Lunar Better

[Alunissage]

Sure. Emulators themselves aren't illegal at all. It's the ROM part that is.

[Kizyr]

By the way, is an emulator legal when you just use it to play cd's from a console on your computer and not to play Roms?

Like Alun said, there's really no problem with it. That's why we'll usually encourage people to buy the games off eBay and use an emulator to play, since Sega CDs are a bit bulky and hard to find, anyway. But ISOs are crossing the legality line, and it can't be discussed how to obtain them here. KF

[GhaleonOne]

Actually, if you need a BIOS to play the emulator it could technically be considered illegal. But it's much less taboo than downloading ROMs and ISOs.

[Erasculio]

Actually, if you need a BIOS to play the emulator it could technically be considered illegal. But it's much less taboo than downloading ROMs and ISOs.

Which is funny because, technically, if you have the system you can have its BIOS, even if you got it from an illegal source. That's how most of the emulators are "supposed" to be used, anyway, less as a way to ilegally play games you haven't bought for a system you don't have, and more to play what you already have using the benefits you can get on a computer.

(Sorry for taking the off topicness here to a step further, by the way...)

Erasculio

[GhaleonOne]

Honestly, at the time new systems come out, hardware sales cost more than they generally sell the systems at. And being the Sega CD, and how old and hard to find it's getting, I doubt Sega gives a crap about the system. Hell, they're not even in hardware sales anymore.

[Kizyr]

Yeah there's a strange grey area regarding BIOS for old systems. I have a SegaCD, but the whole unit (Genesis + SCD) is so bulky that there's no sense in taking it with me in my move up to Virginia. Plus which, I don't need a converter cartridge (which I can't even buy anymore) to play my Mega CD games.

But, we haven't had any problems helping out with emulation itself in the past. Topics on where to find ISOs and ROMs are shut down in a flash, however. Even if the games are out of print, it's still bad form for an official site to be offering them. KF

[DragonmasterDan]

Yeah there's a strange grey area regarding BIOS for old systems. I have a SegaCD, but the whole unit (Genesis + SCD) is so bulky that there's no sense in taking it with me in my move up to Virginia. Plus which, I don't need a converter cartridge (which I can't even buy anymore) to play my Mega CD games.

But, we haven't had any problems helping out with emulation itself in the past. Topics on where to find ISOs and ROMs are shut down in a flash, however. Even if the games are out of print, it's still bad form for an official site to be offering them. KF

BIOS use is pretty much illegal unless you own the actual system with the exact BIOS revision being used in the emulator, it's why commercial emulators such as Magic Engine, the PC Engine/ Turbo Grafx emulator was forced to develop its own replacement system cards and why Sony was able to successfully sue over the Virtual Game Station which used an actual Playstation BIOS at one point.

BIOS's can legally be reversed engineered as in the case of the Magic Engine (which still has bugs with its replacement system cards), Bleem! the now defunct PSone emuator and many others. But that requires far more work and effort than snagging the BIOS image off of a system board from a console which is why no one has done so for the Sega CD.

[phyco126]

Then you have Nintendo who says that it's illegal no matter what Whether you already have the system or the game, they still say it's illegal to get an emulator or ROM.

[DragonmasterDan]

Then you have Nintendo who says that it's illegal no matter what Whether you already have the system or the game, they still say it's illegal to get an emulator or ROM.

Lots of companies and organizations do that, whenever you watch an NFL game there is a message that says any recording of that telecast is prohibited without the express written consent of the National Football League, despite the fact that it's perfectly legal to fair use record NFL games (meaning off broadcast TV for non-commercial or competitive use). So is firing up the old VCR and recording or TIVO-ing the Broncos versus The Colts to watch later on illegal? No, but their lawyers will argue that it is despite no legal ground to hold this claim and they play a disclaimer to discourage people from recording their product.

As far as emulators go, other companies do things like that as well, for example Sony ran the Bleem company out of business with excessive legal fees because their emulator (which unlike the Virtual Game Station as mentioned in my earlier message did not use the actual Sony BIOS image) played Playstation games, Sony lost every single legal case brought against Bleem but the constant trips to and from court ran the small operation out of business.

