Dolphin, the Gamecube and Wii emulator is working on a Vulkan backend

That's the problem I have. I was using emulationstation with my Dualshock 4 and playing Contra, Goal 3 and other classics. Then I've heard about Atari Vault and started to think - is there a way to legally buy roms this days? Is there a way to be perfectly sure that you can play this game from the platform that is dead?

That's the problem I have. I was using emulationstation with my Dualshock 4 and playing Contra, Goal 3 and other classics. Then I've heard about Atari Vault and started to think - is there a way to legally buy roms this days? Is there a way to be perfectly sure that you can play this game from the platform that is dead?

Not exactly. You must buy the game and dump the ROM yourself. However, some Steam game collections actually diatribe the ROM file to make playing possible.

Screw the legality. If Nintendo is too shortsighted to recognize me as a customer then they deserve every potential loss of sale that my ROMs have caused. Console manufacturers often enter into contractual agreements with game developers to only develop a game for their consoles, explicitly disallowing its release for PC, to force consumers to buy their consoles in order to play those games. Their whole purpose is to lock consumers into a closed ecosystem and restrict their freedom. This allows console manufacturers to fix prices artificially for their games and peripherals.

@AnxiousInfusion: The thing is, console exclusives are legal and piracy is not, so you might want to take another gander at the GOL rules before posting rants like that. Liam has made it clear that discussions on the ethics or any other aspect of piracy are not welcome.

Screw the legality.

It's very easy to use a Wii with homebrew to make disc images of your legally purchased Wii and Gamecube games. Of course, creating digital copies of physical media for personal use is unfortunately not legal everywhere in the world, but it's not really a lost sale if you keep your physical copies and even bought their hardware.

Skylanders and the Portal on Linux... Anybody knows if it works?
I got a kid that would be really happy to play Skylanders Giants again (CD got sratched and is no longer usable).

@AnxiousInfusion: The thing is, console exclusives are legal and piracy is not, so you might want to take another gander at the GOL rules before posting rants like that. Liam has made it clear that discussions on the ethics or any other aspect of piracy are not welcome.

If GOL wants to be censorious of uncomfortable opinions that sends a stronger message about them than it does me. Piracy is only a satellite issue to my main point that platform exclusives have caused this rift in the first place. Whether or not something is legal does not correlate to it being right or wrong. I believe what I'm doing is a just response to industry's abuse of control. I thought Linux were more nuanced in this kind of thing.

If GOL wants to be censorious of uncomfortable opinions that sends a stronger message about them than it does me.

No, it doesn't.

Piracy is only a satellite issue to my main point that platform exclusives have caused this rift in the first place. Whether or not something is legal does not correlate to it being right or wrong. I believe what I'm doing is a just response to industry's abuse of control.

That's neither here nor there. This is not the right venue for activism. We can (and in this case must) take our issues elsewhere. Liam has made his stance very clear.

Normally I would cede that my posts have nothing to do with with the topic (Vulkan + Dolphin which I am very excited for btw) but the main article discuses the very thing my comments have addressed so I cannot admit that they're unrelated to the topic. Liam invited discussion about piracy with half of the content of this writing. If you don't want people talking about it then don't bring it up in the first place.

For once, I am inviting discussion on it due to my own confusion on the legalities of roms.

That said, I still wont accept people talking up piracy like it's their right.

Discussing it is one thing, talking it up like it's totally acceptable is another.

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.


Last edited by badber on 27 Jun 2016 at 5:36 pm UTC

For once, I am inviting discussion on it due to my own confusion on the legalities of roms.

That said, I still wont accept people talking up piracy like it's their right.

Discussing it is one thing, talking it up like it's totally acceptable is another.

Depending on the country you are in, making a rom (or backup) is not illegal. I believe this is the case for the USA and UK. Acquiring a digital copy of content you do not legally own is illegal.

If you own the content but download another persons backup, then you start moving into the morally grey area. I believe it is illegal in the USA and UK, however a lot of people consider it as acquiring the backup without all the effort.

As for the causes of piracy that is exceptionally varied. Some of the reasons I've heard are:
** People who wish to enjoy content but cannot afford it.
** Children unable to afford it and/or the parent denying it.
** People wish to own content that can no longer be legally acquired.
** Self-entitlement (any non/excuse will do).
** Not on preferred platform.

I'm curious whether the length of copyright (protects the content for 95 to 120 years) has encouraged piracy.

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.

Our rules are available above the comments box with a link, it's in bold, hard to miss.

Nothing against discussing it, but to repeat myself again, we do not accept people talking up piracy like it's their right.

This is a Linux/PC gaming website, we cover mostly commercial games, I don't want to see people talking about ripping developers off.

I feel, however, roms are a different battleground as it's usually from games/systems no longer sold.

