Emulation Situation of Law and Moral

0: Table of Contents

• 1: Introduction
• 2: Law Situation
• 3: Moral Situation
• 4: Various further Falsehoods
• 5: Conclusion

1: Introduction

• 1.1: Personal background
• 1.2: Current Motivation

1.1: Personal background

In 1985 I got a Commodore 64 and played a lot on it. That had lots of games, and those were copied from colleagues, who copied them from others, and so on. This had also the advantage, to copy the game directly from the one, by whom one hat even found out about it.

By this every user learned that bits are more flexible than atoms, because only two types of them and every storage medium is bitwise randomly switchable, and even entire series of them fully automatic by any store/copy operation. This all because data is not stored any more as with pigment on paper as patterns of atoms, which must be printed/combined industrially. Thus producing empty media and storing data can be separate, and the latter can be done directly by users. The great advantage of computers. (From this came after a while the terms "dead tree" for static printed data, plus "living bits" for editable stored data.) (Later came the term "postindustrial" for the situation emerging from separate production and storing.)

(Note: There was here at that time no commercial game sales infrastructure. The actual computers were sold by audio/HiFi/TV/photo shops, besides accessories and storage media. Commercial software there was at the most just standard office applications. (There was then obviously no public Internet, let allone downloads from it.))

In 1985 I got a 286 PC. This came without a manual, and on request the answer was "go to a book shop and chose a fitting one". This because in those days small PC assemblers simply copied a MS-DOS onto it, which one as users backupped. Only from 1990 on did more professional buyers expect an included manual and install disks. Only bought software was two compilers (C and Basic), because MS-DOS did not include one. After migrating to PC, I found out how much CGA games are crap, and stopped gaming.

In this time fell also discovering Public Domain software, which can be legally copied, exploiting the possibilities of bits. But with this there was no financing of authors, why this was mostly limited to small utilities. Later came also shareware, which is distributed the same way. But with text which requests to recommend and spread it, and only if after trying out using it small payment transferred by bank. This is comparable to throwing coins into a street musicians instrument box. Copied was anyway everthing what one had, mostly commerceware without paying, the shareware people with their after the fact payment transfers got away the best. (I myself in the meantime worked as programmer, at a firm writing software for internal use, as most in the profession actually do it, including all colleagues.)

Later in 1992 I migrated to a NeXT. There I found out, that there were no games at all for it. So I wrote an C64 emulator, given that everything including C compiler came with it. Well, strictly I started to write one, but the very heavyweight operating system on its only 25MHz processor failed to execute the graphics updates to perform adequately fast. (Under MS-DOS this would have been trivial, because nothing stands in the way, direct hardware access can be used.)

By now I since 1994 am using Linux. Only since around 1997 on a 350MHz PC, C64 emulation became fast enough even on modern operating systems, with for this using ViCE. Since then I am a regular emulator user, and as such also a retrogamer. I have next to no interest in modern game styles.

With Linux I also discovered the open source software, distributed like Public Domain, but with source code and multiple compilers. Thus the entire community can fix and extend it, followed by the original creators collecting all this and including it. For this organisational structures were created, individual components projects plus multiple competing collectors/distributors of these. With this even non-programmers can participate, with bugsearching and/or packaging and/or distribution, and even without that already with donations/merchandising and/or user support. By this developed an entire world of software, also complex stuff, including the best emulators.

Due to worldwide distributed communal project the costs are distributed over many, with after this all costless and unlimited usable by anyone, just like science. The optimal approach, better than all commerceware. I have under Linux exactly two commercial programs, both costless distributed, to establish data formats, to sell tools for them. (I myself worked in the meantime for an university, software for internal use, and distributed that as open source. I am also founding member of the Linux User Group Switzerland for user support.)

Further I discovered surfing the web, not just for software, but much other. Just as costless and unlimited usable, and anytime fast to fetch, contrary to industrially printed, that one has to laborously order and wait for. Initially only with manual link collections, then came search engines. That was even with a 14'400bit/s modem and 1kByte/s downloads surprisingly good. In 1997 I built an own webserver from leftover material, because self publishing something on the web is just the same much easier, than with publishers and printing, because both exploit bits.

(Note: See for this my projects page, plus my articles and lectures (texts all in German, as aimed at local event visitors), plus my general informative texts (inclusing collected stuff from others, in part English part German and part both).)

The theme copyright law only now became known, because of the entire license debates, which spilled over from the USA to Europe. With these discussions came first the concept of monopolies for financing became visible. At at the same time also their perversion, even on open source works not financed by sales, to force through political aims by GPL conditions. The latter can due to lack of any justification with financing only be abuse of threats of violence.

(Note: (Thus I am since a long time a well known GPL Enemy (text only in German, as aimed at local event visitors). The only GPL-ed works on my part are works for hire, where the paying wanted this, such as at above university. But I wanted and managed already in 2002 to at least contract double license GPL+BSD, thus subverting the GPL.)

1.2: Current Motivation

Thus I went in later 2022 looking for a new PC, to run larger emulators. First preferrably a laptop, due to portable and not needing the power of a desktop gamer-PC. Then after finding out about SteamDeck more likely a handheld, due to playing in evening on balcony. I thus read reviews, in online magazines and on user forums.

In those I saw ever-increasing claims going around, about emulation being illegal. Some missinformed people genuinely believe this, and worse blindly help spread this falsehood. Some believe them, but at least fearfully ask questions about it. Others are using deliberate false statements against emulation for indirect takes against the unavoidable usage of copies of ROMs for them. And some of the press are not only failing to correct this false information, but are even supporting it indirectly, by distancing themselves from emulation, apparently as a cover-your-ass action. Truth or correctness since a long time does not care in todays press.

Contrast this stance with lots of retrogamers, who are users of emulation of old 8bit/16bit systems, or even early 32bit, some even up to later 32bit. They consider this activity to be entirely acceptable, including copying the needed game ROMs, so long these are not from current sold games. They are increasingly getting fed up, from repeatedly seeing misinformation and criticism, which fails to convince, because it has already countless times been rejected or even corrected.

But also contrast this with actual law, which is nowhere near as clear, as the media industry propaganda wants everyone to believe, for which they spend large sums on spreading their one-sided views.

This text, originally written in August/September 2023, large extended in September/October 2024, looks at the various legal and moral issues involved, in an attempt to clear out some of the fog, and promote more balanced decisions.

2: Law Situation

• 2.1: Current Situation
• 2.2: Historial Background
• 2.3: Copyright Exemptions
• 2.4: Legal Gray Zone

Second: One of the most important principles in law is jurisdiction. That is the consequence of the world been split by rulers into about 200 countries, each with its own legislative and judicative system, which leads to law being different in every country. Anyone who makes claims about law should preface them with what jurisdiction they apply to, else they demonstrate gross ignorance of legal basics and should not be taken seriously. Thus everything here comes with remarks, as far as I know to where it applies.

I will mainly be focusing on USA law, despite not living there, because most media companies are there, most of media industry propaganda comes from there, and also most of legal threats are by them. Also USA law contains crucial details specific to allowing out-of-publication works (including old video games), which because Internet today affect the entire world.

3.1: Current Situation

But like any computer emulated ones need software. Usually that for the original system which has been reimplemented in them, given this is mostly the reason for running them! That is mostly games, but also firmware or even operating systems (unless these are also reimplemented). For consoles game software came originally in form of ROM chips in cartridges. For emulators it needs to be extracted, in form of ROM image files, for short called ROMs. (Note: For home computers and newer consoles games originals are on floppy disks or CDROMs or DVDs or Blurays. But it is customary, to call all resulting image files ROMs, and will be done so here.)

All legal problems apply to software, as getting and using ROMs can collide with copyright law. According to the media industry propaganda, copyright is "intellectual property" and belongs absolutely to them. Thus they may dictate anything to users, even after sale, as if those were renting and not buying! This includes claiming, that they may forbid its use on emulators. Even after stopping selling it. But is this really the case? It helps to look at what actually is the real legal situation, which deviates quite far from above claims.

2.2: Historial Background

This was adopted by the ruling monarch, but modified to make autors into "owners" of their works, and booksellers by contract into exclusive publisher, which they accepted. Side effect of this modification was, that authors and their publishers could only get this status and payments, if they identified themselves, which was only possible, if their works where not unwanted by the monarch. With clear words: Censorship, by carrot in addition to by stick, in form of a privilege offered by law. (This is also why the payments to authors are called royalties, as they were once granted by royal decree.)

When democracy appeared, often as revolution against monarchs and their abuses of legal power, all this should have been abolished. That given that protectionism violates freedom of trade and censorship violates freedom of speech and privileges violate equal rights. Thus copyright violates constitutional law on three accounts, as such is incompatible with the base of the entire democratic system! Further the people have no tradition of forbidding copying, rather all do it, the entire process of learning from speaking upto education is copying that which was heard. Thus culture can not used as excuse either!

Such multiple breaches of fundamental principles of law commited by the state is in many democratic countries a breach of constitution/baselaw, and thus as strike against societies integrity strictly high treason. It survived parlaments and constitutional/supreme courts only by law twisting on the part of lobbyists and lawyers:

• In the USA it got through Congress by claims of "improving the supply of art" being more important then "theoretical" principles. But such mercantilist argumentation only got through Supreme Court by accepting a clause of being a "time-limited tolerated breach of law". The logic of this amounts to copyright as temporary intellectual monopoly (no property!). It applies only if the work has an explicit copyright statement, else is per default in public domain. Always lasted for 14 years, with option to extend to 28, if interest in the work still exists. After it falls definitely into public domain. (One note, that this "improving the supply" only consists of more profit for publishers and by that slightly more chances of them accepting a work for publication. Which even so only about 10% of authors get, and even those get only about 10% of the expanded turnover. It gives no help to authors while creating, except of few employed authors. All this fails heavily, because the authors were only spurious argument to gain protectionism.)
• In France (and later expanded to rest of Europe) if got through Assembly by claims of a work "being the expression of the author", and as such to be part of personality rights (the same sort of rights which include libel laws). The logic of this amounts to "droight d'auteur" (= authors right) as intellectual integrity. This aims against modified/falseified expression of the autor, and possibly also plagiarism. Can thus not be transferred or sold. It also applies automatically, even if no copyright statement. This makes sense for the expression of the autor. But this applies even to the usage rights (the monopoly part). Which is a bad default, because authors who want to use it know about it (and can order it, an must document author+date), but authors without do not know (and thus so not free it), by which many works unintentional default to legalistically unusable (though many people ignore this default, because such author will not sue). In this system there exists no public domain, not even only for the usage rights, even an author who knows this despite lack of interest can only grant an universal license. Also it has not time limit. A completely one-sided failure of a design. Also the legal system has not placed any clauses, to corrext this, despite violating constitution. (One note, that the entire long lists of names at the end of a film go back to this law. Even survival important stuff such as food comes without such. Which shows off this nonsense as such.)

