator made by Connectix a year or so later. Connectix shut down 2 years after they sold the VGS to Sony but it isn't clear their fate was negatively impacted by Sony. This move by Nintendo is typical and there is no intent for it to ever actually go to court. It is legal bullying/posturing. The ironic/hopeful part is that team behind Yuzu does have some financial backing and this is going to create goodwill for them and they might actually be able to put up a defense (perhaps with the EFF getting involved maybe?)

by diggan 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dartos 3y ago

ROM sites are actually illegally distributing copyrighted content. Emulators are usually not stolen and are just reverse engineered.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Modern consoles and arcades have anti-circumvention measures to restrict access to their internals. Software that bypasses such protections runs afoul of the DMCA even without any copyright violation.
DinaCoder99 3y ago
Those sites are not illegal in all countries.

ender341341 3y ago

ROM sites are different in that they are distributing the copywrited media The only 'emulator' cases I've seen be successful are due to the same, they didn't get in trouble for the emulator, they got in trouble for distributing ROMs. I wonder if there's some firmware code being distributed here? that's a common annoyance when it comes to using an emulator.

tuetuopay 3y ago
AFAIK yuzu requires you provide your own firmware dump, so no redistribution happening
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  not true, just grab a copy of firmware files online and be gtg. its just yuzus docs thats written in such a way, most likely to avoid nintendo suing them…
  - tuetuopay 3y ago
    By "online" do you mean a random ROM website, or any Yuzu provided/hosted/whatever page? I.E. are they linked to such firmware and key redistribution? I was under the impression there was no affiliation, but I may be wrong there. By affiliation I mean something like hosted on the same server but officially unlinked, not obvious affiliations. If a core maintainer redistributing them on their personal website.
    - bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
      i mean a random website, can be found with google

Feorn 3y ago

I think ROM sites were an artifact of the internet speeds we had access to early on. Where it wasn't practical to just download an entire library for an older console. Downloading an N64 ROM over dialup still took a little longer than an mp3, whole collections of them were out of the question. Even early broadband in many areas was limited to speeds where a single ROM was more practical to download. Complete ROM collections were, and probably still are, available for most old systems as torrents and on usenet.

gamepsys 3y ago
Downloading entire ROM collections quickly becomes too much data for local storage, starting with Saturn/PS1 and escalating from there.
- plussed_reader 3y ago
  Nah, you just need to scale up your storage expectation; I think 8TB will cover most of a PS1 localization.
  - pierat 3y ago
    Sony Playstation NTSC-U dump is only 472GB. Oh, and they're available on Archive.org :) https://archive.org/search?query=Sony+PlayStation+-+%28NTSC-U%29 https://archive.org/search?query=Sony+PlayStation+-+%28NTSC-...
    - plussed_reader 3y ago
      Maybe it was PS2 localization, but those quantities are well within the consumer reach to maintain archives. It's just work, like anything else.
- Acrobatic_Road 3y ago
  You don't need to do this. I bought a 1TB sd card because I heard that was enough space to store every retro game up to n64. I ended up copying over a small hand-picked selection of games rather than the full romset. We need some people to keep copies of the full romsets for the sake of preservation, but typical users only want certain, popular games.

hellotomyrars 3y ago

Sony also sued Connectix and lost. Sony purchased the rights to the emulator made by Connectix a year or so later. Connectix shut down 2 years after they sold the VGS to Sony but it isn't clear their fate was negatively impacted by Sony. This move by Nintendo is typical and there is no intent for it to ever actually go to court. It is legal bullying/posturing. The ironic/hopeful part is that team behind Yuzu does have some financial backing and this is going to create goodwill for them and they might actually be able to put up a defense (perhaps with the EFF getting involved maybe?)