The "must delete these ROMs within 24 hours" rule.

[Ed Oscuro]

...bringing gamers a bad name everywhere.

It's a dumb internet meme which needs to be deleted wherever it is found. I do not know how it originated, but somebody got in their head that they could convince folks that it was okay to keep the ROMs just...24 hours!

Just imagine what'd happen if it was OK to keep GBA ROMs within 24 hours! "Man, I played Wario Ware a whole day, don't wanna touch it again." Of course, folks don't delete the ROMs, do they?

What it comes down to is that strict interpretations of the backup laws seem to indicate that owning a ROM is legal only if you keep a single copy, created from your cartridge and even with your equipment (as some folks say).

This is indeed a pet peeve of mine, and getting rid of it won't drastically improve gamer/corporate relations, but I like to think it would be a little victory for those who seek truth everywhere. Even if you have the ROMzz, understand what the rules are.

[Kejoriv]

Yea that rule is always observed <sarcasm>

[Dridor]

I think they changed it so that it's ok to keep the rom for 6 hours if you plant a tree, 12 hours if you save a kitten, and 24 hours if you stop smoking.

[maxlords]

Actually, technically, it may be the case that you can't even legally have a ROM of a game you own. Personally however...I say, who cares, as long as you support the industry by buying new games when you want them. I have a stack of ROMs myself. I almost never touch them, but I have DLed them for test purposes and never bothered to delete em. Doesn't matter to me, and if I was asked by a company to delete them, I would, but no one REALLY cares. Not the way I use them at least.

[zot wildstarr]

It is the tech version of the "5 Second Rule" for dropped food.

[Ed Oscuro]

Dridor, Zot Wildstar:

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/lupinlaugh.gif
LOL

Made my evening (er, morning? It's 1 AM here) a bit brighter. Keep up the good work, guys!

I know this all sounds like foolish and useless pedantry, but I think it's in the best interest of retrogamers to NOT pull punches and to be totally honest about what we're doing, that's all.

[Ze_ro]

What it comes down to is that strict interpretations of the backup laws seem to indicate that owning a ROM is legal only if you keep a single copy, created from your cartridge and even with your equipment (as some folks say).

Don't worry! That new law that allows bypassing obsolete encryption schemes makes emulation completely legal! ;)

--Zero

[Querjek]

I thought there was a law stating that if you own a copy of the game and the game is no longer produced then it is legal to own a ROM of it (Back me up here, people)?
That would make like 1/2 of my ROMs legal, the rest are mostly non-US-released games.

[farfel]

Downloading ROMS caused me to buy GBA games (Puyo Pop/Driller) that I would have never known about. It helped the industry rather than hurt them.

[Captain Wrong]

AFAIK there is NO such thing as the 24 hour rule. It's something someone concocted out of thin air.

Man, someone with some legal smarts REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to write a definitive FAQ on the legality of ROMS. There's just so much "urban legend" type stuff surrounding this. No one really knows what is what.

[Arcade Antics]

Seems like this thread would be more at home in the emulation forum...

>>>SLIDE<<<

[Flack]

Right up there with the "24 Hour Rule" is the whole "Abandonware" scene. These are the people that claim that "x" amount of time after a program has been released (or a company has disbanded) that it's legal to copy and distribute their software.

I actually did some research into this while writing an article for RCN (Reality Check Network) which also ran in COW (Classic OldWarez). I tracked down the current company which through buyouts acquired the right to all the classic Epyx games. My question to them was simple: Is it legal to distribute Epyx's Summer Games for the Commodore 64, released in 1983. Their answer was "no, that was piracy and we will pursue any violators of this law." Now obviously that part's not true, as a simple Google search turns up hundreds of copies of that particular program, but in their opinion, those people were and are violating the law.

The same laws that cover books cover software. I believe that any piece of intellectual property is automatically covered for 75 years by current copyright laws. So unless you're downloading software that's more than 75 years old, you're breaking the law.

The biggest problem with discussing abandonware and roms is narrowing down exactly what you're talking about. Are you discussing the legality, or the morality? If you've read enough of these threads, they tend to separate into "is it legal" and "should it be legal".

Here is a great article I bookmarked dealing with the legality of both abandonware and roms.

http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature=7/section=21/

[Ze_ro]

Downloading ROMS caused me to buy GBA games (Puyo Pop/Driller) that I would have never known about. It helped the industry rather than hurt them.

The problem is that for everyone like you, there are five others who are content to just emulate the system on their computer and not buy a GBA or software at all. THAT hurts the industry.

It's really hard to judge any amount of damage to the industry though. The vast majority of the roms I have are either for games that I simply haven't found, or games that I wouldn't have bought in the first place. That still doesn't make it "right" of course, but saying that I'm "hurting" the arcade market by downloading and emulating NeoGeo games that are not available in my town's arcades is a little bit of an oversimplification.


I tracked down the current company which through buyouts acquired the right to all the classic Epyx games.

