Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Technology

Emulation Legality 40

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
PointBlank writes "Rich Lawrence (author of an Atari 800 emulator) has written an essay on the legality of emulation and related issues. If you care about emulation and wish to be educated on this issues involved, this is a great resource. "
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Emulation Legality More

Emulation Legality

Comments Filter:

  • legal atari roms (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FWIW, you can *legally* get the Atari ROMs as part of an old version of Darek Mihocka's Atari XL Emulator for the Atari ST. He asked for (and received!) permission to distribute the ROM images in the archive along with his emulator.

    So you can download his package, get the ROM files, and use them with another Atari emulator, and be 100% legal.
  • Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:

    Ok...the original poster said:
    "Claims that a copyright can become invalid
    if yu fail to enforce it"
    (which is a mistake...the text says specifically
    that this is NOT the case...perhaps not worded
    well)

    Then you talked about patents.
    (Patenets Not-Equal (Copyrights OR Trademarks))

    If the case involved patentns then it has no
    bearing on trademarks or copyrights. you can NOT
    lose a copyright (unless you die and then
    reanimate 100 years later...)
  • Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:

    I would love to get UltraLHE...
    Hell you know what...if I got it I would
    download 1 ROM to test it and make sure
    it works...then...
    I would go out and BUY games for it.
    Make a ROM downloader and play it on my
    system.

    I have no problem buying games. I don't have
    ROOM for a game system here...and my monitor blows
    away th etelevision.
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    "All I can say is, you gotta stand up, take responsibility for your actions if you're put down... UltraHLE's authors are a bunch of pussies."

    Bullshit. They're smart. Nintendo is a multinational corporation with enough resources to crush any individual person. Is Salmon Rushdie a pussy for going into hiding after a 1 million dollar bounty was placed on his head for writing a book?

    AOL was able to crush the guy who wrote AOL4Free. They tried to hold him responsible for the actions of other people who used the program to escape billing for time spent online.

    I don't care if they hoped that the emulator would bankrupt Nintendo, it doesn't matter. If the Emulator is a legal piece of software, they aren't responsible for the illegal actions of other people.

    LK
  • Minors aren't alowed to enter into legally binding contracts. So there.

    Not true. IANAL, but, minors can legally sign contracts. They can also break a contract at will until they reach their majority. It is because they can break a contract without threat of breech of contract that companies do not enter into agreements with minors.
  • First of all -- great article, it told the truth for once.

    However, I just want to draw the line between "breaking the law" and "being in the wrong".

    I drive at 40MPH, on long straight wide roads with 30MPH limits, because in this case, I think the limit is stupid, so it's a law I choose to ignore.
    I drank beer in pubs when I was 17... and I play games I don't legally own, using MAME. So there.

    These games *can't* be bought. Maybe if the copyright owners bundled the ROMS onto a CD which I could buy, for a reasonable price, then I'd buy it. But until then, the only way I can play 'em is by breaking the law, but not my concience.
  • Sure, following up my own comment, ne'er mind...

    Of course it's worth mentioning that when the games *can* be bought,
    I do. I own a playstation, and I have no intention of ever
    playing a gold CD on it (except possibly Thrill Kill, but that's bound to suck)..
    What's more, after a few weeks enjoying Snes9X, I went out and bought a SNES. OK, it was second hand, as are all the games, so Nintendo haven't gained a penny, but the point stands....
  • Just a question, don't a lot of companies put language in their licenses that more or less forbids reverse engineering their products or (in some cases) running them under emulation? And if so, would that (for those specific cases) invalidate the argument that emulation is 'fair use'? (Funny, when what's isn't legally fair.. :-) )

    Daniel
  • How can you say that using unauthorized copies is fair?

    The whole point behind a clean-room (read: legal) approach to duplication is that there is the resulting work is original. It might still violate patents, but it can't violate copyrights.


    --
    Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
  • Your example shows that laches applies to patents - that much is common knowledge. But then you make a blanket generalization and say that it's applicable to copyrights as well, without offering any legal precedent. Just because you say it's true, doesn't make it so. Why don't you provide proof?


    --
    Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
  • The "fair use" clause can only be used when your copying a PORTION of the copyrighted work SOLELY for COMMENTARY. You can't just copy it - you have to add some text that makes a comment about it, or uses it as a reference.

    So no, it does not apply here at all.

    --
    Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, timur@tabi.org, http://www.tabi.org
  • In a free market system, there is only one reason for patents:

    - to promote widespread use of good ideas

    There is only one reason for copyrights:

    - to allow people to make a living from the work that they produce.

    The main rational for granting patents in our free market system is to encourage people to publish
    their ideas instead of keeping all good ideas as trade secrets. The reason the government was
    allowed to grant patents is that in a true free market system, it was recognized that people
    would fear other people stealing their ideas which would result in people keeping all their ideas
    secret. With a law that says you can't steal ideas, more ideas flow, society benefits.

    The main rational for granting copyrights in our free market system is to allow people who advance
    the arts (literature, music, painting, sculpting, etc.) make a living pursuing their craft. Without
    copyrights, other people could co-opt the work of artists or ruin their reputations. Then, artistans
    would be forced to make a living another way leaving our society culturally void.

    Amazingly, two of the biggest flaws in a true free market system were corrected with these two
    simple principles. Notice that the main goal is to improve society, I didn't mention individual
    motivation or money at all. Also note, that ALL patents and copyrights revert to the public after
    some time (although it may be longer than you want).

