Even if that is legal (it isnt), but it will be circumvention of encryption at worst and recreation of protected algorithms, code and keys in a non-nintendo product at best ( and thats before talking about game cartridge content ).
Last i checked that is still illegal hehe
I am not a lawyer, but I have talked to lawyers about this before and their answer was basically:
The owner of a copy of a game or other computer software may “make or authorize the making of another copy.” Legally speaking, the law does not require the person who owns the copy to personally make the backup copy, nor does it specify that the backup copy be made only from the copy owned.
This is important because on Nintendo’s own website they state the following:
Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not […] it is illegal to download […] a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.
What Nintendo is saying here is outright wrong. A person who only has only temporary possession of a game (such as rental or borrowing) gains no rights under 17 USC 117, and may not download a copy without separate permission, which obviously Nintendo would never grant However, A person with permanent possession of a game (such as a legally purchased game either from retail or used) DOES gain those rights to an archival copy. These rights supercede any restriction on those rights Nintendo would presume to apply. Nintendo presumes to add extra conditions and terms that do not actually exist in the law.
The purpose of the archival copy provision is to protect legal owner’s access to the computer software in case of damage. If your copy of a game breaks, such as a broken CD, you have the legal right, as owner of that CD, to continue to use the computer software on that CD no matter its physical condition. An archival copy could then be used to create a working version of that CD so that you, the legal owner of that copy, may continue to access that computer software. This is also the case when access to that software becomes difficult or impossible, such as a game or other computer software that is stored on archaic storage media such as a floppy disk or paper tape.
This is correct, as long as the copy was produced lawfully, which is only possible if no copy protection was circumvented.
Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states: No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
This law was created to limit the rights from 17 USC 117, and yes exceptions to section 103 exist, but those are very specific and some of them even exclude games specifically from the exceptions.
But I am no lawyer, and as a European I only have a very limited view and knowledge of US laws, so yes it is only my understanding of those laws and I could be wrong, so don’t take my words as a legal advice or anything like that. I am only a normal human with some experience with laws and jurisdictions, but far away from a specialist.
What is defined as copy here? Cartridge data (game data, not firmware etc) is encrypted and can only be accessed by a protocol that is like spi, but is proprietary, by a specific chip running nintendo code. Or is a copy a full backup of everything on the chip?
Is the copy a raw copy? Has the data been modified/decrypted/or any algorithm processed it?
These things define wether a copy falls under this or not. Check what the fineprint or laws defines what ’ a copy’ is exactly in this case.
If it doesnt, what i mentioned are important to see if what you said apply here or not.
Like @DarkMetatron said, its only legal if nothing is done with the data. Any decryption using a nintendo key is infact, illegal, and falls under piracy.
This is why dolphin was removed from steam, because they do exactly that. Decrypt the data to use it.
If the process of dumping does any encryption or decryption, you also get in trouble in what they said.
These are the laws, and the lawyer you asked this too must not have been specialised in ip law, copyright and games, or doesnt know the technical details to decide on this.
The mig chip uses a proprietary protocol to send data of a partly, semi decrypted, game image. That will not go well in court, no matter if the rom was obtained legally.
You may have the right to make a backup, but playing that backup on a non sectioned device or via non sectioned means is still a breach of the TOS and breaking the license terms of the game and/or console. Oh and it is in violation of the DMCA as far as I know, because to make the backup it is needed to circumvent copy protection, which is forbidden by the rules of the DMCA (and equal laws in other jurisdictions like Europe). You may own the cartridge, but you still only have a license (with very specific terms and rules) to use the software on it.
Using modified hardware might break other regulations or terms of services, but using a backup copy of a copy you own that hardware is not piracy in several jursidictions. Which is the answer to the question in the comment.
And no, it is specifically not against DMCA to make a backup of media that you physically own. That’s actually a major part of what make self-copied ROMs legal in the US.
Nearly all jurisdictions have DMCA like laws which clearly say that circumventing copy protection is against the law. So in those jurisdictions it is piracy to use a backup of a copy protected game and I am very sure that a map of the countries where the Switch 2 can be officially bought and a map with countries who have thoses laws will produce a lot of matches. Maybe I am wrong, but I highly doubt it.
One thing Phil Spencer does not seem to care about is emulation. There are already Xbox and PlayStation emulators that allow access to more of both platforms back catalogues than any of the current generation consoles are capable of…
Xbox could build cloud based emulators off the open source tools already available and make their entire Xbox back catalogue accessible to current users to stream. They could help improve the tools to ensure greater and greater compatibility for titles and then it would be there forever.
The reason it doesn’t happen is money. They dont see money in game preservation so they dont bother beyond a few big name nostalgia hits. Muse AI isn’t about game preservation, its about game development - they’re just pissing around with game preservation to feed it content as a punt on the future for it somehow making game development cheaper.
I can’t say I buy this fully. From a marketkng standpoint, it seems like a huge win: “Subscribe to game pass ultimate and you get thousands of games old and new, up by thousands from last year”. From a financial standpoint, running those emulators should be a lot less compute heavy than current games so it should be cheaper.
The only real issue I see here is legal. Licensing the rights to distribute the games via streaming for their entire back catalogue can’t be easy.
AI techbros will have you believe that you can solve world hunger, cure cancer, and colonize Mars with a few prompts on ChatGPT.
Yet their AI is still incapable of answering two prompts consecutively without making shit up, or drawing a human without turning it into an eldritch abomination.
Game preservation could be fixed with open source emulators and fixing copyright laws so that I’m allowed to download a game nobody has profited from in two decades, but that’s not appealing to big corporations.
Yeah, instead game preservation is being solved by abandonware and copyright infringement.
Legal open source software is doing the heavy lifting, and then torrenting is sharing by he files. But there is a huge risk as there is no safety net to preserve the niche and unpopular games.
The game publishers and broken copyright laws are blocks to preservation but fortunately people are just doing it anyway. And the more the big companies push against it (including targeting emulation systems for current systems) the more they push it underground and out of any control they might have had. Typical greed and stupidity.
AI techbros will have you believe that you can solve world hunger, cure cancer
And yet they don’t. Well, we already know how to solve world hunger. Just not a willingness.
Researchers are using AI as an additional tool for discovering new drugs, but the techbros and pharmabros are going to be over charging for any new cures even if they become cheaper to discover.
techdirt.com
Aktywne