The Internet Arcade: a web-based library of arcade video games


Magic Sam

Forever Homebrew
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Hi all,

People from The Internet Archive have been working on some interesting stuff recently :)

[SIZE=90%]The Internet Arcade is a web-based library of arcade (coin-operated) video games from the 1970s through to the 1990s, emulated in JSMAME, part of the JSMESS software package. Containing hundreds of games ranging through many different genres and styles, the Arcade provides research, comparison, and entertainment in the realm of the Video Game Arcade. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=90%]  The game collection ranges from early "bronze-age" videogames, with black and white screens and simple sounds, through to large-scale games containing digitized voices, images and music. Most ga mes are playable in some form, although some are useful more for verification of behavior or programming due to the intensity and requirements of their systems. [/SIZE]
See here for more information.

Cheers, Magic Sam
 
Maybe it's because they are on many online-news-sites these days. I read alot about this project but so far I was not be able to reach the site at all. I would like to know if an how these games run onto the Pandora Firefox.  :)
 
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Well slap with me with a trout and call me Sally, Archive.org somehow managed to make abandonware legal.

I suspect that it's a lot more complicated than just "this game is old, you can play it here for free" but if they've got the connections to influence laws then I'm sure they've got lawyers making sure they're following the law to the letter.
 
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Question is: If you implement the archive.org list into an Emulator which downloads the Rom when you want to play it and deletes it afterwards - would that be legal?
 
That's what I assume they've had their lawyers making sure about. They wouldn't do it unless they were sure about it.
 
Assuming that is actually the case, i dont think making it into another project constitutes fair use. I havent read up here, but lets say i give out a set of videos for free, you cant give it out for free on a different service, because i still retain copyright.

Has the copyright somehow expired on these things, or is it a per-game license they have gotten?

Back in the days the music was typically owned by the guy who did it, so to do anything with it you have to talk to all of them, luckily it wasnt as many people back then.

Edit: I trawled through it, and didnt find anything, but i think if they have a system set up to stream the original game and bios to the user under the impression that the user owns the original system and game then its ok. And/or its a technical preview, which would be a lesser use to the full ordeal, and potentially within fair use.

That thing where users could collectivly play pokemon was some sort of similar thing, the part where its the setup of the person who owns it that set it up is legal though. I think some games reserve themselves from being streamed, dont know.
 
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Has the copyright somehow expired on these things, or is it a per-game license they have gotten?
No, per the wikipedia article it seems there's a DMCA exception for "archiving" old and unsupported games under certain conditions.It's still copyright infringement but it's legal copyright infringement, somehow. I'm assuming they've got a lot of well paid lawyers on this stuff making sure they're following the letter of the law since they were able to influence the law in the first place.
 
Hmm, I wonder...

If I include, for example, TOSEC-Download from Archive.org into the Colecovision and Intellivision emulator... asking the user whether to download and install the TOSEC-Collection from Archive.org... what would happen?
 
The Archive also has whole ROM packs, TOSEC packs, etc, up for download; MAME CHD files, the works.. for about a year now or more.

If they had a legal issue, I'd have assumed all that woudl go away.. but sdtill there.

Go ahead, pull down big Amiga collections, etc, its all up there.

(They do try to step around some how button Nintendo properties though ;)

Still.. its rather crazy; people dont' know they can go and presumably legally download all this stuff. you don't need TPB, just hit up archive.org :)

This rather seems an extension of that, but with a really slow (though impressive) javascript emu; really, the C->js compilers out there are astounding, but they still run like hell compared to native :)

jeff
 
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