Then you have Microsoft who has claimed publicly on many occasions that mod chipping is illegal. It's not illegal to mod your system to play import games, backups of your own games, or homebrew sotware, Linux or whatever else you want to do with your system. Software piracy is illegal but on many occasions Microsoft representatives (and representives for the IDSA which has now been renamed the ESA) have stated to media press and other outlets that modchips themselves are illegal which is quite ridiculous and untrue.

[phyco126]

So is firing up the old VCR and recording or TIVO-ing the Broncos versus The Colts to watch later on illegal? No, but their lawyers will argue that it is despite no legal ground to hold this claim and they play a disclaimer to discourage people from recording their product.

Actually, you bring up a good point in all of this. With all of these lawsuits against teens and even kids for DLing music (and now an increasing fight against DLing movies) you have to wonder where that very fine line is between piracy and not pirating is.

For one, it's supposed to be illegal to record anything, like you said. Then why did they come out with VCRs? Why DVD-Rs? TiVo? CD-R/Ws? (By the way, for those of you that don't know, there was something before the VCR, something like VCP or similiar, it only could PLAY video cassets, but not record. The same with DVD players and CD-Roms, all before you could record stuff.)

I mean, that sort of stuff, at least as I see it, tends to add fuel to the fire they are fighting with nukes in populated towns. It doesn't make all that much sense. I mean, all that technology wasn't exactly created for burning music or movies from tv... but then why do they contantly advertise CD's perfect for music? Or tapes perfect for TV recordings? Or TiVo for that matter?

And I fail to see how Modding your system is illegal. Does that mean because I put new and better tires on my car I committed a crime? Well, I guess if the tires arn't street legal

[drumlord]

The first thing you have to remember though is that companies have no legal obligation to tell the truth to you. It's their right to lie to you about what is and isn't illegal, whether they believe it or not. That's why you get things like the NFL telling you not to tape it. The thing is, with TV we have a precedent set allowing us to tape TV shows. It's all said and done and no judge in their right mind is going to go against that.

But with video games, we don't have something like that. So when Nintendo says all kinds of emulating are illegal, they are half right. Before 1999 that wasn't the case though. The DMCA gives companies certain extra protection for their IP and one of the things companies have been able to argue is that by breaking a piece of hardware's protection, you are breaking the law in regards to the software on it. So if an emulator or modchip allows any bypassing of protection softare, it can be argued that it is illegal (notice I didn't say it is illegal; it's untested waters and I don't much care for the DMCA anyway). So systems like SNES and whatnot are out because they didn't really have any protection on them. But the current gen and some of the last gen did. Even if it's something as simple as regional lockout, emulators are still hacks to get around it.

It's definitely new and shaky legal ground. I think companies would rather just toss out idle threats here and there than aggresively pursue pirates though.

[Kizyr]

The Bleem case is a real good example... Fact is, companies, when they choose to pursue legal action, will do so from a strategic standpoint, not necessarily a legal one. The question is: can legal action improve our business (most typically by wiping out the competition)? Legal action will be pursued if either 1) the company can win the case and an ensuing settlement to bankrupt the competition, or 2) the company can tie up the competition in enough legal fees to bankrupt it. Occasionally the legal and strategic goals intersect; occasionally they don't.

Failing that, they'll buy out the competition directly. KF

[DragonmasterDan]

For one, it's supposed to be illegal to record anything, like you said. Then why did they come out with VCRs? Why DVD-Rs? TiVo? CD-R/Ws? (By the way, for those of you that don't know, there was something before the VCR, something like VCP or similiar, it only could PLAY video cassets, but not record. The same with DVD players and CD-Roms, all before you could record stuff.)

