I will post this in a couple of forums to get a general census of opinions, hoping to get some qualified legal advice.
Certain manufactures of equipment such as Computers claim it is wrong to make copes of the components, in particular of the Chips inside, such as where possible to create data images of the ROMs. They threaten Legal action against anyone caught creating such copies, which appears ridiculous to me. This was the same scare tactics tried by the Music and Performing Rights industry for many years. As I understand it has now been established, that especially in view of the rapid expansion on PCs, CD etc burners, and MP3 players, it is not illegal to create copies of music tracks, if it is only for the use of the legal owners of the original CDs.
So too claim it is wrong to make copies of anything inside a piece of equipment be it say a computer, car or TV, purely for your own purpose say as a backup, makes about as much sense as trying to claim it is wrong to take a photo of the inside of equipment. The reason why I raise this question is it so happens that there are a number of software emulators of 20 odd year old computers available, some of which are freeware. But these emulators often rely in the use of data images of some of the ROMs used in the original computers. Also it is possible to create duplicate ROMS from the data.
So again is it likely one could be successful sued by a manufacturer for making use of such ROM images, even if the copy was taken from a legally bought original computer.
Gordon ( UK )
ROM images used in emulators are almost universally illegal copies to begin with(Almost nobody acquires their own from hardware they own since downloading one is so easy), but in the event that you own the machine, it falls to the precidents in your own jurisdiction. Just like transferring from CD to MP3 is illegal in some areas, it's also illegal in some areas to use a ROM BIOS dump for emulation even if you own the original machine.
Thanks.
To claify the position, since you being from Canada you might have experience of these old UK compters. I refer to the Operating system ROM and DFS ROMs etc of the 20 odd year old BBC computer and likewise the Sinclair ZX81 and the old Amiga computers.
Gordon
Unless the rom images have been specifically released into the public domain, they're under standard copyright law for your jurisdiction. It doesn't matter what they're actually for.
Quote:I will post this in a couple of forums to get a general census of opinions, hoping to get some qualified legal advice.
That sounds like a really bad idea. You are unlikely to get
qualified legal advice from these sorts of forums. If you really need to know ask a lawyer or at least send an email to you local copyright authority.
Quote:This was the same scare tactics tried by the Music and Performing
Rights industry for many years. As I understand it has now been established, that especially in view of the rapid expansion on PCs, CD etc burners, and MP3 players, it is not illegal to create copies of music tracks, if it is only for the use of the legal owners of the original CDs.
Depends on the law in your specific country/state. In New Zealand it is illegal to make a copy of a cd for any purpose unless the EULA specifies that you may. Since most music cds don't come with a license stating it can be copied it is illegal in New Zealand to make backups of some of your own cds. It also makes it nearly impossible to legally get music onto an iPod here, since we don't have access to iTunes and you can't legally copy your own music to one. The law isn't heavily enforced and they are looking at changing it.
With roms, like SJ Zero said, it is probably universally illegal to copy them if you don't own the original chip. If you do own the chip then, depending on your countries law and the license of the original chip, you may be allowed to make a backup.
If the legality of this is important then check it out with the proper authorities so you exactly where you stand
Amstrad made it legal to use and distribute their Sinclair Spectrum ROM's (for the system monitor program, not the games), which I thought was nice of them, i think the only caveat is that they can only be distributed with non-commercial emulators.
Emulating the actual CPU is not normally a legal problem, the implementation details can be implied from the manuals, and from testing on a real CPU in the case of undocumented functions, If you think about it, this is how companies like Cyrix, AMD made compatible clones of the Intel CPU's.
The problem comes with the system monitor or BIOS type software, as well as games/apps, you can't normally use exact copies, they have to be reimplementations in a clean room environment.
There are quite a few nice companies who made games for the 8-bit computers, who allow their games/apps to be legally distributed, but that only represents a tiny amount of the actual software.
Its all a bit of a legal minefield really.
Quote:Thanks.
To claify the position, since you being from Canada you might have experience of these old UK compters. I refer to the Operating system ROM and DFS ROMs etc of the 20 odd year old BBC computer and likewise the Sinclair ZX81 and the old Amiga computers.
Gordon
Unless the UK has different copyright laws than the US or BBC renewed the copyright, the copyright has expired for that ROM IIRC.
No chance in hell. All Berne convention countries have copyright terms of 50 years or more. The US has terms longer than a human lifetime.
Mark Twain is barely out of copyright under US copyright law. There's NO WAY IN HELL that any computer stuff is out of copyright unless the companies specifically released it.
Quote:Unless the UK has different copyright laws than the US or BBC renewed the copyright, the copyright has expired for that ROM IIRC.
As SJ Zero said, US copyright lasts
75 years after date of publication and UK copyright lasts
70 years (Software comes under
literary works) after the death of the author. I doubt many software copyrights have expired yet.
For specific details on the Sinclair Spectrum, like the details of what roms are allowed to be distributed, and which software houses/authors have given permission for their software to be distributed, this page has a lot of information. Some of these freedoms might not apply to everyone, some of them are specifically for the worldofspectrum website, but its a great website for gettng spectrum emulators/games legally.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/permits/