Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MAME Emulator Shown Running Well on New Apple TV
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Technically, providing an emulator isn't copyright infringement, as long as Apple isn't providing ROMS. Legally Apple would probably be okay. That being said, as a patent and copyright holder themselves, I think Apple is doing the right thing by not allowing apps like this (even though I would really really like it). I personally have some ROMS that I have created myself from games I own, and some I have downloaded from the web.
That was a very early version of Mame, that only plays the really old(early 1980s) games, from what I call the 'gen 1' era.
I'm sure someone will try to sneak in a more recent version of Mame(like the versions found in Gridlee or Mame4iOS), into the tvOS App Store, to claim kudos and I'll be there to grab it, before it's inevitable yanking.
I'm sure someone will try to sneak in a more recent version of Mame(like the versions found in Gridlee or Mame4iOS), into the tvOS App Store, to claim kudos and I'll be there to grab it, before it's inevitable yanking.
Attachments
The issue is "Copyright".
Apple has ZERO interest in being caught allowing copyright infringement.
As soon as that it sorted (about 70 plus years to go thanks to the ever expanding US copyright laws) then Apple will allow SOME emulation.
And the majority of companies that made arcade games in the 1980's are no longer in existence.
Actually, I don't believe the emulator is infringing on anything. Infringement comes when the user loads a ROM file. The emulator itself is not providing those ROM files.
That said, I also think Apple should let it slide. We're talking about emulating games that are 30+ years old in some cases. You can't buy or play these games anywhere. Nintendo isn't making any money on Donkey Kong from 1982, so why not let fans play it? It's harmless. If anything, it just further endears fans to current installments of these franchise games on current platforms.
I'd love so much for a bunch of my favorite gameboy games to come to the Apple TV! (Yes, I admit, Pokemon is on the top of that list) I'm more than happy to pay for them again to have them on the TVOS system, but alas, many of the games' owners will not do it, instead seeking to make their money on the hardware and the software, etc. Unfortunately understandable, in one aspect or another.
That is EXACTLY how I feel. It would be such a dream for me!
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes, I do admit that. The point was that the app itself isn't illegal as it doesn't come with ROMs or offer ways to acquire them.
But the rights to the games have often made their way to new companies.
That being said, I can run Robotron legally under MAME (as I have the game itself, and therefore the ROM images in my possession), but it *could* be used by someone else to illegally run Robotron. Therefore, ban it for everyone on the AT store!
This attitude disappoints me whenever I see it, inside or outside this situation.
^^ This. I'm surprised a company like Sega hasn't done just that. They could release an 'Arcade' and a 'Genesis(MegaDrive)' app for example, and have either bundles of games for a cheap price, or buy them individually, for 0.99 for instance. They'd make a killing and we'd all be happy.
Capcom did have such an app, but I'm not sure if it was discontinued or not.
Midway is the only one I can think of that fully embraced this idea.
You forgot the part about using game ROMs (which are copyright infringement) with said hardware emulation.
Hello Nintendo? Anyone home?
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd say most anyone capable of browsing and posting on internet forums and interested in ROMs can just download Xcode and install it themselves. It's not hard especially once someone already does all of the nips and tucks so it will compile with no issue. We really don't need Apple to put emulators on the App store anymore.
Now, it would be cool if there were a professionally curated "Arcade Flashback" title with selected ROMs from every year since arcades began, that would be fun. There'd probably be no way to wade through all zillion copyrights for everything though.
Now, it would be cool if there were a professionally curated "Arcade Flashback" title with selected ROMs from every year since arcades began, that would be fun. There'd probably be no way to wade through all zillion copyrights for everything though.
Which is responsibility of whoever downloads said ROM, not of whoever provides the emulator.
Hello,
Mame will not be on tvOS App Store because this App Store rule:
2.8
Apps that install or launch other executable code will be rejected
It's so simple: a ROM file that you can put after the app will approve, is a executable code interpreted by a virtual machine (the emulator) connected to an Apple hardware. An executable code that Apple cannot validate or approved in any kind of form.
And yes: there is emulators on the App Store, like Sonic by Sega. But it's an emulator, with the game ROM pre-loaded and send it to approval with the emulator. And the emulator does not have the possibility to load other ROMs of any kind. It's that simple.
