Blatant thievery, an open letter.

Couldn't you apply the same arguement with those original Nintendo World Championship carts? The rom was dumped and now someone is selling reproductions of the NWC game. But a couple of original NWC carts were auctioned off way into the $$$$ thousands. The program contained on the roms are identical to original. Basically lessening the value of the original carts. I dunno, I could be way off on this. Just wondering ...

 

I think two different issues are being confused here. Selling fake or mislabelled products, I think everyone can agree that's bad. Selling copies of items also entitles you to a swift and unceremonious kick in the butt. But what's all this about the value of the items, and some supposed right to have your expensive item stay expensive in perpetuity? What are we here, a bunch of people who enjoy games, or investors trying to fund our retirements "Antiques Roadshow"-style?

I think the real issue here is that there's not yet enough awareness of how and where the publicly released rips of rare items are available. Speaking from my experience in rare music collecting, public availability is the best way to stamp out the market for duplicates/rips of "holy grail" items.

 

Yeah seriously it's just common sense..

 

the difference between the NWC repros is that they are not made to pass off as them. They have a different cart style and label.

 

I do realize it, I'm just pushing back against it because I don't think it's a healthy direction for any community of rarity collectors (whether it's games or anything else)

Absolutely, because my enjoyment of my house is based on having exclusive use of the property and having the right to sell or rent it as I please, and if you continue to sell my house I lose these things. Is this true for games as well? In my opinion, not really.

At any rate, I don't think anyone's arguing with you that selling copies is wrong, or that passing off copies as the original is fraud. But it's wrong because copies have (or should have) zero monetary value, not because of some illusionary concern that your interest in the original is being diluted. The true source of value - the cachet of owning a unique artifact with a compelling history - is something that can never be copied.

 

I'll pre-empt the response here: once digital copies of a proto/one-of-a-kind item are publicly available, the original item loses value. This is demonstrably true, annoying as it may be. I still think my "if you don't distribute the data/copies then value is retained and no harm is done" argument holds true, though, and then it just comes down to moral decisions about ownership.

I think this is probably as good a place as any to thank all the people who, despite this, decide to publicly release their prototypes and other similarly rare stuff. There's a lot of generosity around here and it doesn't always seem to be recognised.

 

Well its fair to say everyone is entitled to their own opinion of the matter and discussing the matter certainly makes for good conversation and debate but isn't it also fair to say that rules are rules? Just as XeNoN said its common sense, and I agree Assembler with the fact that he shouldn't have to explain why its morally and ethically not to mention bad trade practice to sell endless copies, and that trade should be final.

 

Nobody was arguing otherwise.

 

Never said they were, However some did state that they did not believe keeping a copy for themselves is wrong.

 

reminds me of the not so fun time I had discovering how many MVS games are boots. Luckily all the guys I bought from sold me legit copies.