Emulators, Roms, and dilemma?

[Jared2914]

If the games are no longer in production, it is venial sin at most. While not as serious as mortal sin, we are still to avoid venial sin because it can set us on the path to mortal sin. Since this is just a hobby of yours there is no real “need” for you to do this, so I recommend you to stop using ROMs. In my own life, my parents wouldn’t get me a SNES, so I used ROMs to play all the big hits in high school and college. Once I got a little older though, I realized it was wrong and deleted all the ROMs and emulators. Now I only play games I have purchased. Note that only copyrighted ROMs are illegal. Emulators with “homebrew” ROMs are perfectly legal.

 

[Echoes_of_Me]

If the games are no longer in production, it is venial sin at most. While not as serious as mortal sin, we are still to avoid venial sin because it can set us on the path to mortal sin. Since this is just a hobby of yours there is no real “need” for you to do this, so I recommend you to stop using ROMs. In my own life, my parents wouldn’t get me a SNES, so I used ROMs to play all the big hits in high school and college. Once I got a little older though, I realized it was wrong and deleted all the ROMs and emulators. Now I only play games I have purchased. Note that only copyrighted ROMs are illegal. Emulators with “homebrew” ROMs are perfectly legal.

How is it even a venial sin? What crime is being committed? (besides the obvious, simple old breaking the law, which doesn’t necessitate immorality as the law could be evil and in this case is evil.)

 

[Alex_Heartnet]

If the games are no longer in production, it is venial sin at most.

How is it sin? The video game industry no longer works off of capitalism. Instead, it has become a donator-supported industry with the pretense of selling a product. Under the old paradigm it could be considered sin because it would be disrupting the social order for no reason other then personal gain. However, any society changes over time, and the emergence of new technology accelerates the process.

Nowadays the role of a publisher is three-fold. First, to highlight which works are worthy of attention. Second, to make sure works are properly made available. And third, to make sure the money actually reaches the artists

All too often publishers fail at these things, which makes donating money to the artist(s) who made it impossible. At this point downloading a copy couldn’t even be considered piracy because there was no potential sale to begin with. Abandonware sites become the fallback option in this case.

The "pirates’ you often meet online tend to be reasonable, intelligent people. They talk about solutions, while people arguing in favor of copyright tend to talk about problems. Intelligent pro-copyright arguments do exist, but they are surprisingly hard to find. I’m sure there’s some jerk out there that just wants to leech off of torrents and artists alike, but that negative mindset is much more prevalent among supporters of copyright law.

Since this is just a hobby of yours there is no real “need” for you to do this

Indeed, there is no real “need” to do anything in this world. However, once one’s obligations to society are met, people look for something fulfilling to do for the remainder of their time.

Once I got a little older though, I realized it was wrong and deleted all the ROMs and emulators. Now I only play games I have purchased.

Most likely you couldn’t even find a SNES for sale by then, which is why you had to turn to downloading in the first place. I assume by now that you (hopefully!) have a steady job and a regular source of income that you can use to help fund your favorite artists, so therefore you favor buying stuff outright.

Note that only copyrighted ROMs are illegal. Emulators with “homebrew” ROMs are perfectly legal.

I have no way of knowing this without reading through copyright law in its entirety and reading any and all changes made to said law… Copyright has become so convoluted that I won’t even know where to begin - not that I really care about such a broken set of laws in the first place. If it’s impossible to know the rules, then breaking them becomes inevitable.

 

[Echoes_of_Me]

The "pirates’ you often meet online tend to be reasonable, intelligent people. They talk about solutions, while people arguing in favor of copyright tend to talk about problems. Intelligent pro-copyright arguments do exist, but they are surprisingly hard to find. I’m sure there’s some jerk out there that just wants to leech off of torrents and artists alike, but that negative mindset is much more prevalent among supporters of copyright law.

*There are only two reasonable arguments I have heard for copyright. Both involved massive changes to the law. The first argument is to set the law back to it’s original form of only protecting dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference books. Those books would be very hard pressed to survive without the protection (admittedly some survived for a long time previously… and ), although in the technology age, I would disagree and say that they can survive online easily(note wikipedia). I would also say that the quality of the dictionaries would improve vastly without the law or only the best would survive because I believe the the quality of some of the books has declined.The second is complete overhaul of the system to make things hit the public domain (full and free use for everyone) a lot faster. *

Most likely you couldn’t even find a SNES for sale by then, which is why you had to turn to downloading in the first place. I assume by now that you (hopefully!) have a steady job and a regular source of income that you can use to help fund your favorite artists, so therefore you favor buying stuff outright.