These two incompatible logics were later merged and extended, some would say perverted. This came from jurists searching and "discovering" the "fundamental idea behind both", not the parallel running law twistings (that would be criticism of the law makers and thus disobedience), but a "justification" in form of "intellectual property", despite both not having being derived from any such thing!

With this two cases of political/legislative corruption turned into juristical mental twistedness. This ideology was then tought to all jurists at universities since more than a century, thus by obedience towards authorities became "truth". This was after ever "further developed" to ever more madness. All jurists have become completely twisted by this, no matter if lobbyists or politicians or lawyers or judges.

The Berne convention from 1886 stems from this tradition. It standardised copyright in Europe, to prevent circumventing imports. The USA only officially adopted this end of 1980s, but had already long before taken on its ideology, and since massively co-worked on expanding of it.

Since their emergence collisions of the two different systems ways of thinking are common. Often without the persons involved understanding the basic conflict or its roots. Or even deliberately concealing the part they do not want to have.

2.3: Copyright Exemptions

Not surprising in the land well known for egoistic persons and greedy companies and aggressive lawyers, attempts were made to misuse that what had been gained:

• One early attack seems to have been an attempt to suppress parody, by claiming it violates copyright on characters and/or scenes and/or locations of the original. This lead to all parodians being threatened in their existance and to an meaningfull legal case against this plaintif. The defendants managed to argue, that a) parody does not violate monopoly of making copies nor the profits from that, and b) suppression of parody is censorship. So one of the first copyright exemptions was created by the court system. Without this parody would be illegal in the USA!
• Annother attack seems to have been an attempt to suppress quotes, by claiming it violates copyright on textual content. This lead to all quote users being threatened in their discourse and to an meaningfull legal case against this plaintif. The defendants managed to argue, that a) quotes as small textual sections do not violate monopoly of making complete copies nor the profits from that, and b) suppression of quotes harms discourse. So one further of the first copyright exemptions was created by the court system. Without this quoting would be illegal in the USA!

This may surprise some people, who believe that judges must follow laws. But while Congress produces "written law", which amounts to the official "software distribution" of law, this is by its type of creation (proposed by lobbyists, possibly modified and then adopted by politicians) often self-contradictory, in particular if at different time multiple laws were enacted. In cases where a plaintif and a defendant both argue to have a law at their side, and thus a contradiction of laws is demonstrated, the courts need to decide, which law shall override which. All legal systems must contain such a process, else they would fail by deadlock! Such decisions result in what is known as "case law", which amounts to "patching" the laws by its users.

(Note: Anyone can read written law. The expertise of a lawyer consists largely of knowing all case law, which pertains to his area of specialisation, so that he can give solid legal advise, which will survive in court. (This is also why lawyers are always limited to working in the jurisdiction for which they are trained and licensed.))

Over time quite a few such cases have piled up. Which has lead to the specific term "Copyright Exemptions", which tells something about how many there are! For gamers in general and emulator users specifically two seem to be relevant:

• Of course books cost, and libraries help reduce costs by lending books. One early attack seems to have been against libraries, who stand in competition to selling more copies of books. This lead to all libraries and their users being threatened and to an meaningfull legal case against this plaintif. The defendants managed to argue, that a) not everyone can afford to buy all books, thus no libraries would mean less supply of art and not more, and b) the monopoly only applies to making copies, not to usage by one person, who may lend, so long only one at a time has the one copy.
• Of course books go out of print, latest when the publishers lose interest in them, when they expect less profit than operational costs, thus write off further sales. Libraries at some time noticed, that lending of out-of-publication books, with loss of some percentage per year, and no replacements available any more, will lead to their content becoming inaccessible for all. So they started making copies and giving them away. One attack seems to have been against this. That lead to all libraries fearing loss of preserving art and to an meaningfull legal case against this plaintif. The defendants managed to argue, that a) the publisher has stopped selling and thus made the entire monopoly irrelevant, and b) forbidding of making copies by libraries would over time lead to less availability of art and not to more.

The second basically amounts to case law stating: "If publishers want a monopoly, to maximise their profits, with claim of more art for users, but at the price of no one else being able to distribute, then they shall also accept an obligation of publishing. If they stop doing so, thus their profits are zero, thus their claim becomes irrelevant, while only no one distributing remains, which gives less art for users, thus is exactly reverse of the aim, then their monopoly shall be stricken, to prevent this loss." (Something which is so obvious logical, that it should since long time be part of written law!) (Same should applies also to not even ever distributed, because only the loss, but also to costless distributed, because no profit to increase and thus no gain.)

Out of such exemptions follows, that claims of copyright being absolute are legally false! This applies at least in the USA, with its original "temporary monopoly" style copyright thinking as base, with case law deriving from that. Only later "property" style thinking was introduced there, where many claims contradicting the above originate from. But they can not invalidate case law, as they are only media industry desires and propaganda terms. Only newer written law can invalidate case law, with here constitutional law further demanding the exemptions.

Above is all USA centric. Other countries with "integrity" style thinking as base perhaps have different but comparable exemptions, or more likely not. Though I have not investigated any, because they have become irrelevant by the Internet. Copyright fails as soon as only one country allows a breach.(Preventing this was the motivation behind above standardised European copyright against imports, but what works against importing atoms does not work any more against remote copying bits.)

See the modern case of Germany, where case law based on a written law principle in German called "Bagatelle" (seems to translate to "petty offence") declares, that filesharing of music "is illegal but shall not be procecutable", so long less than 5000 titles are offered. This principle exists to limit the amount of trivial processes to a handleable amount (here of largest filesharers). Because else a flood of such processes would overwhelm the legal system, which is dimensioned to handle a few percent of true criminals, not tens of percent of copiers. Thus procecuting all such would threaten upholding other way more important laws.

(Note: Early file sharing was based on a central search engine called Napster, where users automatically registered their offers, which could be juristically removed because of "auxillary in crime". Then came decentral systems such as Gnutella and Kazaa, where only procecuting all providers could work, which produced above flood.)

Just one country allowing this guarantees on the Internet, that the entire music selection and bandwidth of their millions of filesharers is available to anyone world wide. Which is enough to provide for the entire world. This collaped entirely the war of the music industry against filesharing. In view of thus de-facto dead copyright (irrelevant of what de-jure law states) and cost free competition they had to replace their strategy. After this they gave up on their high price "entire albums with with 10 to 15 titles for $20 to $30" plans, accepted Apples low price "single titles for $0.50" iTunes offer.

After that they promptly became again successfull, because serving customers (even with low profit) is way more profitable than selling nothing. Who would have expected that! And it even showed, that buyers spend a fixed available budget, with that buy more titles instead of spending less. Which does not surprise either. Of course a section of potential buyers stayed away, but that showed itself to be a sufficiently small minority.

Same applies even if only the USA allows offering of out-of-publication works, it is enough to provide the entire world. Any war against this will collapse. Even more so if USA companies are trying to fight this war, law there lets them fall.

2.4: Legal Gray Zone

(Note: The first above exemption is irrelevant for their case, with on the web free-of-cost downloads for everyone, so long a web site still exists. Thus no lending is relevant. (That is though relevant for DVD rentals, inclusive game DVDs, and also game cartridge rentals, if such exist.) (Comparable exemption also exists to allow used DVD or cartrige resales. Which has also been attacked by media industry. They lost. Such exemption may even apply to reselling e-shop downloads. That has as far as I know not appeared in front of court.))

Strictly archive.org runs in what is called a legal gray zone. That is any new situation, where written law states something is illegal, but where a) there is no case law made yet for this new variant of situation (due to no such case having gone through court and gotten decided), though b) it can be reasonably assumed, that this new case would lead to a further exemption, or more likely to conformation/expansion of an existing exemption.

For archive.org it is by analogy to above second exemption. How good this works can be seen: Either archive.org have never been sued (which implies all potential plaintifs got legal advise to give up, due to expected failure, and accepted this), or there were only small cases that never made it to public attention (which implies the plaintifs lost and gave up quietly). Thus we can assume here very light gray.

(Note: archive.org is currently (2023) being sued by a book publisher named Hachette. But that pertains to their "digital lending" system, not to their archive of vanished web pages. Some libraries have invented a system of buying N copies of books, and then making the text available online to up to maximally N users, through a special reader program, which denies access after some "lending time", after which a further user gets access. Once again this is a case of legal gray zone, by analogy to the first above exemption. This one is being now challenged in court. Obviously the plaintif believes in winning. But their lawyer has already demonstrated incompetence, by first attacking a well financed organisation, which can defend itsself, instead of targeting some small library, which could fail at defense, thus create a prejudice, which could be exploited to sue stronger targets easier.)

What does all this mean for emulator users, in particular for offering and downloading and using of ROMs for them? It leads to the concept of "abandonware" (= abandoned software). This can be stated as: Any software which the publisher has abandoned, that is has stopped selling, has let go out-of-publication, has thus has written-off any future income, is free for anyone else to copy. This applies next to random software also to games, as soon as their sales have been abandoned. That covers owners of original copies dumping them (= extracting the bits, analog to ripping of CDs) to ROM files and spreading those, but also collectors of ROMs placing then on web sites and distributing them, and also users downloading them from there and using them.

At least in many countries only offering for download/copying is illegal, while downloading and using are entirely legal. This seems to apply to all or most of Europe, including where I live. So long only one country allows offering, all users in all these countries are unlimited. Downloading and using is claimed by some to be illegal in the USA. How far this is true I do not know. It may even only apply, if the one downloading is financing the one offering, possibly as part of "auxillary in crime" laws. Which would not apply, if offering itself is not illegal there.

So one again this is legal gray zone. Once again with offering being reasonably assumed by analogy to above second exemption. And downloading likely parallel to what is being offered.

Today most game publishers let this happen. Perhaps because they have gotten legal advise to give up. But possibly because they just see no profit in it, so why waste money on legal costs, just to annoy users, who may be also potential customers for their current offerings, and could decide to boycott them. Which would be bad for business.

There is one very known exemption: Nintendo. This becomes visible, when one visits ROM web sites, selects a system, and all titles of all other publishers are available, but all Nintendo ones are missing, or more likely they are still indexed but give "no download available" error, which suggests that they were once there, but are now removed. See this repeat over multiple sites, and Nintendo gets its reputation of having the most aggressive lawyers in the game industry.

(Note: Some commentators claim, this is because they still sell copies of some of their old games on their newer systems. But others such as Capcom and Konami and Namco and Sega and SNK also sell old games, and those even for PCs where web ROMs are direct competition, and still don't remove them. Thus this explanation is questionable.)

Despite that their success is limited. There are just as many sites without such missing ROMs as there are with. This suggests, that they either do not know those sites (unlikely, as such are easy to find by normal web search by anyone). Or they do not care (extremely unlikely, as this would be inconsistent). Or they can not threaten the site owner due to their jurisdictions legal situation (this certainly applies in some cases). Or they failed to impress the site owners (perhaps because some of those know above exemptions and are willing and capable of defending themselves).

