Classic videogaming is not dead. Find out how to play your favorites.

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ROMs are the code for the games themselves, so they're like individual cartridges for the emulators, which represent the game consoles. The code is converted into binary and fed through a custom-made device into a PC that turns it into an archive. "Often the cartridge reader and software is strictly a homemade affair, so a ROM archivist has to be very technically inclined," Cassidy says.

Classic videogame sites



The underground nature of ROM making has made this community quite small and as a result not anywhere near as visible as the proliferation of people ripping CDs into MP3s. Although the two forms of digital entertainment are quite different, they share some similarities in the legal ramifications of sharing intellectual property.

"This is a thorny issue," Cassidy says in reference to the legalities of emulators and ROMs. Since emulators are simply reverse-engineered original software that is usually not bundled with ROMs, they are perfectly legal, much like the Gnutella software is considered legal, since it only acts as a conduit.

But the ROMs themselves are a different matter. "The program code of a cartridge or arcade machine is the intellectual property of the game's designers or copyright holders," Cassidy points out. So the act of creating a ROM is permissible by the same laws that allow you to make backup copies of software you own -- an important caveat being that you cannot then sell the ROMs. "Some people sell ROM packages anyway, but this is almost always illegal. Likewise, you cannot legally download a ROM file unless you own the game in another form," Cassidy explains.

However, some intellectual property holders have officially relinquished their rights over their games, and thus these games are considered "free." Examples of this are the arcade game "Robby Roto" and the entire library of the long discontinued Vectrex home console system. In these cases the possibility for profit has long since been abandoned, so why not get the games out there for people to play?

"The issue is legality vs. preservation," Cassidy says. "For every game (e.g. 'Pac-Man') that is still supported by its owners (Hasbro in this case) and has profit potential, there are hundreds of games that would likely never see the light of day again if it weren't for ROM distribution."

Consoles that are ancient in videogame years -- such as the Amstrad CPC computer, the Bally Professional Arcade console, the Turbografx-16, and hundreds of less famous arcade games -- might have simply vanished without the Internet, Cassidy claims. "They would likely disappear forever if people didn't participate in quasi-legal ROM distribution. In these cases, distribution hurts no one's profits (often the companies involved have long since disappeared), so emulation proponents argue what's the harm?"

What's interesting is that in the cases where videogame companies or intellectual property holders have had issues with these quasi-legal ROMs of their games, the sites in question were asked in a friendly manner to remove the ROMs, and they quickly complied. "I am unaware of any legal action being taken against these sites," Cassidy says. "Most of them are perfectly willing to remove the ROMs once they realize that someone actually cares."

It's a sharp contrast to the perceived copyright violations currently obsessing the music industry, which seems intent on wringing every last cent out of what they see as nonpaying freeloaders. It's most definitely a reflection of the makeup of the different communities, and corporations, at play.

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