There was never anything called a VCP available to consumers nor is that what the VCR evolved from. The VCR was originally started with the Sony Betamax was the first VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) mrketed to consumers, shortly afterwards a standard called VHS was released which would eventually dominate the market. Pre-recorded video tapes didn't start to appear until the late 1970s to early 1980s since Hollywood had issues with the fact that VCRs allowed you to record their product. In 1984 a legal precedent was set in a case against the Sony Betamax that stated fair use recording of broadcast television was legal, At one point after the release of Betamaxes with recording technology once Hollywood studios ha dstarted to produce pre-recorded features, a version of the Betamax without recording technology available was produced, but only for a short amount of time and this was primarily due to the continuing legal case between Sony and the movie and Television industry. Once video recording for fair use was declared legal by the Supreme court. the television and movie studios and copyright owners had no choice but to support VCRs as a standard. Simply put there was no VCP that came before VCRs, When VCRs were first released they were ONLY used for recording television since pre-recorded tapes were not available due to the entertainment indusries issues with recording their property.

The only thing close to what you mentioned were early video disc players which had no consumer available recording technology available to them, this required glass masters of discs to be made and the only means of reproduction was to press them from there. Those came out AFTER the early video tape recording formats. Eventually much like with VHS, The Laserdisc standard dominated video discs (defeating CED and many others) only recently dying due to the popularity of the smaller more convienent DVD format.

As far as Rich's statements about the DMCA goes, it's only partly true, if there is intentional encryption on the part of protection of copying and that encryption is broken, then it's a DMCA violation, but keep in mind that there is already a legal precedent (A Lexmark case in which firmware written to print cartridges was said to have been encrypted and had to be decrypted by a third party to be reverse engineered) that states the DMCA can not be used to circumvent fair use rights.

[phyco126]

Hmmm, I could have sworn that I read in school that there was something like a VCP... but I guess I was wrong. Or I was confused with maybe something I read which could have been similar to what you just said. Oh, and I remember the laser disks! My cousin had one. It was funny, the disks where huge and it took two, sometimes three to watch a single movie Not to mention they didn't work all that well, they skipped very easy and they froze alot ^_^ Ah, the good old days.

Oh, speaking of moding a system, if I recall, and I could be wrong... didn't microsoft threaten legal action if the Linux OS was released for the Xbox?

[DragonmasterDan]

Hmmm, I could have sworn that I read in school that there was something like a VCP... but I guess I was wrong. Or I was confused with maybe something I read which could have been similar to what you just said. Oh, and I remember the laser disks! My cousin had one. It was funny, the disks where huge and it took two, sometimes three to watch a single movie Not to mention they didn't work all that well, they skipped very easy and they froze alot ^_^ Ah, the good old days.

Oh, speaking of moding a system, if I recall, and I could be wrong... didn't microsoft threaten legal action if the Linux OS was released for the Xbox?

No, Microsoft didn't threaten legal action if the Linux OS was released for Xbox, and several years ago when it was they did nothing about it. When a way was found to install Linux onto UNMODIFIED Xbox's using a buffer overflow in certain games, a modified save file and a few tricks, then Microsoft tried to fix that up updating the Xbox's dashboard boot software. However Microsoft wouldn't bother suing over linux being ported to Xbox as the Linux community such as the free sofware foundation would be more than happy to defend any such case. Microsoft DID threaten legal action against reverse engineering their dashboard and boot management software to make bootable discs for Xbox (in order to install Linux on any unmodified Xbox system, of course this would also allow for piratied games to run just as easily on an unmodified Xbox as well) claiming that their dashboard was encrypted and would violate the DMCA if reverse engineered. This caused one small project to give up on their plans to figure out how the dashboard worked, in its place a new replacement dashboard was designed to be installed over Microsofts on systems that were either modded or using the save file trick.

[phyco126]

Ah, well. Anyways, I found this place and intresting thing to read

http://www.totalrewind.org/

It has history on alot of stuff. Including the history with turntable video players Intresting idea. And I thought that The League of Extrodinary Gentleman scene with the vinyl video player was purely fiction ^_^. Well, still was for the time it took place, but they did appearantly produce it.

So I was wrong on both accounts, my bad.