Case for latter seems to be again archive.org, who offers entire ROM collections, of all games for any specific 8bit and 16bit systems (handheld, console, home computer, PC, arcade), including Nintendo consoles, including Nintendo produced and published games.

(Note: For people who have never seen such collections, here examples: One I have for NES (Nintendo 8bit) games is 259.5MBytes of .zip file, has 2229 files in it, one per game, and contains every game which I have listed as interesting me, all 118 of them, not one single one missing! For SNES (Nintendo 16bit) one is 974.1MBytes .zip, 966 files/games, with 83 of 105 interesting, 22 missing. For MegaDrive/Genesis (Sega 16bit) one is 714.5MBytes .zip, 974 files/games, with 119 of 134 interesting, 15 missing. (Most of the missing are in-Japan-only titles, those two collections are explicitely USA+Europa-only sets.))

Archive.org are definitely well known for offering such, being the recommended source of good quality ROM collections. This generally comes in form of "just do a web search for 'archive.org system-name ROM collection'", which is even tolerated on forums with strict "no links to ROM sites" policy. And they are in the USA, this eliminates any jurisdiction limits. It is also definitely not lack on wanting, as Nintendo have sued some other sites, with success, so are not making empty threats.

So why have archive.org not been sued? Why are those collections still available? Only sensible interpretation here is, that Nintendo strongly enough suspects, that suing would fail. Or even worse, could backfire, in form of taking abandonware ROMs from gray zone to full case law legal. This given that archive.org knows its rights, and is willing to defend them, with to be assumed good chance of success. Losing such law case would destroy all intimidation potential, and thus end all suppression by threats, which they have managed to gain up to now. So they will not risk this. Thus even their known most aggressive lawyers in this field of business have by noteable act of ommission indirectly declared the extension of the exemption to be likely enough valid!

(Note: For anyone who recognizes above, Nintendo are basically working with intimidation by empty threats against abandonware web sites, which often know no better than media industry propaganda claims. All this just to reduce availability to half as many sites, and thus frustrate some timid users, that they give up searching. But even so other users annoyed by having to search more are guaranteed. This goes up to boycotts by any users, who recognize and reject such bullying behaviour. Profit gained is questionable. As Nintendos own emulators and ROMs can be sold anyway, despite web downloads, with the advantage of "easy to install and use" and also "includes payment to makers". Same as the music industry today manages to sell to many, despite web competition, by this approach.)

3: Moral Situation

• 3.1: Moral Basics
• 3.2: Moral Aspects of Copyright
• 3.3: Moral Aspects of Copying

3.1: Moral Basics

• Use of violence is inacceptable, unless in defense against an other act of violence. This also applies to threats of using violence, which to not be empty have to be followed up on. Here applies the basic principle, that respect and consideration only exist if others grant them, which those will only do it they as countermove recieve the same. This is the minimal base of any civilisation.
• Creating art costs, and those doing so should be rewarded. Paying this should be split evenly over all users, else some will be unfairly profiting at the costs of others, followed by the latter not paying any more, followed by creators getting ever less and giving up. This though becomes irrelevant, when the work is not sold, no matter if distributed non-commercially or subventioned, but also not ever distributed or not any more.

3.2: Moral Aspects of Copyright

• Some people simply do not care about moral, consider the stronger to be in the right. This including anyone with any law on their side. Law is just annother weapon, and even one usable without danger, because legal and the police carry the risk of violent response. (This seems to be the stance of a part of the media industry, at least the organised ones behind the lobbyists, main thing maximising profit no matter how much damage others suffer.)
• Some people care about moral, but recognize no problem with this usage, as law allows it, which for them trumps moral, or even defines that, no matter who prescribed that law. (This is the official stance of the large mass of the state, be this officials or police or legal system or penal system, with the current rulership/politics as prescriber, since 1000s of years.)
• Some limit this because of democratic basic rights or even constitutional law, to only laws which are compatible with those. (This is the official stance of any constitution/baselaw, because written after a revolution against injust laws, to prevent repeated revolution due to laws becoming again injust. With thus constitutional/supreme court explicitely created as means to stop such, so that democracy stays a constitutional state and not becomes a majority dictatorship.) (Note: Unfortunately with a massive deficit of push through, expecially in view of how many politicians and police and rest legal system and penal system ignore these limits. That because only 100s of years of democracy have failed, at countering dictatorical behaviour patterns grown in 1000s of years of monarchy.)
• Some people recognize a fundamental moral problem with using violence, no matter what laws allow or even demand, but consider using after the deed punishment as acceptable despite this, to scare off anyones future deeds, as a case of lesser evil.
• Some limit this exemption because of using violence to only against violent crime, because only then such scaring off violence can be a lesser evil. Else this would be disproportionate retribution, thus such use of law would itsself be a violent crime. (Add to this, that the state should protect people from crime, for this has power, which due to being dangerous should be used responsibly, not to carelessly support crimes.) (Note: Here exists a massive pent-up demand of setting violence limits, despite 100s of years of democracy, and despite various catastrophies allowed or even perpetrated by states by law, such as censorship and prohibitions or even slavery and genocides.)
• Some though extend this to also high treason, which is strictly no act of violence, but its consequences in destroying trust and societies integrity often develop into massive violence.
• Some accept only violence in defense while currently being committed acts, else this would be revenge. But any law case happens after acts have finished, no fending off can take place any more. Thus all use of law is revenge and shall be avoided. (Note: By the way this is the stance of Christianity, which 2/7 of all people state to follow. This teaches to not judge others, and to also have no desire for such in oneself, thus also no suing, and consequently also not per laws order the state to do this.)
• Some though extend this from currently being committed to also current threatening of acts, even if not yet commenced.
• Some extend this further against repeat offenders, to block their specific to be expected future acts. Which makes this proactive defense, for unknown third persons, against those acts. Thus this is not punishment/revenge any more. It has more the character of monster hunting, where some types of monsters happen to have human form. But it risks also to happen when no repeat any more would have come. And it denies giving perpetrators from ignorance a chance of recognizing and stopping.
• Some limit this thus to only if an offender has been criticised, then still continues, proving lack of insight, thus future cases are likely to be expected and risk thus low. (This also condemns state use of violence against non-violent offenders, if continued despite being repeatedly criticised, or even many times so.) (Note: Strictly Christianity allows this, so long the fending off is without violence, only the errant person is expelled out of society. Which for firms using law based attacks amounts to boycotting them. And for states helping such not delivering any facultative services, in particular not supporting non-insightfull politicians.)

By the 6 latter of 10 above standards, demanding any form of monopoly by law is immoral. Because this can only be achieved by threats of punishment by force of law against everyone, who does not accept the monopoly. While all who disregard this are not committing any act of violence. Thus making from view 5 on any punishment here into unjustified violence, this to false law. Thus such demand becomes immoral itsself! Disrespecting such an immoral demand can not itsself be immoral.

(Note: This applies not just to copyright, but also to all other intellectual monopoly style laws (including patents, trademarks, appellation of origin, design patterns, data protection, ...), and even to any other form of law granted monopoly (such as state concessions).)

3.3: Moral Aspects of Copying

But it is moral (and legal) to take free rides, if such are offered. See in cases where the bus service is subventioned by city or sponsored by private. Any case where no ticket sales infrastructure is present, can be assumed to fall under this. The same should apply to abandonware, when the publisher sales infrastructure is not any more available.

Only difference is, a bus service has running costs for each ride. So free rides require subventions or sponsoring to continue to exist, making them seldom. Also any not paying person adds weight and fuel costs, and also takes space away from paying ones. While media have no running costs for each use, and not paying users add none. They have only one-time distribution costs, which anyway those offering downloads are giving away for free, and those downloading can help cover with donations. Thus it suffices if just the publisher abandons selling.

Exemption from this can only be justified by those, who without running costs reject the entire per-copy financing model. This in particular because it fails anyway for most authors, only after creating work can give something, or not at all, if usually no publication can be achieved, and even with publication usually does not even cover production costs. These though must also consequently be prepared, to give out everything they publish without such financing. (Which I since decades do anyway, with offering all on the web, because it is so simple, just file it in the webserver directory instead of elsewhere.)

The should though also engage themselves for other financing models for authors, which break the entire "sell something or die of hunger" situation of the market economy. (Which I here am just doing here, with pointing to the best such system known to me, providing a Basic Income. Which will also help many other people, because it can solve many other problems.)

(Note: By the way this is the stance of Christianity. It rejects, next to judging others, also already only exploiting market prices instead covering production prices, which is the target behind the not striving for riches. (Already before Judaism forbid capital interests, and thus the entire financial model, which such monopolies shall support.) It though also demands to ensure, that everyone can get food. Which next to the aimed for incapable of working also applies to working without sales, including helping authors already while creating, irrespective of if they get publication. Consequently the already payed for by all works should be free for all, appart from covering distribution costs. Which all is ideally fullfillable with above Basic Income.)

4: Various further Falsehoods

• 4.1: Games are "Too Expensive" Excuse
• 4.2: Buy and Dump and Resell
• 4.3: Abandonware may be re-published
• 4.4: e-Shop Closures
• 4.5: "Piracy" Propaganda
• 4.6: "Property" Falsehood
• 4.7: DRM Fraud
• 4.8: WIPO/DMCA Attack
• 4.9: Damage Calculation Fraud
• 4.10: Press and Propaganda

4.1: Games are "Too Expensive" Excuse

Also games can be made cheaper, by reselling after playthrough. Strictly the price splits itself into "playing cost" (= buy - sell) and "collecting cost in case of not sold on" (= without sell). Games can be got even cheaper, by buying them second hand, by being the person who above sell part comes from. Or even later selling on second hand (or would that be third hand?), in which case the difference of buy - sell can drop down to nothing (if sell = buy). If the game becomes abandonware and seldom enough, sell can even go up to where buy - sell becomes negative (that is profit instead of cost).

(Note: Why do you think do media companies want, that everyone buys from e-shop? Because it eliminates reselling of physical copies, no legal competition by second hand product, more sales and profit for them. Or even "better" they want, that users accept software as "rental", annual payment or else the software stops working, which over the years adds up to even more profit for them. Also they can then ignore the "annoying" users rights, which buying gives the user, but "renting" does not. (Please ignore, that here strictly no rental takes place, because no handing back and further to following renter, which gives the base for justifying usage restrictions on rental objects, thus for software as not-object is anyway irrelevant. Thus supposed "software rental" is really just buying with continuous paying off. But falsely presented as "rental" to defraud the customer of their users rights , with for this leading the legal system astray.)