*I managed to grab one recently in very good condition for $100. Many of the best games are not cheap if bought used. A new game tends to cost $100’s or even 1000’s. Used games are not guaranteed to work and can also go for 100’s if rare. Some rare games have gone for tens of thousands of dollars, most of those are NES, not SNES though. My second SNES in my possession is broken. It does take some special knowledge and money to repair used devices and games. I have found that many of the old cartridge games and system require significant maintenance work. Most of the damage is admittedly from blowing into the cartridge to “clean” it. It might make the game work for the short term, but it kills them in the long term. We all blew into the cartridges, so most of them are damaged(but often reparable). Most recently I had a cartridge entirely eroded on the inside, but I have it working again. These older systems require proper storage too, which is often denied. I have a Sega Genesis that i picked up for about $10 on my worktable scheduled for work that probably has 6 ounces of dust in it. All of it’s access points are crammed with dust, I’m not sure if this one is salvageable. Repairing systems can cost a lot of money and time. *

I have no way of knowing this without reading through copyright law in its entirety and reading any and all changes made to said law… Copyright has become so convoluted that I won’t even know where to begin - not that I really care about such a broken set of laws in the first place. If it’s impossible to know the rules, then breaking them becomes inevitable.

James Boyle’s The Public Domain is a good place to start. It is a criticism of Copyright law. I haven’t finished the book yet, but so far it is pretty good. I believe it offers some solutions for reform. However, in it’s current state, nearly everyone in this thread likely breaks the law every day.

 

[Jared2914]

How is it sin? The video game industry no longer works off of capitalism. Instead, it has become a donator-supported industry with the pretense of selling a product. Under the old paradigm it could be considered sin because it would be disrupting the social order for no reason other then personal gain. However, any society changes over time, and the emergence of new technology accelerates the process.

Nowadays the role of a publisher is three-fold. First, to highlight which works are worthy of attention. Second, to make sure works are properly made available. And third, to make sure the money actually reaches the artists

All too often publishers fail at these things, which makes donating money to the artist(s) who made it impossible. At this point downloading a copy couldn’t even be considered piracy because there was no potential sale to begin with. Abandonware sites become the fallback option in this case.

Even if the game is not in production anymore, it is likely still copyrighted. I know some people believe these laws are unjust, which they use with church doctrine to give themselves permission to ignore this law. To me, limiting what content people are allowed to consume is not morally evil, so the unjust law doctrine does not apply. Ultimately, your decision should be left up to your confessor. If he says it’s okay, not a venial sin at all, go ahead. If he says you should stop, you should follow that direction. Of course, when the copyrights expire, people are free to play these games. As others have said though, that takes decades, and the video game industry is still very young.

The "pirates’ you often meet online tend to be reasonable, intelligent people. They talk about solutions, while people arguing in favor of copyright tend to talk about problems. Intelligent pro-copyright arguments do exist, but they are surprisingly hard to find. I’m sure there’s some jerk out there that just wants to leech off of torrents and artists alike, but that negative mindset is much more prevalent among supporters of copyright law.

People are free to have their own opinions and arguments about the issue, but unless the law is change, they are obligated to follow the law.

Indeed, there is no real “need” to do anything in this world. However, once one’s obligations to society are met, people look for something fulfilling to do for the remainder of their time.

I do agree people need something fulfilling to do with their time, but there are many other fulfilling activities that are also legal.

Most likely you couldn’t even find a SNES for sale by then, which is why you had to turn to downloading in the first place. I assume by now that you (hopefully!) have a steady job and a regular source of income that you can use to help fund your favorite artists, so therefore you favor buying stuff outright.

Most of the popular SNES games are now available through legit means, namely the Virtual Console on modern Nintendo consoles. If there is a legal way to access and play the game, the copyright still stands.

