EmuParadise has removed its entire library of retro game ROMs and ISOs

[Da_Shocker]

Uhm ya'll are way the fuck off topic now.

[goldenband]

I stand corrected. Somehow, A History of Violence was the last movie released for VHS in 2006. Who were these people buying movies on VHS, when Blu-Ray was 1st coming out?

Old people, people with kids, and (believe it or not) mentally disabled people. You can't scratch a VHS tape, and there aren't any menus to navigate or functions you need an easily-lost remote control to access.

BTW it says AHOV was the last major release, but I think there were quite a few smaller/non-debut releases after that.

[Leynos]

Anyone remember HD VHS? Was a stop gap and don't think it was very popular. They cam in silver plastic clamshell cases and went up to 1080i I think.

[Silanda]

Anyone remember HD VHS? Was a stop gap and don't think it was very popular. They cam in silver plastic clamshell cases and went up to 1080i I think.

I was aware of its existence, but I don't think HD capable D-VHS recorders or pre-recorded tapes were released in the UK.

[parallaxscroll]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3296...servation.html

Nintendo's ridiculous war on ROMs threatens gaming history
The emulation community plays a crucial role in preserving gaming's history.

Games need to be preserved
It’s hard to care about Nintendo’s bottom line when the stakes are the entire industry's historical record though—which brings us to the heart of the issue, game preservation.

It’s ironic that a digital industry is so terrible at preserving its history. Digital is forever, right? It’s just 1s and 0s, immutable code, ageless. Archiving film or ancient documents or whatever, the problems are physical—celluloid rotting or catching fire, paper succumbing to moisture or falling apart under harsh lights.

But games? The problem is nobody cared. Or not that nobody cared, but that so few companies cared, and that they continue to not care. The situation’s gotten slightly better in the last decade or so, with remasters and remakes like Crash Bandicoot and Baldur’s Gate II and Homeworld and System Shock reviving classics for a modern audience.

Remasters cost money though, and are (understandably) meant to make money. Thus we get the one-percent—the games so notorious or so beloved they’ll sell a second, a third, or even a fourth time. They're important games, don’t get me wrong. It’s fantastic that Shadow of the Colossus can still resonate with people in 2018 the way it did in 2005. I never would’ve guessed.

It's still a self-selecting history though—like buying one of those “Greatest Hits of the ‘80s” CDs and thinking it’s representative of the era. Left to publishers, we will only get Mario and Skyrim and BioShock and so on.

There’s so much more though—thousands of games, spanning eight console generations and multiple PC platforms, and Nintendo’s actions have endangered all of it. Sure, Nintendo is happy to sell you your fifth copy of Super Mario World or whatever, but what about Shadowrun for the SNES? Tell me where I can buy a legal copy of that. Or how about Secret of Evermore?

Emulation saved these games for decades, and nobody’s stepped up with an alternative. Not Nintendo, not anyone. If emulation persists, it’s because of a failure on the part of the actual rights-holders, not the audience. Movie and music piracy dropped after the advent of Netflix and Spotify. The convenience of GOG.com wooed countless PC pirates, including myself, from downloading what we used to call “abandonware."

But GOG.com still covers a mere sliver, and only PC games for the most part. You won't find old NES or SNES games there—not to mention platforms Nintendo doesn’t control. The company that currently calls itself Atari is happy to put out collections of certain top-tier games, but again it’s the core one percent of “classics” people remember. And what about games for the Vectrex? The TurboGrafx? No corporation is saving those. No corporation is bothering with reissues.

[Team Andromeda]

Well I don't where you're going with all of that. I was a kid of the 80's so I lived when VCR's where the dominant tech for every living room. I think I already explained that I didn't make much use of it for recording things, and my family would record soap operas and talk shows when we weren't at home. I said that everyone assumed it was legal since everyone was buying their own VCR's. I don't know what you would have found so objectionable in whatever I said.

Yeah, That was the same for me and I too can't really work out what was the objection to what we were saying...