(Note: Example see Nintendo Switch official emulators. These are today only made available for such "rental" on Nintendo Switch Online (NSO). That after Wii and 3DS and WiiU at least had buyable e-shop versions (as the Virtual Console series), and GBA still had cartridges (as the Classic NES series). (Though strictly the latter were ports and not emulations, due to adapting to the smaller resolution LCD, first 3DS has enough pixels to fully emulate NES.) There exist gamers, who regard the only use of getting official copies in recieving permanent ownership of them, thus reject such "rental", and go get from the web. There exist further users, who regard the only justification for continuous paying of software in financing of continuous developement and/or support, which exactly for emulating old games is not the case, thus also go get from the web.)

Still too expensive for you, even with resale of second hand bought? Then download abandonware for free. There are decades of abandoned game history to be played through, among them also older versions of todays. Not good enough for you, only the current games are this? Then use current Open Source software, which gets given away. Not good enough for you, only commercial games are this? Then pay your share towards creating new ones. Do not cheat other gamers, who are paying their share of developing of still being sold games.

4.2: Buy and Dump and Resell

Only after something has become abandonware, this becomes a legitimate alternative to ROM downloads. Including then giving away copies of ones dumped ROMs to others, which may end up on download sites for others to get instead of dumping themself, with for this needing to search for exemplars and having to have original hardware or ROM-dumper.

4.3: Abandonware may be re-published

Add to this, that the entire decisions in the 1980s to finance creating games or not, in no way could be influenced by the then not even existing possibility of re-publishing on emulators. By which any usefullness of a continued monopoly on those is missing, thus such can not have a justification.

Bonus points, when such activists make panicked statements, which sound, as if Nintendo could not re-publish any more! This despite them only losing their law-based monopoly on long ago written-off titles. While they still can enforce any software on Switch, due to technical monopoly as operator of the only e-shop, including offering only their emulators and their ROMs. Thus copied ROMs on the Internet only apply to PC and phone users, who can not run Nintendos emulators anyway, and thus are not potential customers for them and so irrelevant. Again no justification of continuing monopoly.

(Note: Also they only offer such small 10s of ROMs per emulated system, and only on their newest system, in a world where 1000s of ROMs are available free online, for any emulator on any hardware. Totally not competitive! Then they try to compensate with above legal threats, and fail at it. They have not learned anything from the music industries losses or change of strategy to availability with low price offers.)

(Note: Instead of that they could at least make packages of all of the 100s of Nintendo-owned (and thus free of external license costs!) games for every system. With NES and GB/GBC games averaging 100kBytes and 300kBytes such 100s are still only few 10MBytes, which would already have fit in N64 or DS cartridges, let allone on GameCube Mini-DVDs or Wii DVDs or WiiU Blurays or in 3DS and Switch cartridges. Even 100s of average 1MBytes and 3MBytes size SNES and GBA games would fit in all latter. This with the ROMs as the "levels" of an single emulator "game" per system. With e-shop downloads cartridge limits even disappear entirely, nut also physically stable preservation, thus cartridge also should be offered. All this with a price fitting for emulators being very low development cost "games" (compared with budgets of new full size AAA titles) and the actual ROMs near cost-free due to already written-off (so this part is just cashing-in on dead bodies). Offer such competitive, and most users would not bother with searching for other. Except PC and phone users, who can not run Nintendos emulators anyway. (Above mentioned Capcom and Namco and Sega and SNK do sell such packages since decades, at fitting prices, and do not sue, despite their offers being also for PC.)

4.4: e-Shop Closures

This don't save them hardly anything, despite what some activists claim. They still need to provide the old games for re-download by previous buyers, which requires disk space and net bandwidth and operating the database of purchases. They also still need to be able to bill users of their current system that they are selling for, so payment infrastructure must still be operated. They only save maintaining a system app, which shows the unchanging list of games available for the old systems (and at least on 3DS even this display is still present), and allows customers to add more of them to their database of purchases, after paying more. That is not much saving.

What do they lose? Obviously all further sales possible. Possibly a multiple of the saved maintaining costs. But way more important, the status of "last to become abandonware" has just been extended, from DSi and Wii up by 2 more systems 3DS and WiiU. That reduces the version distance from newest abandonware to the currently sold Switch version from 3 to 1! Even worse, if the Switch version was a straight WiiU port (all early Switch games with "Deluxe" at the end of their title), then it is more like from 2.5 to 0.5 versions. So they have just thrown away a massive amount of advantage!

Example see Mario Kart, one of Nintendos hottest sellers over all generations, always place 1..4 on 9 generations. Previous abandoned were up to DS (version 5) and Wii (version 6). Now with the e-shop closures they added 3DS (version 7) and WiiU (version 8), while Switch is only version 8 Deluxe. Further example see Super Smash Bros. Previous abandoned were up to Wii (version 3). Now they added 3DS (version 4) and WiiU (version 4.1 or 5 depending on how one counts), while Switch is version 5 or 6.

This fail becomes even worse, due to repeating the mistake, after already having done it a few years ago, when shutting down DSi and Wii e-shops in 2017 and 2019. Which was promptly followed by abandonware web sites expanding to offer DS and Wii titles. Followed by legal threats, which failed to suppress them. DS games have by now become over 90% available, Wii are over 50%. Now we are already seeing sites expand to 3DS and WiiU titles. Again legal will fail.

Repeating this mistake seems to be a case of institutional idiocity, of the sort that comes from ideologically caused blindness towards reality. Or even of institutional arrogance, of the sort that comes from being spoilt by a legal license to demand state-perpetrated violent acts against competition, instead of like every other sort of firms having to withstand competition, followed by developing from this an superiority complex, which degenerated into arrogance.

(Note: I myself have profited from the closure. I can now on my with Custom FirmWare (CFW) jailbroken 3DS run all its fitting games, next to also GBA and DS ones, plus emulated 8bit/16bit. This allows Mario Kart 7 instead of DS and first enables Super Smash Bros for 3DS of which none existed on DS. All this without having to search for second hand cartridges, followed by dumping and storing them. (These are getting ever more seldom and expensive, due to being out-of-publication and collectors buying them up.))

(Note: Side effect is a massive increase in people jailbreaking 3DS, even those who have used it for 10 years without, just so they can further add games without the disappeared e-shop. This in such amount, that Nintendo has in 2023 issued a firmware update to version 11.17.0-50, for this since 2019 abandoned system, to "fix" a security hole in system setup, which has had no impact on playing, but is used for the at that time easiest form of jailbreaking! Profit gained is again questionable: Nintendos own emulators and ROMs can be sold anyway. And their current ones in any case only run on Switch, since the Virtual Console emulators on 3DS and WiiU have been abandoned. And Switch anyway only emulates up to N64 and GBA, not even DS let allone 3DS. Add that hackers regard finding new holes as sportive challenge, and the entire copy prevention measures as adventure game. Some consider themselves as digital Robin Hoods, who free users from restrictions. In only 1 year they had an new hole, and even an easier usable one! Also this update only hindered 3DS users, not the way more PC or phone users, was thus useless and unneccessary reputation damaging.)

4.5: "Piracy" Propaganda

(Note: All being available is not the same as being aware of all! The latter is limited by biology. Even with thousands of millions of viewers only first perception is given for sure. But transmitting this to all others is again limited, by sticking out from all the other persons discoveries. Thus tactical (short duration local) secrecy can work partially, by not getting noticed. Which is though unreliable, can fail by accident. But strategic (long duration impacting others) goes notat all. Chance of accident with enough time heads towards 100%. Deliberate sabotage adds to this, see already today the entire leaker scene.)

Thus Copyright is failing, the Internet arrived and shotgunned it, it is just still bleeding out. Or perhaps a more fitting image would be from a horror film, a person (often a villain fleeing from the heroes) falling into a pit full of bugs or worms or snakes (often set up by them, as punishment device or simply for sadism). On every move he can squash many, but more new ones gain access, until the victim suffers death by blood loss from many millions of small bites! Or should that be called mega-bites?

In this world publishers need to change, drop dieing law and use morals. But like the old USA law came with a clause of "time-limited tolerated breach of law" and its limits, moral also comes with a condition of "be respectable so you can credibly preach" and its demands.

How can they fail at this? Extremely easy! Just compare copiers, who are for the worst at the crime level of riding a bus without ticket, or slightly below because not adding operational costs, or no crime at all when only using Abandonware, and know this instinctively, with pirates, who are robbery gangs at sea, and thus sneaky violent criminals, and are known and despised for that. Same applies to calling them by the German term Raubkopierer (= robbing copiers), or comparable in other countries, also falsely portraying as violent criminals.

Screaming of "Piracy!" may have been an effective form of propaganda, to incite careless politicians, to pass the laws, which publishers wanted, by hyping up the danger. And dramatic enough to make them decree drastic punishments. But those are politicians, who are mentally twisted and corrupted by years or even decades of juristic education and propaganda battles and power deals. Thus they will accept anything, so long lobbyists can fit it into their twistedness.

This fitting it in is trivially easy. One must only take an highstanding ideal and slip in something. Such as take the concept of "protection", which actually means shielding or fending off of danger or attack, and pervert it into committing an attack. Such as "in the name of protecting interests", from where it is not far to "competition is against interests and a danger and thus an attack", followed by as "defense" against this demanding protectionism by monopoly, and enforce this with violence, which though itsself is an attack. With such twisted logic lobbyists can push through any monopolies.

(Note: Generally such twisted language is the base for twisted mentality and corruption. Not the small "best politicians money can buy" financial corruption, but the large "uncapable to think clearly" mental corruption. Thus politically correct thinking is also so dangerous!)

(Note: With comparable methods also random other falsehoods fit in. Simply sell what one wants to force through as solution of the others problem. Worst case talk the other into believing, that he has a problem needing solving. For which especially fear of the threat of competition is exploitable. (Which also lays the base for spreading the entire hostility towards foreigners or immigrants, because unscrupulous politicians so can gain scared and fearfull voters. Instead of doing something effective against the real threatening "sell something or die of hunger" situation of the market economy, such as providing Basic Income.))

This works even if the wanted law is misusing force of law for attacks. That gets here "justified", because people who disregard monopolies (and thus laws) are "criminal attackers", which allows "defense" against them and thus violence, even more severe if someone dramatically screams "Piracy!". For real this enables the monopolists to commit law assisted crime, and even violent crime! That this is allowed by corrupted law (and even gets helped) only makes it into legalised crime.

This works despite such misuse. Because the majority of politicians are egocentrics, because mainly such are enough driven, to pull through the sieving by the election process. They are also power seekers, who want to push through their will, and such do not respect the will of others. This not even for will expressed in the form of constitutionally prescribed basic rights. (And they are mostly not video gamers, even less retrogamers, not users of abandonware, have no interest in copying, so own experience or will can not correct them.)

See the 1920s prohibition against alcohol for how badly they can derail. Lobbyists demanded "protection" from side effects of drunkenness on others. But that not in form of defense against recognized drunks or rescuing of their victims, instead attacks against all producers and dealers and consumers of alcoholic beverages. Result was consumers cover their demand by the underworld, followed by its smuggling and gang wars, but also adultered wares up to health damage, plus criminalisation of consumers up to destroying social position and misery. Way more damage than the alcohol could ever lead to!

