The Open Source Cartridge Reader (OSCR) is a versatile tool designed to help preserve video game cartridges and save data. Developed by Sanni and the community, this device allows users to back up ROM files and save games from a wide range of vintage consoles.
This is really cool, but I wonder how long it’ll last before they are bullied with legal threats.
I think dumping your game cartridges is legal, otherwise you couldn’t emulate games legally.
The thing about legal threats is that they can work even if the theory they are based on isn’t any good. Fee-shifting isn’t always guaranteed, if it is available at all. Capital has already budgeted for its lawyers this year, have you?
Yep, this even has a name, SLAPP.
I’m not sure if this would strictly be a SLAPP rather than general litigious bullying (GLiB has a nice ring to it actually.)
In this respect though open sourcing it was a good move. Even if the creator were to be blocked from distributing, it’s out there.
Nintendo sent a bunch of thugs to the home of an emulator developer last week, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Everything he did was legal, but that doesn’t stop Nintendo from literally threatening harm to your family.
If you dump a game cartridge, Nintendo can kill your wife.
yes tiptoe around that eula
Since when did cartridge games have EULAs?
Also: in sane countries (i.e: not the so-called US), EULAs don’t overwrite civil laws.
The only dangersis when DRM is circumvented.
In glorious people-protecting America, we actually have something called “shrink wrap” EULAs which state that you agreed to the terms by opening the box. Even if those terms were inside the box.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkwrap_(contract_law)
Wow… but did e.g. Gameboy games have those?
I honestly just assumed they did because everything does, but thinking back I don’t recall noticing one in the box but I was young and may have just tuned it out. I hope someone else here can recall!
EULAs on every game are afaik a produch of everything going online. i don’t think those old games have eulas.
I know what you mean but it’s funny to question what a country has named itself.
The people of the continent called it “turtle island”. European occupiers called it the “US”.
The Country is not the Continent.
Sure, the singular cultural/political/religious “those people”.
I still don’t want to give the country the satisfaction.
AFAIK, the name is quite consentually agreed upon by the first nations from the continent.
🙄
??
Cartridge dumpers have existed for decades. They are 100% legal, just like any physical media player (VCR, DVD player…).
They don’t have support for any recent Nintendo systems (not even the DS) so they’ll probably be fine.
I don’t think it matters for Big N. I got a cease and desist a long time ago for using a video game trademark in my website URI as a teen. I mean I could have fought it but it was enough to kill my spirit.
Going to guess the creators aren’t seeing this as their bread and butter and enough of a threat of a lawsuit can pretty quickly slow down/shut down a project.
Trademarks have to be enforced or they can be lost, so it makes sense to be overbroad about them. You say you could have fought it but that doesn’t mean you were legally in the right.
In this case, everything on their site is legal and above board.
Admittedly, Nintendo doesn’t care if what you’re doing is legal if it could cut into sales of current systems, games, or merchandise - they’ll issue takedowns regardless. That’s why videos of people demoing the MIG Switch got taken down for copyright infringement, for example. But given that every system this can extract games from already has its entire library available online in the form of pirated ROMs, getting it taken down won’t do anything for their bottom line.
In fact, Nintendo taking legal action against products like this would encourage piracy of their games. If a consumer wants a backup of their physical game cartridge library and the tools to create such backups are made unavailable or harder to access due to Nintendo’s actions, that consumer is likely to simply download the ROMs instead. That’s already piracy, and it’s only a few clicks more for the user to download ROMs for games they don’t own (and if you’re already legally a pirate, that line in the sand is awfully faint). And sites that host ROMs for the Gameboy Advance probably host ROMs for newer systems, too - including the ones that Nintendo actually cares about - so it’s in Nintendo’s best interest not to push those consumers in their direction.
Recent Nintendo games are trivial to dump without specialized hardware. Modded consoles can do it.