The Solution to large ROM libraries

Just wondering what license your ROM's are under? How do you manage that and how do you pay the companies for having them?

Custa1200 wrote:

Just wondering what license your ROM's are under? How do you manage that and how do you pay the companies for having them?

Is that a serious question?

Well I would not want to come straight out and call you a thieving pirate would I? From you screenshots I dare say I could probably do that though. Don't think you should be in the forums advocating the building of a piece of software that is going to encourage you and others to break the law.

Custa1200 wrote:

Well I would not want to come straight out and call you a thieving pirate would I? From you screenshots I dare say I could probably do that though. Don't think you should be in the forums advocating the building of a piece of software that is going to encourage you and others to break the law.

When you put it that way it just sounds terrible, but I just don't see it as a big deal.  Most of the ROMs are really old and unavailable for purchase.  Even though there are 5,000 some ROMs in my library, a bunch of those are duplicates, and I have only really played maybe 5 of them any significant amount of time.
Let me give you an example.  Even though I own a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64, I play Super Mario 64 on the computer because the graphics are better and it's more convenient.  It would be nice if Nintendo would make something like this available for PC gamers.
Here on Chanel 9 I'm just showing off a program that I spent a lot of time on and had a lot of fun coding.

Whether the ROMs are acquired illegally or not is not the point. Alwaysmc2 does not distribute any ROMs: he's just offering an application to catalogue ROMs. And his app also does not encourage anything illegal. Does a video catalogue application encourage people to download illegal videos? No. Please don't discourage young people from writing software and sharing it.

TommyCarlier wrote:

Whether the ROMs are acquired illegally or not is not the point. Alwaysmc2 does not distribute any ROMs: he's just offering an application to catalogue ROMs. And his app also does not encourage anything illegal. Does a video catalogue application encourage people to download illegal videos? No. Please don't discourage young people from writing software and sharing it.

And as a young developer he should also be learning about ethics and copyright issues. I see too much of this where a young developer thinks he should be employed for decent money and expects a paycheck every week for what they produce yet turn around and copy software and music blatantly with no concern for what they are doing, blowing it off as they claim to not making any money off of it. I really feel the ethics of these youngsters (and sometimes not so young) is seriously questionable.

What happens when he starts writing software full time and gets his first piece of salable software after pouring all his savings into creating a startup with employees and everything, to then jump on Limewire of Torrent sites and find his software there for all to take, loosing everything he has worked hard to achieve. I wonder how he will feel then.

Custa1200 wrote:

I see too much of this where a young developer thinks he should be employed for decent money and expects a paycheck every week for what they produce yet turn around and copy software and music blatantly with no concern for what they are doing, blowing it off as they claim to not making any money off of it.

Hey, don't label me.  I pay for my music. $15 per month Zune Pass.  I have found that it is even more convenient than the illegal alternative.  Plus, your argument doesn't make sense, because I am not expecting money for my program.  In addition, "they don't really make money off of it" is not a common argument for stealing music as far as I know.  If anything the justification would be "to screw the RIAA".  But music and ROMs are two totally different things.  While an artist may still be receiving royalties for a popular track, I doubt there is a similar mechanism for the developers of Atari 2600 games.

I just thought you should know that Cancel is spelled 'cancel' not 'Cancle'. you may want to make that change in your dialogs and in your screen shots on your piece of the internet. Good job with the application though.

camalot wrote:



I just thought you should know that Cancel is spelled 'cancel' not 'Cancle'. you may want to make that change in your dialogs and in your screen shots on your piece of the internet. Good job with the application though.

Whoops!  Thanks for the catch.