Constitutional law about freedom of trade or matuurity of the citizen failed entirely, at stopping this abuse of law, both at teaching politicians and at using judges against them. Thus it needed more than 10 years of lobbying, to get rid of this law. That discredited the entire system completely for the victims and their sympathisers. Since then only people still believe in this system, who are unknowing of that failure (due to widely forgotten in 100 years) or too stupid to recognize the consequences of this history.

(Note: Nothing was learned from this, all was repeated a few decades later against drugs. Identical types of damage and more of them. Plus also creating the junkie scene and procurement criminality. As part of that drug prostitution and spreading of AIDS. Plus here without any "protection" of others, with only moral dictatorship in contradiction of constitutional law about maturity and personal responsibility. And lobbying has even in by now nearly 10 decades not ended it, due to less affected. In the war against drugs the law degenerated further and the police brutalised down to the level of an unscrupulous gang of hooligans when commanded. Not reacting to often repeated criticism lead to frustration, which from powerlessness developed into hatred of the state, by the victims and their sympathisers. Drug exports from third world countries became the financial source for guerillia in the cold war and terrorists today. In the war against terror constitutional law got further destroyed. Due to currently being committed unknowing can be eliminated as reason, only too stupid to recognize can be in effect.)

Screaming of "Piracy!" is thus effective with politicians. But today on the Internet it is a totally ineffective way, to convince gamers, who have an interest in copying (be this only abandonware by some, or also current by others), and are not twisted in that way. They see the mismatching comparison of copying with robbery gangs at sea, recognize the false association. Some are already pissed and critical by reports of overly harsh punishments. Some also see the organised spreading of propaganda for purpose of corrupting law into becoming auxillary in violent crime. After this manipulators and violence perpetrators and thus hypocrites get rejected. The media industry fails badly at moral!

Insert here the standard copier quip: "No piracy here. No sea at hand, no ships in sight. No software on one ship, no assault on it from another. Why go to such trouble and danger to get files, instead of just downloading them from the Internet?".

Bonus points, that the media industry has managed, to convince far too many activists to mindlessly propagate this self-defeating terminology. Thus making those repeat the same mistake 1000s of times, annoying copiers ever more. And due to unfocussed viral propaganda spreading to the type of persons, who are succeptible to such, there is no way to get this avalanche of them to stop, even after recognizing the error. Total failure is unavoidably coming their way!

Super bonus points, when such activists complain, that copiers are not listening to them, neither consider their pro-copyright arguments, nor better themselves, some times with additions such as "despite being told 1000s of times" or even "despite being told since decades". Copiers notice, that the media industry and these activists also fail to listen to criticism of their "piracy" usage, neither consider changing terminology, nor better themselves, despite being told 1000s of times, since decades. And all this despite a mental twisting assault with propaganda being a far worse crime than not paying ones share, let allone just using abandonware.

(Note: The Internet has a long history of recognizing Godwins law. This states, that in any long enough discussion the chance approaches 100%, that some activist will compare his target with the Nazis. In this case the discussion is over. Not in a legalistic sense of breaking rules, but simply strategically. This because once said activist claims his what-so-ever target person to be as bad as million-victim mass-murderers, he will be regarded as a nutcase. Even supporters of his desire will distance themselves from such extremism, or at least go silent. Up-to-now neutrals will criticise the activist. The direction of the discussion reverses. The target person can now very easily reject anything from him, will so surely not accept any views he wants to spread. 100% failing is guaranteed, discussion is over, due to failed. Comparing copiers with pirates is not that extremely bad as anyone with Nazis, but triggers the same type of rejection, due to being widely inappropriate.)

While at it, the same applies to comparing copiers with thieves. Not twisted copiers also notice the difference. Theft means loss of use of something, copying makes a second copy to use, no loss of first. Also false association. Easy for copiers to notice. Easy to then disregard and reject the claimant, as "Too stupid to notice this sort of subtle difference". Being considered stupid makes them no more effective at preaching moral than being hypocritical. The media industry again fails badly!

Insert here an other standard copier quip: After seeing the "Would you steal a car?" propaganda campaign they reacted with "Of course I would not steal a car, but I would copy one, if I could do so!". Consequently that campaign failed entirely, from lack of comprehension on part of its makers blinded by ideology.

Media industry wants some success? Accept and use the fitting association with riding bus without paying! That one can not be ignored easily, because it strikes. And it gains support, from honnest users who understand it, and recognize their losses from cheaters. But it also requires accepting the included free rides logic, which leads to accepting abandonware copying. Though this can also gain support from abandonware users, who understand it. Also it leads to focusing on those copiers, who cheat on payment for still being sold games. Failing to see all this seems to be once again an industry-wide case of institutional idiocity or arrogance.

4.6: "Property" Falsehood

Real property applies to things. Each one separate, each one ownable/transferable/sellable/buyable independantly, from old owner (including manufacturer as original owner) to new owner. Which is the base of every sale ever, since millennia, known to everyone and mostly respected (except when injustly aquired). This is neccessary, because things consist of atoms, and arranging those demand per exemplar manufacturing, while in contrast to that data consists of bits, which enable copying by users. What is fundamentally different, because the copier is the manufacturer, so long someone lends him an existing exemplar to copy (including copying from copy on server).

False property, such as "intellectual property", against this tries to apply to all copies, disrespecting above "separate", including applying to already sold ones, and thus also disrespecting fundamental principles of trade. Thus it dispossesses buyers, which makes it into anti-property, and thus the term into perversion.

False excuses by activists like "that difference is why it is called intellectual property" fail hard. This because they are basically saying "we want to have this treated with the respect property gets, despite ourselves not respecting the sale as transfer of property". This self contradiction exposes the errorneous logic. (Further excuses such as "we have only sold an usage license" are just attempts, to hide such disregard behind phrases. And they are in addition a further case of twisted language and twisting mentality with such.)

Once this "property" claim is recognized as falsehood, and the legalistic mental twistedness that lead to it noticed, all other media industry failures become understandable. This confusion stems from the collision of the two copyright systems ways of thinking. In particular from the bastard born from merging and extending the "monopoly" and "integrity" traditions into false "property", which one should rather call "intellectual dictatorship".

This twisted ideology then caused mental blindness, wchich was then spread by the law faculties of the universities, which twisted all jurists. From this they "forgot", that they are (in the USA) only granted a temporary monopoly (and as such a privilege), or (in Europe) only granted recognition of expression (and as such keeping the integrity of the work). After which they missunderstood this attained as subsets of non-existant "property" (and try to treat such it as absolutely theirs), with after even perverted the basics of property (dispossessing the buyers).

Thus all their desires for copyright extensions become understandable, as attempts to treat something as what it is not and never was and also should not be. The resulting many extensions are just as false:

• No matter if they are "correcting" the "flaw" of time-limited monopoly, because property is permanent. By underhanding the contradiction with twisting laws. See the incautious statement of a media industry PR person, that "Eternity -1 day is time-limited". By which they openly admitted to wanting to systematically ignore the condition, which only makes copyright legal in the USA! From this attitude comes allways extending and never reducing or revising, no matter how many complaints come, because all is looked at as "correcting".
• Or even just repeatedly lengthening the duration of the time-limited monopoly. That not only for new works, but also retrocative for old ones, just to increase the profit of a few evergreens. That despite it impossibly being able to further the original publication. While it definitely prevents todays re-publishing of all recently expired works, even already freed ones got blocked, harming the investment of the republishers. Again exactly the opposite of the claimed aim and thus perversion. (The last lengthening from death of the author +50 years to even +70 is known as the "Disney law", because ordered by them to further monopolise "Steamboat Willie", so that also the character Mickey Mouse first time used in it stays monopolised.) (Note: From finding out about this perversion of law came the beginning of my rejection of misuse of copyright. The criticism those days was so large, that even 20 years later a further attempt at such extending was even too much for USA politicians!)
• Or making it all inheritable like property, despite this not furthering the original publication, instead of as an privilege treating it like a title, which with death ceases to exist. Only this allowed the lengthening to far too long, to way after the life duration of most consumers and thus not relevantly time-limited! By which the entire balancing of interests between publishers and users got destroyed. (Half of average remaining life expectancy of an average author is sort of the maximal acceptable limit, about 30 years. For things with expected short sales life less is appropriate, such as music or software, with 90% of averge expected turnover in only about 3 and 10 years, thus to be limited to that.)
• Or because "property" punishment measure demands relating to theft instead of riding bus without ticket.
• Or the entire defaults to unusable, instead of only when the author want to monopolise it. This error arises, because manufacturing a thing automatically makes this into property, while privileges as non-things are only are created by law, which has to be justified by usefullness for society. (Note: Thus many people ignore this default, rightfully so, because it is nonsensical. Everything own that I publish (including this text) is conciously always unlicensed, which is known as Rational Default. Thus it allows all rejectors of the false default, but blocks followers of that. It thus rewards people to not any more worshipping false laws. Which is here even riskless, for any work without threat with copyright. While followers of it punish themselves, despite without plaintif no judge. With letting them walk into their own trak I show my disdain of their stupidity!)
• Or then denying spreading abandonware, even after they have stopped selling it, despite not making any more profit with it. By which the work is not available any more, exactly the contrary of the claimed "improving supply of art", pure perversity. And by which also in the USA a condition in not any more fullfilled. This error also arises, because property of things does not end by non-use, while privileges can cease to exist by not-anymore-usefullness due to being non-things.
• Or even not at all sold stuff, despite not even making profit with it. By which the privilege should not even be given. (Generally any non-sale should lead to non-monopoly. No matter if from begin costless, or once for pay but now costless, or not at all distributed, or once distributed but now not any more.)
• Or trying to treat something sold, as if it had not been sold, including all usage limits. Part of this are the entire EULA pseudo-contracts, which due to not having been negotiated before the sale have in many jurisdictions no legal credibility. Thus are, due to despite this pretending them to be contracts, to create this impression in users, stricly attempted fraud, at the level of professionally perpetrated serial offence. (Bonus points, that they even with "negotiated" before would be leonine contracts, due to being dictated by monopolists with "accept this or get nothing at all".) (Note: From recognizing this fraud came a further large step in rejection.)
• Or demanding a pseudo-tax on all usage of photocopiers and sales of empty cassette tapes, raised by private organisations in German called "Verwertungsgesellschaften" (seems to translate to "collecting societies") with legal support. This is supposed to serve to cover their losses by copiers by flate rate levy, despite no other victims of financial crimes getting such, but without as countermove to this as switching over to flate rate payment legalising copying. For real a case of they want both the profits from selling exemplars and also the profits from flate rate payment! (Bonus points, that their first actions were executed that bad, that the targeted photocopier owners reported these as new scam to consumer protection organisations. (Note: From via consumer protection report finding out about this law came the final step in rejection.)
• Or forbidding of altered works such as modifications or extensions of games, but also music or video remixes, because of "damaging the integrity of the work". This even if these are clearely labled as altered, and thus can not be false statement in the name of the author, thus no libel can be, plus despite that they due to being additionally produced do not affect existing copies of the works, and thus can not destroy any statement of the author. By which this shoots way over target.
• Or forbidding of inspired original works, which just use characters or scenes or locations such as fan fics. Thus perpetrating an assault against fundamental principles of inspiration and creativity, and thus exactly contrary to the claimed "improving supply of art", a further perversity. Again because overextended property thinking. (Generally any forbidding of creating should be forbidden.) (Note: The only reason why recognizing this did not expand rejection, was only hearing about it, after I had already rejected not only misuse of copyright but the entire principle of "intellectual property" to 100%. More than that is mathematically impossible.)

