[wplug] old PC games?

[Rick Reynolds]

Patrick Wagstrom wrote:
> Jason Jerome wrote:
>> I'm surprised no one mentioned the various emulators out there yet.  I 
>> recently hooked up a retired pc to my tv and play a bunch of games on 
>> it.  It helped that my parents never let me buy another system after 
>> our Atari 2600, so a lot of these games are still new to me.
>>
>> The one thing I would recommend is buying a USB converter for 
>> whichever game controller you have (or find at Goodwill).  I bought a 
>> PS2 -to-USB converter and use a PS2 controller for all my games.  It 
>> hands-down beats any computer "gamepad" I've ever had.
> 
> On reason why you haven't much discussion of emulators is because the 
> way that most people use them is illegal.  Downloading roms is never 
> legal unless you're getting them from an authorized source.  StarRoms 
> tried to build a legal business model around this, but folded.  It's 
> questionable whether or not using a cartridge dumper is legal or not, as 
> the variation on copyright law has not be fully tested in the courts. 
> Despite the fact that many roms are no longer published, and the vendors 
> may have long since disappeared, that doesn't grant them status of 
> "abandonware" or anything like that.  The fact is that every creative 
> work since 1976 is under copyright, which means that only the copyright 
> holder has the right to reproduction.  Just because you have an item on 
> one media, doesn't mean you can download it.  That's why it's still 
> illegal to download ripped DVDs even if you own the DVD.  It's up to the 
> courts and government to carve exceptions out.


This nuance of copyright law interests me.  Can you point me to some 
sites or articles that discuss it a bit more fully?

I'm not interested in rehashing (with obligatory arguing and flaming) 
copyright issues again in a list.  But I would like to do some more 
reading on it for myself, if possible.

Thanks,
Rick Reynolds
-- 
  "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it 
would be a merrier world." -- Thorin Oakenshield