C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

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newmodelarmy
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby newmodelarmy » August 22nd, 2017, 5:36 pm

The C-64 is my favorite system of all time. I have so many fond memories playing this system when I was a kid. My and my buds would spend hours playing Summer Games, Micro League Baseball, Crusade In Europe, Gunship and just about any other game made by Micropose. I sold my system along with my hundreds of games (mostly pirated) to a buddy of mine when I was in the Army. A very regrettable decision. I really should pick one of these off Ebay one of these days. Happy Birthday C-64!

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scotland
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby scotland » August 22nd, 2017, 6:08 pm

Making 'backup' copies of games was commonplace. In part, we justified it by being burned year after year, investing your meager dollars for an expensive cartridge game that just wasn't much fun. I don't remember too many 'try it out' display booths, and there was no Gamestop to trade or buy used, or Blockbuster Video rental. No internet reviews, and lots of enticing box art. You were a kid with some money, going on a rare shopping trip to a store that sold games, and you made a choice of what they had. If you bought a lemon for your birthday, you got a lemon for your birthday.

Suddenly, for the price of a box of 10 diskettes (having already invested in a disk drive) you got more games in an afternoon than you had collected over years on your previous cartridge based console. Many hand labeled disks have several games each.

copy.JPG
copy.JPG (35.75 KiB) Viewed 1976 times


Was it morally wrong to copy games? To answer a question with a question, was it morally wrong for Magnavox or Atari to make half hearted quickly produced low quality games to sell at $40 or more to kids? Wrong, or just buyer beware business as usual? Tramiel said business is war, so each side did what they did. It lead to both copyprotection arms races, as well as things like shareware as well.



One of my lasting questions to this day is given that simple economic motive of, its amazing that Nintendo was able to get kids to fork over their big time money to buy just a few games a year instead. For the price of those few games, you could have a plastic bin of games to suit every taste. That was a mighty steep hill to climb, and maybe in retrospect, only Nintendo could have done it. Or maybe kids easily suckered into buying what's hot. I don't know. That's a different discussion.

The C64 was not my first brush with making copies, as I recall some Apple II diskettes as well, although it could have been just copies of "How to make the Pink Panther with ASCII art" for all I can remember.

newmodelarmy
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby newmodelarmy » August 23rd, 2017, 7:05 am

scotland wrote:Making 'backup' copies of games was commonplace. In part, we justified it by being burned year after year, investing your meager dollars for an expensive cartridge game that just wasn't much fun. I don't remember too many 'try it out' display booths, and there was no Gamestop to trade or buy used, or Blockbuster Video rental. No internet reviews, and lots of enticing box art. You were a kid with some money, going on a rare shopping trip to a store that sold games, and you made a choice of what they had. If you bought a lemon for your birthday, you got a lemon for your birthday.

Suddenly, for the price of a box of 10 diskettes (having already invested in a disk drive) you got more games in an afternoon than you had collected over years on your previous cartridge based console. Many hand labeled disks have several games each.

copy.JPG

Was it morally wrong to copy games? To answer a question with a question, was it morally wrong for Magnavox or Atari to make half hearted quickly produced low quality games to sell at $40 or more to kids? Wrong, or just buyer beware business as usual? Tramiel said business is war, so each side did what they did. It lead to both copyprotection arms races, as well as things like shareware as well.



One of my lasting questions to this day is given that simple economic motive of, its amazing that Nintendo was able to get kids to fork over their big time money to buy just a few games a year instead. For the price of those few games, you could have a plastic bin of games to suit every taste. That was a mighty steep hill to climb, and maybe in retrospect, only Nintendo could have done it. Or maybe kids easily suckered into buying what's hot. I don't know. That's a different discussion.

The C64 was not my first brush with making copies, as I recall some Apple II diskettes as well, although it could have been just copies of "How to make the Pink Panther with ASCII art" for all I can remember.


Let me start by saying that when I was a kid I copied hundreds of games. However, no matter what you say to justify it, it's illegal. Just because you buy a crappy $40 game doesn't make it "ok" to steal or pirate a game. Like I said I did it as well but I had no illusions of what I was doing or tried to justify it. I never felt entitled to a game because I bought a crappy one.

Teddybear
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby Teddybear » August 23rd, 2017, 7:05 am

I used to steal DOS boot disks from my high school computer lab and take them home to reformat them for the C-64. Between my friends, we used to get so many great games for free. And it was just so damn easy![i][/i]

The teacher finally got wise to the diminishing number of disks and started having the students sign for them. Yeah, I know it was wrong and I am sorry but every time I insert 4th n Inches (with my hand-written label from 30 years ago still affixed on it) into my still-working 1541 a warm blast of nostalgia overcomes me. Those were wonderful and carefree days of my youth.

