Another famous site bites the dust, it was reported today (I am not going to mention its name). But... that isn't the worst part of the story.
Look at this drivel written by the admins (in bold):
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Copyright infringement laws vary from country to country, but the premise in a nutshell is that copyright infringement is the cause of monetary loss or damage to the copyright holder. With retro gaming, there are no ways of purchasing the games - let alone the systems to play them on - in a way that would still generate the copyright holders revenue. None whatsoever.
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Perhaps a better way to put it is that there's always a way to generate revenue, but no interest in investing in them, if there isn't any supreme control involved? This guy must not know that decades ago the movie industry tried to ban the technology itself that allowed recording?
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/b...e-betamax.html
Look at this quote:
"The decisions had enormous implications for the media economy. The VCR gave way to the DVD player and the digital video recorder. Videotape gave the kiss of life to the low-budget independent film. From “Rip. Mix. Burn.” to YouTube, every step of the evolution of digital media has been affected by that decision."
And the same can be extended to removing DRM from ebooks purchased in Amazon, or decryption from DVDs, Blu-rays, hacking software, to allow for a backup. Since most of these companies reserve the right to strip the buyers from their copy, whenever they want, or impose ridiculous restrictions, such as area code, or commercials that can't be skipped (some warning against piracy), in the beginning of discs.
Make no mistake, this isn't about generating revenue for the authors or people involved in the creation of these contents. I mean, users would gladly pay anything for these people.
The issue here is the "middle-man" retaining a greater share of the profits, the record labels have lost a lot of money when users started promoting themselves and not allowing themselves to be enslaved. Sure, these big corporations do their part, and help to promote these contents. But they want the right to explore these works for over a century. There are movies which should be in public domain, but are still copyrighted thanks to $$$$$$
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s...pyright_issues
For many reasons millions of works still can't be released to the public. Is this fair? How about I give the finger to any company that wants the right to explore a work for many decades, including games? Or that doesn't matter in this discussion?
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This is why retro roms have always been a grey area. The distribution of their works, although frowned upon, were never actioned against as in a court of law that is what they would have to prove - Monetary loss or damages. And they couldn't - Because it's simply not true.
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It's not a grey area. If you aren't generating profit for these companies then you are a pirate and they are going to chase you. It's as simple as that. They think only because they were involved in the distribution, support, etc. of these works they can retain the right to do as it pleases with them, and no one owns anything. When you create a copy you are not stealing anything, when Jesus multiplied the fish, was someone stolen in this process? Artificial scarcity is being utterly destroyed with the multitude of copies spread on the internet. Moreover there's no monetary loss since the people who download the roms wouldn't pay for the official thing anyway, even if all rom sites disappeared.
I wouldn't pay the money Microsoft asks me for a new Windows, or for anything I think I am entitled to have for free. If the price was fair (compared to others already available), the product was good, I had the guarantee my copy wouldn't be lost in 10, 20 years and the company behind was ethical, then perhaps I would consider buying.
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HOWEVER - That stated - Times are changing. There are now growing ways of obtaining these retro titles through avenues which DO benefit the copyright holders and it seems clear due to recent events, that there are a lot more avenues in development.
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Wrong. The times aren't changing. This sort of thing has been happening for decades, if not centuries. It isn't something new AT ALL. These big corporations have been using these scare tactics (also sending threatening letters for those who never heard of VPN) for a long, looooooong time. All it takes is one target for all the rest to "run to the hills". I remember back in 2012 when Megaupload was closed many cyberlockers decided to quit.
And there is no way to obtain anything Emuparadise or you have been offering other than for free. No one should wait until developers impose failed ideas like the SNES-Classic, with a limited number of games and several restrictions, a Netflix streaming service or anything else it doesn't replace this infinite library of games and systems.
You can only replace the "free alternative" if what you offer is equally good, if not better. For the reasons I explained in the previous posts this isn't something they can do, even if they wanted. For technical reasons and licensing issues.
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This is why we decided to throw in the towel of our own accord. It was a good ride and it was a just ride, however it is clear that in the not so distant future, distributing retro titles could be a serious case of copyright infringement.
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Could be? Well, thank you, Captain Obvious. You don't know with whom you are dealing with? All these companies are managed by psychopaths.
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That doesn't mean they will get it right though - Chances are they wont. We have ideas on how the archiving of retro titles and the pleasing of the copyright holders should be done and would love to pursue it eventually. We think the webmasters of retro rom sites should come together and work with the copyright holders. It does not have to be this hard - And criminals should not be made out of passionate enthusiasts.
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Chances are they will. No one has ever seen a different outcome if there's copyright involved. You'll always have politicians and judges bought and paid off, and from everywhere. I suggest watching that Kim Dotcom documentary, even illegal spying was used against the guy.
If you didn't hide your tracks and took all the necessary steps to keep your website alive then you might as well quit for good. Create another site, with another name, and try again.
The Pirate Bay was subjected to all sorts of things and it's still there, 15 years after its inception. There are many reasons why, and one of them was not pandering to the entertainment industry.
Work with copyright holders? You might as well give freely your soul to the devil. They are the enemy, only care about money, and if it were possible to burn all their old games to increase their fortune they would do it in a second.
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Take Spotify for example. Spotify has dominated the music industry and they started with scene release MP3 files. Their affordability, selection and ease of use then pretty much stopped all serious cases of online music piracy. The similarities are astounding. It's time there was a happy medium like Spotify for retro gaming.
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I prefer to think about Napster, which I gladly used in the end of 1990's. They were destroyed by record labels and later turned into a paid option, which was a massive failure. Later they made it possible for torrents/P2P to thrive.
That's why from the demise of Emuparadise and sites like yours I hope we'll have more people interested in preserving these contents, in the right way, of course, with new websites being created, if not by the owners (without letting anyone know) from the people who won't give any support to Nintendo, Sony, etc.
You can't argue with companies that are only concerned about controlling everyone and increasing their profits, while in the meantime putting innocents in jail, or asking them for more money. They don't give a damn about preservation.
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Moving on...
We would like to explicitly state that we are not re-branding or moving, despite the general consensus.
There is a new project underway by retro gaming enthusiasts to rebuild our original archive. And we wish them well.
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Even if you are don't be stupid to admit it, in public. Let's be smart and do things right.