Who was it? I thought Atari got all the rights after they bought out Epyx... of course, there have been other buyouts along the way, but I would have assumed "the company formerly known as Infogrames" would have the rights.

--Zero

[Flack]

According to this page (http://www.fomalhaut.de/c64.shtml), Epyx was bought by Bridgestone Multimedia, a company specializing in Christian software. Some of the licenses were bought by Atari (which were later transfered to Hasbro), the rest were retained by Bridgestone. The last time I checked they had a website online (www.bridgestonemultimedia.com), but I just checked it and it appears to be gone.

[Richter]

AFAIK there is NO such thing as the 24 hour rule. It's something someone concocted out of thin air.I believe that "rule" was used so rom sites would get more hits

ya know, delete it then keep returning to the same place to dl it, rinse & repeat

personally, emulation of existing games & hadware is a no-no, you can easily find those at most stores. But things like Atari games or SMS games cant be found for sale at some Wal-Mart

[Ze_ro]

Epyx was bought by Bridgestone Multimedia

Oh yeah, that's right... they also have the rights to all the 2600 Starpath/Arcadia games too from what I recall.

--Zero

[kainemaxwell]

Man, someone with some legal smarts REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to write a definitive FAQ on the legality of ROMS. There's just so much "urban legend" type stuff surrounding this. No one really knows what is what.

Ya know alot of us together could possibly pull that kind of FAQ off.

[Sanada78]

I only think downloading games that are currently commercially sold still such as GBA ROMs to be truly illegal. Although downloading Atari, SMS, NES, SNES and all the other (almost) obsolete consoles is still illegal, what does it matter? The systems aren't made anymore as well as the games so the companies aren't loosing any revenue from piracy.

Plus the fact one that one day, getting a hold of a legitimate game you want will be much harder, if not impossible, so it sort of preserves the games from vanishing from existence.

You can read the article at SMS Power about it: http://www.smspower.org/smsreader/faq.html (At the bottom of the page)

To answer the original question, yeah, deleting ROMs in 24 hours is a load of BS some twit made up. To think people will actually delete them is a dumb way to think it will stop it. Do you see anywhere it says "Download this song but delete it in 24 hours"?

[Ze_ro]

Although downloading Atari, SMS, NES, SNES and all the other (almost) obsolete consoles is still illegal, what does it matter? The systems aren't made anymore as well as the games so the companies aren't loosing any revenue from piracy.

Well, in theory, it might affect sales of their classic compilations, like "Intellivision Lives", "Atari Anniversary Edition", and all those 10-in-1 hook-to-TV systems that they're selling now. I don't know how much it affects things, but the point is that a lot of these companies are still selling these games in some form or another.

--Zero

[Flack]

Man, someone with some legal smarts REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to write a definitive FAQ on the legality of ROMS. There's just so much "urban legend" type stuff surrounding this. No one really knows what is what.

Ya know alot of us together could possibly pull that kind of FAQ off.

The thing is, there's no point in it. The people who really want to know the answer can find it in Google. The rest of them don't care.

[zektor]

Whenever I play a rom I make SURE I'm ready with the delete key at 23:59 hours! LOL

[Jorpho]

AFAIK there is NO such thing as the 24 hour rule. It's something someone concocted out of thin air.

Man, someone with some legal smarts REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to write a definitive FAQ on the legality of ROMS. There's just so much "urban legend" type stuff surrounding this. No one really knows what is what.

Maybe it's not too up to date anymore, but I like to refer people to http://www.overclocked.org/emufaq/EmuFAQ_index.htm .

I once thought that maybe it was OK if I simply didn't use the ROM for more than 24 hours (and I don't usually).

[rbudrick]

There's really no need for an FAQ. It's really very simple, and these are the true facts, no maybes:

-You may own a backup of any software you own an original copy of.

-You may not own a backup of any software you do not own a backup of.

-The 24 hour rule is made up. Much like urban legend, it spread like wildfire in the 90s.

-You can not give backups to people of software they do not own

-The legality of *downloading* a backup of software you own is technically legal (because the law doesnt really even account for it), but is really a grey area. It's like this: Say you want to back up your software for security reasons and you don't know how. If someone else who is capable of doing this does it for you, and gives it to you, should that be illegal? No, it shouldn't. They merely provided a service for you. The majority has no clue how to back up their game sotware. The problem with this arises (the grey area) when the guy who copied it for you doesn't own *your* original, so he has no right to copy it. If he TOO owns an original, then he may make a copy of it, provided he doesn't have a backup already. You may own exactly 1 backup of your software. Now, you could technically say you GAVE him the software to copy (to keep). He merely copied it, decided he didn't want it and gave it back, copy included.

That is basically how ROM sites continue to function; If any rom site owner actually owns the originals of the roms he posts on his site, he is free to do so, provided a legal disclaimer telling people to download only the files they own the originals for is present on the site.

It's as "simple" as that.

-Rob