To this comes the derivation to other fields. Just as false:

• Patents: This time monopolising technical inventions. Just here with monopoly only being known after years, but also forbidding all in the meantime made developments by others, if they do not pay license duties. Thus damaging inventors in the name of supporting them, perverse! Such is known as submarine patent, due to invisibly attacking. It even violates a fundamental legal principle, that laws must be published to be usable, and that also only allowed on deeds after publication! Bonus points, that actually officially trivial patents can be disbanded, but the courts assume the patent violator despite being defendant to be the one, who has to prove innocence (patent invalid), instead of the patent owner as plaintif who should prove guilt (patent valid). Reversing further fundamental legal principle. Result is fending off patent attacks so expensive and risky, that patent threats based law assisted robbery is common. Even if a patent is known comes a further problem, when the owner simply does not give licenses, prefers to be monopoly supplier, no matter how much this violates the fundamental democratic principle of competition based economy. This strikes in partivular new inventors, when established patent owners forbid them market entrance by blocking basics, unless the new ones grant license by which their patent becomes ineffective. (Super bonus points, that these attacks are called "patent protection". By which this is also a case of misusing the concept "protection" for attacks, and the mental twisting from that.) ((Note: Patents were my first meeting with these questionable monopoly laws. By now I have seen a lot of this:
  • A trivial patent on the discoverable by every programmer XOR graphics technique (and because a discovery not even an invention!) had destroyed the beloved but financially severely damaged firm Commodore making a comeback. This because they could not afford either the legal costs nor the fine imposed, then got sales forbidden.
  • Knowing this also layed the base for my entry into resistance against such laws, as was attempted, to extend patents from hardware to software (which above patent was even, despite before this extension!), which would have monopolised even trivial stuff such as progress bars. Resistance on one side in form of a petition against importing this error from USA into Europe (text Version 1 and 2, both only in German, as aimed at local national organisation), and on other side participation in a demonstration, which helped to prevent this.)
  • Later I saw, that the law assisted robbery goes up to the level, where some lawyers finance their attacks by issuing shares. This with one group as profit promise pointing out, that such attack against RIM (maker of the Blackberry) netted $600mio in "Gains".
  )
• Trademarks: The derivation to names and logos. Here a case of massive shooting beyond the target, with attacks on random "unlicensed" usage of trademarks or even just of similar. Supposedly to secure the reputation and integrity of the trademark, so that buyers can trust. Again because defense is expensive and risky an ideal tool for suppression of competition by law. (Bonus points go to Germany, where random lawyers without license can sue in the name of the owner, thus also damaging their reputation, again perversion!) (Super bonus points go to Switzerland, where the internationally used term Pils for a style of beer is forbidden, this must be called "Spezial", which confuses buyers, because of an trademark exchange deal with Czechia, where Pilsen has a trademark on this.) (Note: Trademarks were my second meeting with such monopoly laws. By now again seen a lot of this:
  • A performace art group in which an office mate was member got thus attacked, just because similar name as a newer(!) company, who tried to rob their domain name. Result was not unpayable legal defense, but "the most expensive art project", with sabotage by many angry Internet users, to block this companies web shop as "digital sit-in", after which the firm went into bankrupcy. A case where justice won over law, and an early demonstration of the power of Internet and Social Media. (Unfortunately no such mass had an interest, as annother office mate had his personal domain robbed in this way.)
  • Above Commodore sold 1977 their first computer with the name PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). The successors from 1979 in Europe had to be renamend into CBM, because another firm had already monopolised the Name PET (Program Entwicklungs Terminal, german for Program Development Terminal). The second is so unknown, that only computer historians know about it, who questioned the name change. Despite this a worldwide name could get hit. The same also hit Sega, as the MegaDrive (japanese pseudo-english for massive power) 1988 in the USA had to be renamed into Genesis, because an unknown small harddisk sales company called itsself MegaDrive (from megabyte diskdrive). Again these only known because of questioning.
  • We also have an newer case. The worldwide name of the telephone company Orange does not get used in Switzerland, with instead called Salt. This because someone deliberately before their to be expected market entry monopolised that name for himself. Again so unknown that it only became known because of the name change, after his licence payment demands got too expensive for Orange, and terminating this robbery by law by legal means failed, despite it being analogue to extortion by protection racket.
  )
• Appellation of Origin: This trademarks derivation has even recieved an further derivation. This gives random places the means to monopolise their name in connection with food. Again with shooting massively beyond the target, with forbidding since long established language use of "place-something" as "after recipy/method of place", only manufactured in that place is allowed to be called so. And even that not, if it does not fit the standards of that places AOC organisation, by which further established language use gets forbidden. (Note: This is my newest meeting with such monopoly laws. A clearly named food was all of a sudden replaced with an lame generic Expression, to avoid being sued, shit on all citizens/consumers who prefer the old recipy name. Just think, if Spaghetti Bolognese were only allowed to be called so, if the sauce came from Bologna, all others have to rename it to Spaghetti Tomato-Mincemeat, about that perverse the above is. Again the only reason why recognizing this did not expand my rejection, because only hearing about it, after I had already rejected the entire principle of "intellectual property" to 100%.)
• Data Protection: As last comes here the derivation to things, which the monopolist has not even themselves created! Demanded was actually a ban on state data collection, which according to the view of some activists destabilises the power balance from state and people, which for them is important, to fight errant states. Delivered was false goods, a law which allows anyone to attack random persons, who have data about them, but excepts exactly the state, as soon as it has a "legitime" interest to procecute, even an errant one! (By which this is a further case of misusing the concept "protection" for attacks.) (Seldom praise goes here to the USA, who despite usually being massively for such "property", at least have rejected this nonsense.) (Note: This was my third meeting with such monopoly laws. By now again multiple of this:
  • This time I was legally threatened (the only time in my entire life), and while discussions with a lawyer found out how far this law shoots beyond target. In particular it can get used as censorship tool by anyone, as soon as anyone makes an statement about an other person. Which exactly strikes also criticism of questionable politicians! (A thus censored web site mentioned by that lawyer was quickly shifted over to the USA.) Not surprising, if one knows the genesis of copyright law out of protectionism and censorship. (Then I wrote an Article about it (only in German, as aimed at local user community). Note, that then, more then 20 years ago, I still regarded this as a national errancy, did not know about the global background.) Bonus points, when one knows, that prevent attacks by secrecy as an approach is fundamentally unsafe, can fail by accident, and with ever more available data will be getting ever more so. Thus real security can only come from defending oneself against attacks, by showing up misuses. This especially by using freedom of press, which is exactly threatened by data protection, by which important is getting sacrificed for only comforable!
  • Second case hit a professor, who when changing job to another university as usual sent in letters of recommendation. The new university rejected reading them, until she got from each writer an "data usage waiver", despite that such should be actually implied in writing a recommendation! But fear of this randomly misusable law was already then too large.
  • Third case was a meeting with a parlamentary candidate of the local pirate party, which actually has as aim to be against missuse of copyright and patents, but officially furthers data protection. Pointed to this self contradiction he admitted it, but then stated that "this is politically neccessary because of alliances". By which though that new party for me was already discredidted as corrupt from the beginning, because of selling out to fundamentally unfitting alliances.
  • Fourth case see the entire "warnings" of photos being made and not executable "advises" to avoid such spots at leasure parcs. This so that they don't have to forbid making photos, to avoid getting sued, despite themselves not even making the photos, just for "allowing" such. Also here fear of this randomly misusable law.
  • Fifth case see the entire annoying "cookie" permits, which in the last few years ever more web sites put into the way of their visitors, because of comparable laws. Here was demanded warning and rejectability of "dangerous" logging of which visits are from the same visitor, to derive their interests, to more effectively manipulate them with targeted adverts. In this once again side effects were ignored.
  • Sixth case hit a family member of mine. He wanted a doctors bill per Email for easier copying into E-Banking. Not possible because of illegal per data protection. Despite this being a bill refering to him, thus it are "his" data and his request implies it allows such processing. Also here fear of this randomly misusable law.
  )

Once again they run into the problem, that it is easy to convince politicians, who are mentally twisted and have lack of respect of other people. Thus they also have no problem with dishonnestly calling a monopoly as "property". This even more so, because after more than a century of teaching this mental twistedness at university all jurists have become completely perverted, no matter if lobbyists or politicians or lawyers or judges or legal officials. With which those all got blinded by this ideology, none can see or reverse the errors. From this comes on one hand perverting the entire system into auxillary in crime of robbery, and on the other hand rejecting any criticism against this.

(Note: This not last, because in politics and law an entire culture of "follow the order/law" is in effect, which leads to "thinking by regulation", from which they fail to recognize and correct errors in order/law/regulation, for which "think for yourself and be critical" would be needed. But also because without respect no feelings of guilt come from seeing inflicted damage, which also does not lead to caution and attentiveness to prevent repetition. With this also perversion is problemlessly doable for them and criticism gets rejected as irrelevant.)

(Note: Also many bureaucrats (including officials) consider themselves as knowing better, due to being professionals, their view is the best, thus any other worse, so critics are "obviously" errant, thus to be ignored as "false". This method of thought though ignores, that far more and wider scattered people summs up to for real knowing far more and thus better, than any small homogenous groups of insiders.)

Again this fails at least by critically thinking gamers, who are not so twisted and want respect as potential customers (and more general also as people). These see, that nearly permanent implies not holding of ones part of a deal (letting go after time over), after the other party has already held their part (enforced monopoly while this time). Which is comparable to consuming in a restaurant and then leaving without paying. Which is way worse than riding bus without ticket, because the victim can not prevent the losses any more.

To this comes demanding monopoly even when it is not used, only can inflict damage, a perversion. To this comes forbidding of creating, more perversion. And all this even gets done systematically, which makes these people into professional serial offenders. Once again media industry attempts at preaching get shot down by lack of morals on their part.

To this add by further looking people the recognition of patents and robbery, also trademarks and suppression, also data protection and censorship. This multiple failshots of multiple derived laws, plus the first of above direct copyright things became the reason for me, to research into their origin causes. While this I found their common genesis, the "property" mental twisting, and the entire false from teachings from this. These worked at the law faculties of the universities analogue to by fundamentalists, who in their echo chamber get ever more extreme. In this the ideologues behind this "property" are comparable to priests, who teach fundamentalism.