Edit: The main thing is, I don't want to read comments about people talking highly about how they pirate, that's the main issue. Simply discussing it reasonably I have zero issues with.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 27 Jun 2016 at 6:10 pm UTC

For once, I am inviting discussion on it due to my own confusion on the legalities of roms.

That said, I still wont accept people talking up piracy like it's their right.

Discussing it is one thing, talking it up like it's totally acceptable is another.

Depending on the country you are in, making a rom (or backup) is not illegal. I believe this is the case for the USA and UK. Acquiring a digital copy of content you do not legally own is illegal.

If you own the content but download another persons backup, then you start moving into the morally grey area. I believe it is illegal in the USA and UK, however a lot of people consider it as acquiring the backup without all the effort.

As for the causes of piracy that is exceptionally varied. Some of the reasons I've heard are:
** People who wish to enjoy content but cannot afford it.
** Children unable to afford it and/or the parent denying it.
** People wish to own content that can no longer be legally acquired.
** Self-entitlement (any non/excuse will do).
** Not on preferred platform.

I'm curious whether the length of copyright (protects the content for 95 to 120 years) has encouraged piracy.

Actually, reading up on it, a private copy was made legal and then quickly re-made illegal in the UK. So in the UK all forms of copying copyrighted content are still illegal, which essentially makes roms illegal in the UK (unless approved or provided by the developer/publisher). That actually makes me really sad to see that the UK is so bloody backwards.

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.

I don't think the site wishes to be seen promoting the use of piracy, however the site has no issue discussing the ethics of piracy. At least that's the impression I got from reading the comments.

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.

This thread has me taking the role of insensitive jerk today but I can't believe what I'm seeing.

"comments that claim we are censoring you will be removed."

"Piracy is not cool, we do not support it and don't want to hear/read about it. Keep it out of our comments. Support developers, buy their games, don't be a dick."

Being told what (not) to say and what (not) to think does not sit well with me. I can respect that GOL strives to just be an outlet of Linux game news and it does a great job at that, but to think this was an open forum of discussion was apparently a mistake.

Actually, reading up on it, a private copy was made legal and then quickly re-made illegal in the UK. So in the UK all forms of copying copyrighted content are still illegal, which essentially makes roms illegal in the UK (unless approved or provided by the developer/publisher). That actually makes me really sad to see that the UK is so bloody backwards.

Unfortunately Dolphin can't read Wii and Gamecube games straight from disc. IIRC as a means of copy protection Nintendo optical discs have to be read backwards. You have to use an actual Wii or a special optical drive to create an ISO and open the file in Dolphin. If it's not legal in your country to make copies of games you physically own, you can only use Dolphin for homebrew games.

For other systems however you could use a device like the Retrode to emulate your cartridge based games without dumping the ROM. I don't think emulators themselves are illegal anywhere, so that's one perfectly legal way to play your retro games on Linux.

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.

I don't think the site wishes to be seen promoting the use of piracy, however the site has no issue discussing the ethics of piracy. At least that's the impression I got from reading the comments.

Pretty much. I just update the rules to this:

-No pirate links (zero tolerance on that!), we do not support piracy, please buy games and support developers. Reasonable discussion about how you feel about piracy is okay, but telling people you happily pirate games and software is not.

I think that's fair enough really?

There are actually rules that forbid simply discussing the ethics of piracy on this site? Wow. That seems... Orwellian.

This thread has me taking the role of insensitive jerk today but I can't believe what I'm seeing.

"comments that claim we are censoring you will be removed."

"Piracy is not cool, we do not support it and don't want to hear/read about it. Keep it out of our comments. Support developers, buy their games, don't be a dick."

Being told what (not) to say and what (not) to think does not sit well with me. I can respect that GOL strives to just be an outlet of Linux game news and it does a great job at that, but to think this was an open forum of discussion was apparently a mistake.

To think that GOL has no moderation is a mistake on anyone's part. The link to our rules has always been there, for all to see.

I am not telling anyone what to say, I am laying out clear rules on what isn't acceptable on my website.

Also, no one is telling anyone what to think, this is what comments and discussions are for, for people to voice opinions and I welcome it. You must however, stay within our rather small set of rules or else it will end up turning into something like 4chan or reddit.

For once, I am inviting discussion on it due to my own confusion on the legalities of roms.

Well, roms also serves a great purpose : cultural materials conservation.
Access to history matters. Even when it comes to culture.

Roms are a great tool for this two objectives.

A great exemple is archive.org for instance; they got huge archives of arcade cabinet roms of the previous century.

For once, I am inviting discussion on it due to my own confusion on the legalities of roms.

Well, roms also serves a great purpose : cultural materials conservation.
Access to history matters. Even when it comes to culture.

Roms are a great tool for this two objectives.

A great exemple is archive.org for instance; they got huge archives of arcade cabinet roms of the previous century.

Oh I fully agree, and I hate UK law in this case.