Anyway... I didn't get a VHS at first. My mum used to rent one of those Philips VR2020 VCR's from the shop and we were totally happy with that until Superman III came out on the VHS rental market and just kept on to mum to buy or rent on a VHS system, so I could watch it. So my mum managed to get buy a Mitsubishi VCR with a 'wired' remote control and we rented Space Hunter and Superman III from our local Vidoe rental store, and never looked back. VHS was huge, everyone I knew had one, rented VHS's and taped off the TV; no one saw it as wrong at all and just did it. Only years latter one would read, you weren't meant to tape BBC but I'n sure even that, was a scare story.

[Mega Drive Bowlsey]

MrMatthews' point was that it was NEVER legal to use your VHS recorder to pirate films, but it WAS perfectly legal for an individual to record films and TV shows and watch them in the privacy of their own home. Not sure why that was so misunderstood. Piracy has NEVER been legal.

[Team Andromeda]

MrMatthews' point was that it was NEVER legal to use your VHS recorder to pirate films, but it WAS perfectly legal for an individual to record films and TV shows and watch them in the privacy of their own home. Not sure why that was so misunderstood. Piracy has NEVER been legal.

But in his link, the Film corps weren't talking the likes of SONY to court about people using 2 VHS videos recorders to Pirate films (hell back then people could just about afford one,. and in the 90s tech was invented to help stop the process that was put into the Tape itself). It was more about the ability to record films and content off the TV, the films studios even had worries about VHS films being sold at retail and that how no one would go to the pictures. Mind you Amstrad did bring out the Double Decker VHS were made privting videos from your rental store, so easy lol

And I still believe in UK law, even if you have copies you will not face prosecution if you can prove its only for your personal use and all that will happen is the copies will be destroyed.

[MrMatthews]

This entire worthless exchange only happened because I stated that it has always been illegal to copy media that some company is trying to sell you (music, books, movies, games, etc). For some reason you thought that this was disputable and you keep bringing up how people were recording television shows. That's not the same goddam thing, because no one was trying to sell you those programs.

You should really read this whole article on the history of video cassettes, but here's a relevant snippet ... and good day, sir.

MrMatthews' point was that it was NEVER legal to use your VHS recorder to pirate films, but it WAS perfectly legal for an individual to record films and TV shows and watch them in the privacy of their own home. Not sure why that was so misunderstood. Piracy has NEVER been legal.

But in his link, the Film corps weren't talking the likes of SONY to court about people using 2 VHS videos recorders to Pirate films ... It was more about the ability to record films and content off the TV

Bowsley, I’m trying to make good on my promise to drop this conversation, but TA is about to make my head explode.

The pieces are all right here, can you show these to him and maybe ask him why he’s so goddam dense?

[Sik]

MrMatthews' point was that it was NEVER legal to use your VHS recorder to pirate films, but it WAS perfectly legal for an individual to record films and TV shows and watch them in the privacy of their own home. Not sure why that was so misunderstood. Piracy has NEVER been legal.

For the record, I'm pretty sure that recording TV to do timeshift is also technically illegal. The question is whether it falls into fair use or not... but it's a defense you have to actively assert in court, and not every country has the concept of fair use either.

The idea of timeshifting being illegal can be certainly argued to be ridiculous, though. Copyright tends to lean towards too broad.

[BonusKun]

Bowsley, I’m trying to make good on my promise to drop this conversation, but TA is about to make my head explode.

The pieces are all right here, can you show these to him and maybe ask him why he’s so goddam dense?

Allow me.


TA you're doing that thing again where you're not grasping the conversation. Please step back and carefully read what is being said to you ok?

[Ecco]

Well for my part, I apologize for whatever seemed objectionable re: VCR's; I think the conversation seemed to have lost the forest for the trees.

Anyway yes piracy has always been illegal.

But one thing I said was that back when VCR's were dominant, nobody in my part of the globe seemed to think there was any moral issue or legal issue in copying or taping media, in general. Including music, as well as TV and movies. Nobody around here thought of it as illegal or immoral.

Like I mentioned copying my friend's music tape, and I never thought of any controversy about it. After all, each stereo came ready to copy tapes and radio.

For VCR's, I hear you guys saying that it was always legal to copy TV for personal use, but I doubt it is that clear-cut. I'd expect most TV-copying to be technically illegal (although I could be wrong on that).