Bonus points, that even the constitutional/supreme courts, which were explicitely created as means against laws becoming again injust, fail at this! That because we here with "property" have a meme, which infected all jurists. With this the entire rock-paper-scissors logic of the democratic separation of powers into legislative + executive + judicative got subverted, because with all three of them twisted, no one stops the others. After discovering all this the entire "intellectual property" became recognized as an mental cancer infestation, which first proliferated in copyright, then metastased into the derivations, there proliferated further, and in the meantime is attacking the entire society.

Super bonus points, when one knows, that the diverse national lobbying organisations have founded an worldwide organisation, the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) in 1967, to further develop and spread this ideology. This even gets since 1974 financed by the UNO from tax money(!), despite being an one-sided interest group, with aim which violates democratic basic rights. Again this because all jurists are infected. Same applies in some/many countries with the national organisations. (The above at patents mentioned petition was aimed at the local national such organisation, as part of an europe-wide action to stop all these organisations.)

All this shows exactly, why one should not relent to criminals. Because already thieves for every finger take a hand and then a arm and then all the rest. Because they without basic respect for others ignore their interests and views, thus can not recognize limits from "that is false" or even just "when does something become too much to tolerate". This even more so, when one with thieves + violent = robbers has a case of felons, who do not even recognize, that violence is inacceptable and competition is not an attack. For even worse with a mentally twisted legal system and uncritcally following police, who unscrupulously dispense violence, as soon as rulers allow or even demand it, no matter how corrupted those are, thus becoming robbers + mass = bandits. To this even rulers, who do not understand how much a functioning social system must balance the interests of all diverse people, may not commit 100% selling out to questionable minorities. Recognizing all this leads to the saying "Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery".

We have here practically a microcosm of everything that has gone wrong in politics and law. This situation will, due to unreasonable blinded against ever more damaged victims, inevitably lead to a culture war. It is only a question of how much time, until the "when does something become too much to tolerate" has piled up enough. With then resistance of the copiers against the "property" side as aggressor (and the state as their auxillary in crime). This will run exactly parallel to the fight of democrats against monarchs (and their state). It is even exactly about real liberal democracy against subversive remaining monarchic dictatorship, for freedom of trade and freedom of speech and equal rights against protectionism and censorship and privileges. But is also inside the democracy is about acceptable violence and limits from this. Lack of these only let this degenerate so much.

Bonus points, when one knows, that the first big democracies (USA and France) came from revolutions, thus could not condemn doing a revolution as crime, thus constitution/baselaw and constitutional/supreme courts were created, to dispose of such failure without needing violent disposal. Their failing now allows even a new revolution.

(Note: The old wisdom of "Beware the Beginnings" gets once again confirmed. Exactly because this one should not accept, when democratic basic principles get downrated to "theoretical", allow no "time-limited tolerated breach of law", let allone let such degenerate into "property". All this is long known, but if one can learn anything from history, then that many learn nothing from it.)

4.7: DRM Fraud

Aim of this is to bind the bits to one set of atoms, to destroy their flexibility, to continue using outdated industrial mass printing financial models, instead of developing new postindustrial ones. One can compare the situation here with the change from horses to motor vehicles, where an entire industry was reduced from central transport to only sport. Same mass printing industry should be reduced from central distributor to only where physical copies as art objects are desired. Rest comes as bits, downloading from servers, where only covering running costs are relevant, or also copying from colleagues, which can be costless.

Financing of authors should thus be independant from distribution, so as shareware has already shown it. Publishers should become split into physical copy producers plus server operators plus donation collectors. With in all functions competition allowed, by which massive profits from overinflated monopoly prices will drop away. (Which is the real reason why why the publishers are so much against this.)

Instead they bet on the with DRM extended errancy. By which the society though gets technologically crippled. Additionally it technically limits the customers their full usage of that bought, even up to side effects, which can completely deny usage. This is even comparable to cheating paying customers out of using what they bought! So deliberate systematical mass potential fraud. Worse still than above leaving restaurant without paying.

Bonus points in the USA, because with DRM also the releasing after the "time-limited tolerated breach of law" gets technologically prevented. Which is strictly a breach of contract of the entire "monopoly for after releasing free" deals. This is even cheating the entire future society. And even with the victims only getting hit after the guilty have long ago died, due to "decades after death of author" duration of the copyright monopoly, thus they can not defend themselves. So deliberate systematical mass fraud, this time without the only "potential". Even worse still.

Some users thus want to deliberately use DRM-less copied software, to avoid side effects of it abd to ensure preservation. Some of these restrict themselves to abandonware. Others also copy current. Some of those don't bother with additionally purchasing an official version. Some even deliberately avoid the latter, out of explicit desire to cheat the publishers, as "reward" for how they are cheating buyers!

(Note: This deliberately can be regarded as a form of boycott, not buying, but thanks to copyability still not foregoing usage, despite that no competing supplier can exist for the specific monopolised works. One should though delayed buy it, if DRM gets removed. Except this happens so late, that delayed buying is not offered any more or the monopoly should have anyway ended.)

For the consequences compare here music industry and Apple:

• The former has discredited the CD format with "copy protection" to prevent ripping CDs, which though also strikes at normal playback on PC drives. The music industry does not like usage without payment, but had failed to notice, that buyers just as much don't like payment without usability! Thus they drove off the frauded music listeners to the Internet. Bonus points, that they did not stop the technically knowledgeable rippers, and only one is enough to make available to everyone, thus everything stayed available on the Internet. The music industry on this only lost, nearly destroyed itsself, until Germany collaped the war against filesharing, forced them into giving up copyright.
• The latter in the beginning only offered iTunes with DRM, inflexible, not usable on random devices, only there where Apples app ran. Quite a few listeners stayed away, because of this. After a while Apple also offered without DRM, if the creators of the works allowed this. Promptly these sold themselves better, because those people who prefer buying from iTunes, instead of downloading from Internet, anyway do not give further on the Internet, but the stayaways due to DRM were reduced. So the music industry after copyright also gave up on DRM, and became successfull again. Who would have expected that!

Once again there is one known extremist: Nintendo. Well known for DRM use already since the 1980s on the NES. Its USA and Europe edition has contrary to the japanese Famicom edition a lockout chip called 10NES, which only allows playing game cartridges officially equipped by Nintendo with its counterpart, to prevent foreign modules, to force all games under Nintendos censorship of "unwanted" content, to "protect" consumers. As side effect it prevents playing legitime cartridges if the contacts are dirty. (All this force was done instead of introducing a advisory rating system, like Sega did for MegaDrive/Genesis.)

Though other console manufacturers have copied this misbehaviour, newer Sega, newer Atari, all Sony PlayStation, all Microsoft Xbox. On the other side Sega with MegaDrive/Genesis seriously displaced the Super NES and Sony with PlayStation trashed the N64, by just allowing less drastic censorship rules. Sega gained the reputation as rebellious, Sony even that as grown up, while Nintendo got given that as child toy, which they only 3 generations later with the Wii could convert to party toy, and annother 2 later with the Switch largely get rid of.

But Nintendo have in their current system Switch continued to implement harsh DRM, to prevent users using Switch with unsigned (read: not sanctioned by their authority) software. Claimed to be to prevent using unpaid copies. But it also strikes any user written games (called homebrew, of which emulators are actually a special case), or also game modifications (called mods, both small ones, such as having more lives or disabling misfeatures, as also large ones, such as adding new levels or player characters), or also save state tools (backup, transfering, editing). Contrast this with Valve Software, whose Steam also can prevent using unpaid copies, without striking other software on the PC, and that running even since 2003, more than 10 years before developing Switch started. This suggests, that here a dictatorical base attitude is still at work.

(Note: This is the reason why I in 2019 decided against getting a Switch. I met at events first 2017 or 2018 Mario Kart (which I with multiple racing games as experience could immediately easily play) and 2019 then Super Smash Bros (wanted to train this at home). But the DRM prevents user written emulators, thus seriously reducing usage value of a Switch for me, to only these two Switch-exclusive games, instead of also many abandoned ones, for which its hardware could be used near ideally. (The Switch hardware is chipwise an Android tablett.) That means distributing console costs on only two games, which is entirely out of proportion. On top comes failure, to offer their own emulators as buyable cartriges, preferrably each containing 100s of their respective games, and thus multiple interesting me. Which would have distributed the costs more.)

(Note: This requires, that I either must have two devices, bad for finances (and also environment), or simply only the other one, merely bad for Nintendo. Thus I decided against getting a Switch, given that those two games are usable from the GameCube versions on, and that is emulatable. They by their behaviour lost console and two (or later even more) games and possibly multiple emulator sales to me. (And likely also the same to many others thinking alike.) After this came searching for an new PC, because of wanting to emulate GameCube, while this seeing the misinformation about emulation going around and writing this text. To this came because of looking for ROMs seeing their attacks on abandonware sites and in this text pointing out Nintendo. Which all will surely further harm them. Contrast now these losses because of overdone DRM and threats of violence with their claims of "securing" their income with this. With which they have shot totally over the target, and after the shot circling the earth hit their own foot from behind. Yet annother case of their institutional idiocity or arrogance.)

With this DRM they not just prevent "unwanted" software from running, as on NES, but even search through the console to detect jailbreaking (which is needed to still run homebrew) and ban any such. This not only ban from net gaming, despite jailbreaks usually not being used for cheating at them, and integrity checks of just the game when it connects to net play being sufficient for recognizing and blocking cheat mods (see PC anti-cheat software).

But also far worse with ban from e-shop access (yes, they will not even sell to jailbreaking users, losing themself sales!). That also applies to system software upgrades (which may be needed for newer games, thus they sabotage users). The latter parts of this ban come across as a form of vigilantism against jailbreakers, who mostly only want to uncripple their purchased hardware, to use it fully.

(Note: This "improves" the situation, from some users "wanting to avoid Broken As Designed (=BAD) DRM", to some who recognize above "wanting to boycott vigilante company".)

(Note: If someone because of ban is not allowed to buy software, then copying it from the net is not cheating other gamers anymore, and thus morally impeccable. One should though delayed buy it, if ban gets removed.)

4.8: WIPO/DMCA Attack

(Note: This makes the WIPO into an international conspiracy, consisting of the national organisations as conspirators, with robberish intentions, with purpose of inciting politicians to commit high treason, to get injust laws, to be able to misuse obedient legal system and police as ordered bandits. With these misdeeds even financed by tax money.)

Nothing shows anyone up more effective as violent criminals, than such level of perversity: Being intent on dragging people off to prison, as revenge against those helping users, to fix brokenness, which was broken with intent, to systematically cheat ones customers and the entire society, with as preparation for this dragging off already commiting an felony such as high treason!

