The legal exposure, the site’s founder said, was simply too great a risk to himself and those who have supported EmuParadise’s efforts. Though EmuParadise did not name Nintendo, much less any legal threat from the console-maker, as the reason, many have tied that company’s vigilance and willingness to take legal action to this development, which seems like another setback to ROMs, emulation and video games preservation. What’s going on? Who’s to blame? What is the solution, if any? We’ll try to explain all of the issues in play here - some going on for decades - and why emulation is about more than snagging free copies of old games. On Wednesday, MasJ, who founded EmuParadise in 2000, announced that all links to download ROMs would be removed. ROMs are, generally speaking, game files pulled from other media, whether an arcade cabinet’s motherboard or a chip inside an old cartridge. MasJ obliquely mentioned that those who host ROM downloads are in a position more precarious than before, and that the trend does not show the situation resolving or getting any better. Nintendo’s complaint branded the defendants an “online piracy business,” and whose operators are “sophisticated parties with extensive knowledge of Nintendo’s intellectual property.” But Nintendo’s always been aggressive against this kind of thing, right? MasJ was most likely referring to this development, from mid-July, in which Nintendo filed a federal lawsuit against the owner and the business behind the LoveROMs and LoveRETRO websites. Mainly, Nintendo’s legal action in this realm has been the so-called C&D letter, and it’s been most visibly sent to the creators of fan-made works, demanding that they take down files that infringe on Nintendo’s intellectual property. (It’s even gone after a trove of Nintendo Power magazines hosted on the Internet Archive.) Nintendo has also been aggressive against outright piracy, but generally the company has targeted companies that sell or distribute game-copying devices. What’s different now is, this is a lawsuit against a ROM hosting site, not a nastygram sent to the maker of a fan game. The $100 million in damages that Nintendo could claim (based on statutory damages for the dozens of Nintendo titles on the sites) were probably threatened in order to shut the sites down. In fact, both have since been taken offline. This all likely played a role in EmuParadise’s decision regarding ROMs, too. Nintendo’s standard response when asked about takedowns, C&Ds or copyright matters is usually a statement about it respecting other creators’ rights to their work, and expecting the same in return, and its obligations to defend its work.īut Nintendo’s movement into - and enviable success with - retro gaming in its NES Classic and SNES Classic mini-consoles may have something to do with it. There’s also Nintendo Switch Online, which is expected to go live next month that service will give subscribers access to 20 old NES games. And Nintendo’s been in the business of selling its vintage library of games under the Virtual Console banner since the launch of the Wii in 2006. So, a case against ROM owners is certainly a lot stronger - if not also more necessary - if a site is giving away the same Punch-Out!!, Metroid and Donkey Kong Country games that are available on or through current Nintendo products. Are emulators and ROMs legal?Įmulation advocates have pointed to a 2000 ruling by a federal court of appeals as holding that the creation and use of emulation software is legal. (In that case, Sony had sued Connectix Corp. over a Macintosh application called the Virtual Game Station.) This is probably why EmuParadise is continuing to host updated versions of those applications, which probably still have value to users who still have libraries of ROMs (or can find what they need elsewhere). ROMs are rather clearly a matter of copyright. Attorney Michael Lee of Morrison & Lee, a Los Angeles-based law firm whose work includes matters related to video gaming, copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, among others, blogged about this last week. “Yell fair use all you want but this is not fair use, it is just copying someone else’s work.” So how could EmuParadise go on for 18 years if hosting ROMs is so obviously unlawful? “Don’t use other people’s IP without permission,” he wrote flatly.
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