But even if it is true that copying TV is legal: Even then, it can get ambiguous, such as taping a movie off of HBO or something. Everyone seems to agree that straight copying movies is illegal and wrong, but if TV recording is OK, then copying movies off TV would be... illegal?

I'd expect technically it was always illegal to tape TV shows in common usage too, but it was like a part of tech culture that was accepted during that time.

[MrMatthews]

Well for my part, I apologize for whatever seemed objectionable re: VCR's; I think the conversation seemed to have lost the forest for the trees.

Anyway yes piracy has always been illegal.

But one thing I said was that back when VCR's were dominant, nobody in my part of the globe seemed to think there was any moral issue or legal issue in copying or taping media, in general. Including music, as well as TV and movies. Nobody around here thought of it as illegal or immoral.

Like I mentioned copying my friend's music tape, and I never thought of any controversy about it. After all, each stereo came ready to copy tapes and radio.

For VCR's, I hear you guys saying that it was always legal to copy TV for personal use, but I doubt it is that clear-cut. I'd expect most TV-copying to be technically illegal (although I could be wrong on that).

But even if it is true that copying TV is legal: Even then, it can get ambiguous, such as taping a movie off of HBO or something. Everyone seems to agree that straight copying movies is illegal and wrong, but if TV recording is OK, then copying movies off TV would be... illegal?

I'd expect technically it was always illegal to tape TV shows in common usage too, but it was like a part of tech culture that was accepted during that time.

Ecco, sorry for being aggressive, I was getting more and more irritated by the direction the conversation was taking.

The article I dug up for Team Andromeda said that the supreme court officially declared it legal to record television programs, as it (at the time) didn't interfere with anyone's business.

Everything else, I imagine, fell under the umbrella of "Look folks, it's illegal. Let's not complicate matters," but of course everyone did it. Pretty sure you would only be at risk for legal action if you were one of the assholes selling copied movies at the flea market.

That's a very good question about recording a movie off the TV. I would guess it would be ... legal? There must be some loophole there because of all the commercial breaks and the "edited-for-television-ness."

[Ecco]

^I think the fact that the Supreme Court was even considering the issue is evidence that... It's an absolutely ambiguous issue. I think the court ruled according to common-sense, and common usage, of the time.

However, I think technically it would all be illegal to copy just about anything. It just seems like it was such a part of entertainment & tech culture that nobody wanted to challenge it.

But if you think about it from the perspective of TV corporations: I think if the executives were directly asked, then really none of them would be in favor of anyone recording their media, even in the days of VCR's.

And technically it must all have been illegal to copy Seinfeld, or copy the news, or Oprah, soap operas, etc.

That's my hunch anyway.

The difference is that the culture changed, from embracing media copying, to creating a moral and legal argument against it, sometime in the early 2000's.

The internet changed the scale but it's still essentially the same thing (besides scale) which everyone used to think was cool back in the days of VCR's and tape players.

The moral element of intrinsic right or wrongness, is what really seems absurd to me lol.

[xoddf2]

But if you think about it from the perspective of TV corporations: I think if the executives were directly asked, then really none of them would be in favor of anyone recording their media, even in the days of VCR's.

This is from the early 2000s, but that seems to be the case:

Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.

Also, back in the day, some television stations had this disclaimer (wording varied) in their signoffs:

Programs broadcast by this station may not be used for any purpose except exhibition at the time of broadcast on receivers of the type ordinarily used for home reception in places where no admission, cover, or operating charges are made.

There was also this testimony in the aforementioned Sony v. Universal:

Some public stations, as well as commercial stations, program the Neighborhood at hours when some children cannot use it... I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the Neighborhood off-the-air, and I'm speaking for the Neighborhood because that's what I produce, that they then become much more active in the programming of their family's television life. Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others. My whole approach in broadcasting has always been "You are an important person just the way you are. You can make healthy decisions." Maybe I'm going on too long, but I just feel that anything that allows a person to be more active in the control of his or her life, in a healthy way, is important.

Back on topic: Maybe I'm going on too long (to quote Mr Rogers above), but others in this thread have already mentioned the YouTube issue, but I wonder what the gaming companies think of Twitch, whose main use is to stream video games.