Does the media industry really want to be the supervillain in this story? With making the DRM-breakers into the heroic Rebels against the Imperium, or even into martyrs. Or is this yet annother case of institutional idiocity or arrogance? With from this unerringly shooting into their own foot. Both can emerge from ideological blindness, after mentally twisting themselves.

The DMCA caused such a large amount of criticism after its adoption by the USA Congress, that even the majority of politicians in Europe doubted its demands! So they watered down their adoption of the WIPO treaty, removing the DRM part. Even in the USA the first few uses of it created massive PR backlashes. Consequently most media companies have recognized the false path and given up on using the DRM part. Despite this the USA politicians did not have any insight and have not after the fact cut down the DMCA, assumedly because their ego does not want to admit errors.

(Note: One of the uses spectacularly damaging themselves was in the USA arresting a person, who in his home country without DMCA or even just comparble law had published such information. At a visit to a conference in the USA he was abducted and punished. Further breaking of basic rights, in this case the entire principle of jurisdiction.)

(Note: Unfortunately this giving up does not apply to the used/misused "takedown" parts. With these websites can be sued, if they do not immediately remove supposedly infringing contents from users, without any "due process", thus breaking even more basic rights. (This can also get used as censorship tool by anyone, without even making an statement about an other person, newer and even worse law than data protection.))

Once again there is one known exemption: Nintendo. The firm with the known most aggressive lawyers in the game industry also uses the DRM part. This was to sue and imprison a group of crackers (hackers who crack open copy prevention and DRM systems), who made and sold auxillary material for Switch jailbreaking. Note that this is hardware, which has to be built into a Switch, with for that removing the processor cooling and soldering a wire underneath it onto the processor itsself! Thus something that over 99% of all users simply can not do, and with then around $150 about as expensive as buying multiple games. Thus no meaningfull threat.

Despite that they used the DMCA to violently assault the marketing/PR/hotline(!) person of these crackers. To be clear we are talking about having police storm house at night, threatening person with shooting to death by drawn weapons and abducting them, and extraditing to the USA despite the crime not committed there! Something that would be appropriate towards violent criminals such as terrorists, but here is totally inappropriate, which makes this into armed assault. (Strictly three people were sought after, one not found, above arrested and extradited and punished, plus third arrested and then set free because of illegal arrest! The scatter is due to them being in three different countries.)

(Note: Nintendos mascot is called Mario. The main villain in Mario games is King Bowser Koopa, often just called Bowser, who repeatedly kidnaps princess Peach. In 2019 Doug Bowser became the new president of Nintendo of America, which generated the obvious comments, that "Bowser has taken over Nintendo". In 2020 above marketing/PR/hotline person called Gary Bowser was arrested, which again generated the obvious comments, that "Bowser is attacking Nintendo". But there came also comments, which of both is actually the kidnapping villain.)

Bonus points, that the USA judge admitted, that the defendant is not the maker, but officially "justified" this brutal action and 40 months of prison with wanting to intimidate breakers of copyright. Which is actually exactly the logic of terrorism! Not surprising some in the meantime treat the assaulted as martyr for users freedom.

(Note: Which "improves" the situation further, from some users who know this "wanting to boycott vigilante company", to "wanting to boycott criminally violent company". Nintendo seems to consider themselves invunerable, because large and rich and "has rights". They seem to have forgotten, that as a company their money comes from customers, and boycotts can hit them, when severe misbehaviour after hitting ever more victims becomes sufficiently known. Once again apparently institutional idiocity or arrogance.)

(Note: Of course I boycott Nintendo since then. This will continue until they admit their guilt, excuse themselves publically, make this credible with acts, such as get the demanded punishment to be dropped plus compensate for the already happened part of it. Of course I do not expect, that such a company would ever do such. Thus I aimed instead of Switch at getting a SteamDeck, because also a handheld, with GameCube emulation for both games I am interested in running. This failed only due to Valve not offering them here, the infamous "Not available in your country". Then I was given a second hand 3DS (original not-New not-XL), on which they even run in only 2 versions older than Switch, plus all GB+GBA+DS games. stalled on this Custom FirmWare. Mario Kart is in 3D even better, but Super Smash Bros showed itself to be too small on 3.5", and same emulating all home computers and TV consoles. Thus further interest on SteamDeck, with in the meantime even running WiiU emulation and the games only 1 version older. Which despite announcement to end 2023 did not come (and even in 2025 is still missing). What in August 2024 buying a second hand New 2DS XL solved. Also installed Custom FirmWare, thus I know about the new easier usable method, and report it here.)

Super bonus points, that the actual crackers, who designed above auxillary material, first dived under and after elsewhere continued selling. But in the mean time other people have analysed the missing offer and duplicated it, on the base of a 100% legal generic hardware module, which only costs $10, plus open source software, and even with better features. Which makes the entire operation into an shot into ones own foot. Just the problem with soldering onto the processor remains.

(Note: Thus homebrew websites still in 2024 recommend a second hand before middle 2018 Switch V1 with RCM bug as most simple. This despite that one for it at each change from official to homebrew and back has to cold reboot, and for homebrew boot has to replace the right Joy-Con with an RCM-Jig plug (or inside the Joy-Con simple soldering) and then boot from PC or phone or special Injector module on USB. Persons who want to modify later Switch, despite expenditure and risk of being even worse than above, shall search for PicoFly. (An offered second hand Switch V2 I decided against because of above soldering. Should I want to have more, it will have to be a used SteamDeck.))

4.9: Damage Calculation Fraud

For real a buyer has a limited amount of budget, more than that he can simply not spend, thus only buy few games. Statistics say average buyer gets 5..10 games per console generation of 5..8 years, so about one per year. A downloader has not got such a limit, with flat-rate bandwidth and near costless disk space. He will thus copy everything just in case, when already being at the fitting place, and in view of the danger, that games offered there can disappear. He will thus copy 100s to 1000s games, because that is the normal logistics. He will also never use more than a tenth or even hundredth of them, except quickly looking into each, due to lack of time. Both applied already in the 1980s (for current) and apply until today (no matter if only abandonware or also current).

This all is also well known since the 1980s. Despite this the media industry claims as "damages", the amount of games (and generally software, or DVDs or music or books) times their sales price. This despite that the downloader as potential buyer due to lack of budget could not buy so much, thus no such profit could exist, thus also can not get lost, no such "damage" can happen.

This false calculation gets at least for software (including games) repeated every year, since the 1980s! It gets every year criticised as false. It gets repeated the next year just as false. It gets claimed as propaganda to demand drastic punishments. It gets claimed in front of court to demand drastic damage compensation. Any criticism gets ignored, with an arrogant "we are in the right, critics are thus unright" attitude, at the best, or a knowing lying "if we admit it, we will lose all falsely attained" attitude, at the worst.

As example, Nintendo demanded in above law case $10mio of "damages", from $2500 per sold exemplar. According to which the average jailbreaker supposedly loses them about $2500/$(50..80)=50..31 AAA game sales, an absolutely laughable claim! (This states also, that only $10mio/$2500=4000 exemplars of it were sold, in comparison to over 100mio Switch, also because of this no meaningfull threat.)

Once again they hit the problem, that it is easy to convince politicians and also judges, who are mentally twisted and have lack of respect of others. But it fails at critically thinking users, who are not twisted and recognize the bullshit trivially. Once again media industry attempts get shot down by lack of morals on their part.

4.10: Press and Propaganda

(Note: Even without such policy one will see snide remarks, that anyone asking on forums for links is too incompetent to use a search engine, and thus will likely also fail to install an emulator, so it is senseless to help them! Or is too lazy to use a search engine, so why would anyone want to help them? This is considered to be acceptable rejection, as it is only denial of help, and not censoring of information nor false preaching.)

Once again, most emulator users (and ROM sites) are into abandonware, only some are into avoiding paying. But many media ignore this fact and include the "obligatory" condemnation. While at it they "ideally" also name emulator users as "pirates". (Some forums even commit this straight in their usage policy.) Totally guarantees not being taken serious. Also looks like cover-your-ass, at the best, or like political correctness, at the worst. Both get disdain.

Also most media while at this fail at noting anything about jurisdiction differences, believing all the world is legally exactly like the USA, or rather the media industry claims about the USA, which though contradict case law. Thus they actually are spreading propaganda, instead of showing such up, thus fail as press.

From both these errors they fail to achieve anything, other than pissing off emulation users worldwide. They could never achieve something productive, such as helping sieve out pay avoiders from hiding among abandonware users.

At least try to limit such preaching to reviews, which involve emulation of systems where games are still being published (that would be Switch, plus PlayStation 4 and 5, plus Xbox One and Series, plus modern PCs). Or simply don't mention emulation of such systems at all. Any review can still cover up to 3DS and WiiU, plus anything from Sega, plus PlayStation up to 3, plus Xbox up to 360, plus anything on any home computer, plus any MS-DOS and DOS Windows PC (or possibly even all pre-64bit Windows NT), plus any older arcade machines, to make it relevant enough for most test readers.

5: Conclusion

Also copyright was never entirely legal in the USA, got exemptions made, including for out-of-publication works. And now it is going to die anyway, the Internet is seeing to that, with easy copying. Which the law must fail to suppress, because users are too invisible or unreachable to credibly prosecute them. That does not lead to stopping copying, only to hiding it to avoid the aggressors assaults. On the Internet that is easy, with next to websites also filesharing. And next to the Internet still exists before-Internet copying between colleagues, which was already used in the 1980s.

Moral can not uphold this law, as copyright always was immoral by many standards, for using violence without being justifiable with fending off violence. Also many copiers have no respect of the perpetrators behind threats of violence, nor of manipulators with propaganda, nor of corrupted politicians, and absolutely not of DRM fraud or DMCA attacks plus false damage calculations. All the confusions of monopoly with property, and all the false laws passed from this, and all the abuse done with them, the law completely derailed, ever more people being harmed, only make this situation even worse. Even people who once accepted the time-linited only-monopoly are by now disgusted turning against it.

Result is "Game Over" for copyright. Thus there is only one way forward: Replace law with moral. But for that the media industry needs to stop shooting into its own foot. They need users to become moral, and can only achieve this by leading them, by becoming decent themselves! Start with dropping the abuse of false laws and spreading of false propaganda. Also they need to be respectfull to get respect! That includes stopping frauding customers and committing attacks against them.

After they can recieve what can be gotten by convincing the majority of decent users with honnest arguments. Such as paying ones share of current developement. But this includes recognizing, that all which was willingly abandoned is now free. Emulator users will copy and use abandonware, and will consider this as acceptable, as it is not cheating. At best they can also offer a way for facultative donations, possibly styling this as official downloads.

Then focus on action where moral against cheating can work, copiers of current stuff. As part of this also re-influence those gamers who have fallen into mindlessly repeating outdated propaganda terms, and get them to also change their behaviour.

This page is by Neil Franklin, last modification 2025.05.06