• Chronchris@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    For accessing nearly 9 in 10 classic games, there are few options: seek out and maintain vintage collectible games and hardware, travel across the country to visit a library, or… piracy.

    This last part especially is interesting. Because in this particular case, piracy seems like a totally positive thing. Frankly, I don’t have a bad feeling downloading really old classics.

    Of course, there is always the problem of malware so ideally, there would be an official source to get these games from for free.

    • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Depending on the country and local laws, it’s also not actually piracy if you own the game in question. You might want to play your cartridge of Super Mario bros., but maybe you no longer have a suitable console, or it’s broken, or you don’t have a TV that accepts the input. You’re usually allowed to download it from elsewhere and play it in an emulator.

      • Feyter@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Yes and no.

        For most countries download such things isn’t illegal but uploading/distributing them is. You are allowed to make a backup copy of your game but you are not allowed to share this with anyone else without permission of the copyright owner.