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scotland
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby scotland » August 23rd, 2017, 9:51 am

newmodelarmy wrote: Let me start by saying that when I was a kid I copied hundreds of games. However, no matter what you say to justify it, it's illegal. Just because you buy a crappy $40 game doesn't make it "ok" to steal or pirate a game. Like I said I did it as well but I had no illusions of what I was doing or tried to justify it. I never felt entitled to a game because I bought a crappy one.


I wasn't talking illegal, I was talking the range of feelings involved. No one said it was OK, just we did it anyway with no less guilt than typing in code from a magazine a buddy shared with us. It was sharing.

This was face to face sharing, friend to friend. My friends shared all sorts of things, including the programs we typed in, wrote ourselves, or copied a commercial product if we could, or just loaned it if we couldn't. Thats how it was for me, at least.

Its still illegal to make those copies 30 years later, so should we let all of those games fade away? I will make a case its in society's interest to preserve and disseminate as playable games all these games from the 80s, no matter what the rights holder say - but the law is on their side, and they can argue their case themselves.

People fight all the time to change laws based on how they feel. Possibly events in your own life.have illustrated a tension between whats legal, and how you feel about something.

To stay in video games, take Activision. Activision was born from creative Atari programmers who felt they were getting what they were entitled to. It was work for hire, so the law was against them getting more compensation for their work at Atari, so they left. Atari then fought against Activision making money with new Activision games on their Atari hardware, but the law went against Atari. Lawyers made arguments and laws were made, but whatever is underneath the laws should not change.

So make a case on moral grounds - make a case its cheating people we respect, or hurting companies we appreciate, or how would you feel if someone made copies of your work, etc. Those are good arguments about feelings and morality, but don't toss around illegal as your only argument. You are in good company if you feel ROM sharing is morally not okay. Make that your argument instead.

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pacman000
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby pacman000 » August 23rd, 2017, 1:00 pm

scotland wrote:Was it morally wrong to copy games? To answer a question with a question, was it morally wrong for Magnavox or Atari to make half hearted quickly produced low quality games to sell at $40 or more to kids? Wrong, or just buyer beware business as usual? Tramiel said business is war, so each side did what they did. It lead to both copyprotection arms races, as well as things like shareware as well.


Ya see, for this to work, there has to be an objectively "good" game. The mere fact that one is disappointed in a game doesn't make it bad. Even if it did, it creates the a really unfair situation; the good games are the ones which are more likely to be copied w/o compensation to the games' owners.

scotland wrote:Its still illegal to make those copies 30 years later, so should we let all of those games fade away? I will make a case its in society's interest to preserve and disseminate as playable games all these games from the 80s, no matter what the rights holder say - but the law is on their side, and they can argue their case themselves.
As I understand it it's not illegal to copy a piece of software to a new medium for preservation/archival purposes. Distributing said software, however, would be illegal. (NOT A LAWYER! NOT LEGAL ADVISE!) Morally? You can make software available w/o selling or giving copies away; picture a computer or video game museum.

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scotland
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby scotland » August 23rd, 2017, 1:13 pm

I am not a lawyer either, but the point is that tbe law is mutable, country to country, over time. Many people feel society has a right to preserve things like games - but does that mean only at a museum, or decentralized in playable form to anyone? Do you have a right to play old Apple II games on an emulator at home by downloading ROMs from the internet? Legally, I don't so. However, I feel that I should be able to. I can even make an argument its worthwhile to have hobbyists and amateurs doing just that.

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scotland
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby scotland » August 23rd, 2017, 1:16 pm

Yes, it did create unfair situations where a good game was excessively copied. Raid on Bungeling Bay may be just such a game.

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pacman000
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby pacman000 » August 23rd, 2017, 1:35 pm

scotland wrote:I am not a lawyer either, but the point is that tbe law is mutable, country to country, over time. Many people feel society has a right to preserve things like games - but does that mean only at a museum, or decentralized in playable form to anyone? Do you have a right to play old Apple II games on an emulator at home by downloading ROMs from the internet? Legally, I don't so. However, I feel that I should be able to. I can even make an argument its worthwhile to have hobbyists and amateurs doing just that.


Society does-and should-have a right to preserve elements of its culture, including works of art. But this preservation must be balanced with the rights of the work's creator(s)/owner(s). Allowing anyone to copy a work for any reason tips the balance too far away from the creators'/owners' rights.

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scotland
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Re: C64 - Happy 35th Birthday to the Commodore 64

Postby scotland » August 23rd, 2017, 3:26 pm

This is where its a matter.of debate on what you can copy, and the winner writes the case law. Sometimes reasons matter - like preservation, and other times you can for no reason at all, say because a work is in the public domain. Night of the Living Dead is public domain and anyone can legally make copies and sell them, although its authorship is not disputed. For videogames, its the concept of abandonware. Should abandonware have less protection than games by still extant companies?

Here is a other. Its legal to record tv shows on DVD recorders for later viewing in the US. However you will notice DVD recorders are very hard to find in the US recently due to content providers taking steps to make burning a dvd of a show difficult


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