I have no way of knowing this without reading through copyright law in its entirety and reading any and all changes made to said law… Copyright has become so convoluted that I won’t even know where to begin - not that I really care about such a broken set of laws in the first place. If it’s impossible to know the rules, then breaking them becomes inevitable.

That’s never a good excuse. If I’m travelling in a foreign country, does that give me the right to speed because I don’t know their speed limit is lower than my own country? No. Just because a person doesn’t know the law doesn’t give them a free pass.

I hope that clarifies my opinions. Feel free to reply, but this is my last post in this thread.

 

[ErCaiman]

Even if the game is not in production anymore, it is likely still copyrighted. I know some people believe these laws are unjust, which they use with church doctrine to give themselves permission to ignore this law. To me, limiting what content people are allowed to consume is not morally evil, so the unjust law doctrine does not apply. Ultimately, your decision should be left up to your confessor. If he says it’s okay, not a venial sin at all, go ahead. If he says you should stop, you should follow that direction. Of course, when the copyrights expire, people are free to play these games. As others have said though, that takes decades, and the video game industry is still very young.

People mentioned it taking 75 years, while it IS decades, IIRC that time is what hte legal system could also be calling a “lifetime”.

People are free to have their own opinions and arguments about the issue, but unless the law is change, they are obligated to follow the law.

So just because there’s a law that says you can’t do something because it is supposed to protect someone’s else right of
REally if you had to follow laws like that just because they’re laws regardless of whatever point they could have then don’t even bring jaywalking or domestical playing, or maybe people who use airplanes with ailerons (which could mean a LOT of them), maybe also when performing “Happy birthday” or *brings out long list of laws people sometimes break without even noticing or something*

I do agree people need something fulfilling to do with their time, but there are many other fulfilling activities that are also legal.

While there might be others, however, it still doesn’t not solve the problem of a person’s predisposition to have a certain interest.

Most of the popular SNES games are now available through legit means, namely the Virtual Console on modern Nintendo consoles. If there is a legal way to access and play the game, the copyright still stands.

Not all of them, what about the rest?

 

[Alex_Heartnet]

To me, limiting what content people are allowed to consume is not morally evil, so the unjust law doctrine does not apply.

You are correct, it’s not morally wrong or even ethically wrong - mistakes happen, publishers aren’t aware of everything, and indeed a bit of curation in online distribution is necessary. However, if there’s an interest in a particular work but it is not available through online publishers, then people will turn elsewhere to find it, and once a publisher realizes this then they should make it available.

Ultimately, your decision should be left up to your confessor. If he says it’s okay, not a venial sin at all, go ahead.

This is why I am so hesitant to go to confession.

Most of the popular SNES games are now available through legit means, namely the Virtual Console on modern Nintendo consoles. If there is a legal way to access and play the game, the copyright still stands.

But the money won’t reach the original artists. The money shouldn’t reach the original artists because they should make something new instead. These works belong in the public domain.

Nintendo shouldn’t be allowed to claim ownership over them either. Nintendo has a particularly bad history with copyright misuse, so they aren’t seeing any of my money. Unfortunately, Nintendo used to be a good company and is responsible for the creation of many beloved works. Should Nintendo be allowed to hold this part of cultural heritage hostage?

That’s never a good excuse. If I’m travelling in a foreign country, does that give me the right to speed because I don’t know their speed limit is lower than my own country? No. Just because a person doesn’t know the law doesn’t give them a free pass.

Please recite international, national, and state copyright law in it’s entirety. Otherwise that’s a hypocritical (but sadly common) statement to make.

…No, I don’t know copyright law in it’s entirety because it’s impossible to know copyright law in it’s entirety. I know the supposed justification for copyright - that it ‘protects artists’ - however this justification has proven to be a lie.

I don’t understand the entirety of local speed limit law either, but I understand and agree with the justification and intent of speed limit law. If I get a speeding ticket for speeding, I will just have to accept it. But if I get a speed limit and I am certain that I was driving within the designated limits, I’ll complain. If I get a heavy punishment for a minor infraction of the law, I’ll complain. And if I see one of the latter two happening to someone else, I’ll complain.

 

[ctlw83]

For all those monitoring this thread, you may want to hop over to forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=998914

There is an expanded conversation there, including some game sources that are OK under the DMCA.