    At least the writers of the US Constitution were wise enough to recogize the flaw and do something
    about it. You may not like the solution they came up with, but their solution has proved workable
    for over 200 years. How many of you can say that about some code you hacked up?

    IMHO, many people have a overblow notion of violating patents. If I was running a company,
    I would ignore all patents, get as many as I could and if anyone complains, cross license. Nearly
    all major corporations are run this way.

    Copyright, is another story. Ironically the problem most people perceive with the copyright
    system is due to the big publishers (music, book, etc.), but almost everyone wants to get published
    by big publishers. If you think about it, we're getting exactly what we deserve.


  • poor bastard hasn't seen the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1997 which effectively extends copyrights to 95 yrs. just think, it'll be 2086 or so before you could even use MS-DOS 6.22 for free. such bullshit... personally, i think books and software should be treated differently; but then again, i haven't thought in depth about it so don't flame me about it.

    original slashdot link:
    http://slashdot.org/articles/99 /01/14/0932236.shtml [slashdot.org]

    CAUCUS:
    Coalition Against Unlimited Copyright in the United States
    http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno/ [harvard.edu]

    Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1997
    http://cyber.law.harvar d.edu/eldredvreno/evidence/act~1.htm [harvard.edu]

    -l

  • But local law will supercede this restriction (in fact, Microsoft's EULA explicitely states that the reverse engineering clause will be superceded by any applicable laws). I know many European countries have upheld the rights to reverse-engineering, and I'm fairly certain that the U.S. has too.
    --
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • One of the things that interested me most about the Sony/Nintendo/ISDA is the claims that the circumvention of copy protection makes them illegal (this was only offhandedly mentioned in the essay). I was under the impression that the contributory copyright infringment provisions of our laws were fairly new (designed mostly to make cracks illegal), and therefore rather untested.

    Does anyone know if there is a precedence for the illegality of devices/software that circumvents protections? (I'd imagine court cases might have to do with dongle cracks more than anything else, I don't expect to see cd checks in there.. )

    -Teman
  • I want to see ultraHLE. Where can I get a copy?
  • No, even copying the WHOLE of a copyrighted work
    for purposes OTHER than commentary can sometimes
    be "fair use".

    You should read the judgement [seattleu.edu] in the Sega vs Accolade
    case that was linked to in the article,
    in particular paragraphs 29 onwards
    (the second half).
  • One of the arguments that Accolade lost was that intermediate copying of a copyrighted work should not infringe upon the original copyright holder's rights if the final product is significantly different from the original. Notwithstanding liscense issues, if a bunch of programmers get together and disassemble a software program for the purpose of crafting an emulator (using several unauthorized copies of the original to do so), this would infringe IP. This to me would seem like fair use. What say the rest of you?
  • If an EULA state that running the software under an emulator is illegal, how do they define an emulator? Let's say you have a copy of Accolade Ace of Aces for the IBM PC, and the EULA for that says emulation is illegal (I don't think it does, but let's say for the purpose of this discussion that it does). You also have an Alpha box running Windows NT. If you load Ace of Aces on your Alpha NT box, is it running in emulation?

    For that matter, if you load on a machine with an Intel chip running in V86 mode, is it emulation?

    Let's say that Syrix, a hypothetical company, makes an Intel x86 clone that uses microcode to do everything. Would running Intel software on that chip be emulation?

    Emulation is difficult to define legally, and if it were defined strictly, it would make a lot of the normal use of software illegal.

    Would running a program on a 386 or compatible chip with the DR[0-4] control registers set up for debugging mode be considered emulation?

    Cheers, Joshua. (My website is down. Roadrunner only does password resets through postal mail. .)

    Did you know that if you post a comment to slashdot with the hostname in uppercase (i.e, http://SLASHDOT.ORG/comments.pl), it tells you that space aliens have eaten your data?

  • Hmm. So if, say, Sega designs an N64 clone machine, it will be a violation of the EULA to run some games on it? (Not to imply that Sega has any plans to do so.)

    What about the fact that many of these video games are probably being bought by minors and then opened by minors without any adult's consent? Most of the kids I know who play video games wouldn't know the difference between an EULA and Europe. They probably assume that the sticker is there to keep dust out.

    Finally, just what does the EULA on some new N64 games state about renting/sublicensing? Almost every commercial software EULA I've seen specifically does not permit such leasing of software. That will go over like a lead balloon with most of the people I know who play video games. They rent almost everything they play.

    Cheers, Joshua (the only video game I play is Alleycat, and I play that on my 1981 IBM PC with C/GA and a TV--no emulation there!)

    I wish I could change that signature. It's supposed to be a tribute to --jon. Postel, but I can't get my userpreferences-page to change the signature!<screams again>

  • Although most of the information is solid, the author claims that a copyright, like a trademark, can become invalidated if you fail to enforce it. This is not the case.

  • It always comes down to how distinct and specific the legal protection is for the technology in question. We can't have a market where the first to market with a technology is the only one allowed in the market... but with no protections, no one is motivated to innovate ...


    -sk

  • Copyrights are not like slavery. Your argument is inflammatory and illogical.

    I thought that I said (and I could be wrong) was that there needed to be a balance in the market between the rights of creators and the rights of their competitors.

Slashdot Top Deals

For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.

Close