Mame will not be on tvOS App Store because this App Store rule:
2.8
Apps that install or launch other executable code will be rejected
It's so simple: a ROM file that you can put after the app will approve, is a executable code interpreted by a virtual machine (the emulator) connected to an Apple hardware. An executable code that Apple cannot validate or approved in any kind of form.
And yes: there is emulators on the App Store, like Sonic by Sega. But it's an emulator, with the game ROM pre-loaded and send it to approval with the emulator. And the emulator does not have the possibility to load other ROMs of any kind. It's that simple.
Why is it a shame Apple doesn't allow apps that infringe copyrighted material?? Are you FOR stealing other people's things?
Only if you don't own the original game cartridge. Otherwise, using a ROM image of a ROM that you purchased and own has been ruled Fair Use (in some legal jurisdictions, but IANAL). Save those 30+ year old purchase receipts!
I have no idea that even means. The A8 is hardly "awesome" when the A9 is already out and the idea of an emulator is to play the original versions of the original game/computer/whatever. The better the hardware you have, the more easily these games run. If you're just saying you don't like like old games like Donkey Kong or whatever then don't play it.
I have a simpler solution to MAME. Take your Mac and play Mame on there and send the output to Any Gen2 or newer AppleTV via Airplay and use a nice Bluetooth joystick for controls (my PS3 works on the other side of the house attached to the Mac itself) and Bazingo! Your AppleTV is now a second monitor and sound receiver for almost any Mac game. Instant video games (just about any type really as long as your Mac has enough power to run and send them over Airplay) on even current and older AppleTVs. Of course, if you use Windows this might not be possible.
Actually, some companies have made their ROMs legally available to purchase over the years or even provided the games with their own emulators. Others have made some roms public domain or free to use. It's entirely dependent on the specific game.
As for Apple being sued, an emulator does nothing on its own except imitate other hardware. Without the ROM, it runs nothing. It's like saying someone could break a law with a computer in general so all computers should be banned from being sold period. All emulators like MAME inform you that to run the game, you need the legal rom as per your country's copyright laws. Whether you THINK that matters to most users is irrelevant. A car can be used to break the speeding laws and maybe "most" people speed at some point in their driving career. That doesn't mean you stop selling cars.
Last edited:
There's nothing illegal about emulators themselves. The roms or images can be under copyright just like any other software however. People can upload pirated ebooks into iBooks or other reading software too, or pirate music into iTunes, but practicalities outweigh the potential as people expect having such software.
Apple not allowing emulation is a policy issue, not a legal one. And it probably stems from protecting their bottom dollar as they cannot legally sell the roms and take a cut of the revenue unlike book and music stores.
Apple not allowing emulation is a policy issue, not a legal one. And it probably stems from protecting their bottom dollar as they cannot legally sell the roms and take a cut of the revenue unlike book and music stores.
No, the person hosting the server is responsible for it. In the case of the App Store, that's Apple. Apple isn't going to host the ROMs.
Where are you going to get the ROMs from legally? The answer is no where. With perhaps a few rare exceptions, you can't legally get them.
Apple knows that anyone downloading the app can only get the ROMs illegally, so they block it.
The difference with Safari is there's a huge number of movies and photos which you can legally access on the internet. Uploading a video or picture is trivial - Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and YouTube are full of videos and pictures which people have uploaded. Anyone with a tiny bit of experience can throw together their own website.
Apple can't reasonably be expected to know what's legal from what isn't, but they know that it's perfectly reasonable to expect you to go and do legal things with the web browser.
Not so with ROMs. There are a few ROMs in the public domain, but nobody cares about them (besides, if the ROM is in the public domain, there's probably source code for the game in the public domain too, from which you can probably build a native executable with much better performance. So no emulator is needed.)
It has been discussed that there are legal roms out there. Assuming that "most roms people will download are illegal" is just silly. There are a handful of examples of publicly distributed works (and there are even folks that work on new NES games TODAY, as an example - maybe MAME too, in less familiar). So it's perfectly reasonable to expect people to do legal things with an emulator (if that's the argument we are to use about a web browser). An emulator (of hardware not using copyrighted software snippets) is never illegal and Apple is not responsible for what is done with said software. Period.
They also disallow torrent software for the same reason. Torrent software isn't by nature, illegal. See my comment about pornographic material as well. These things just don't go with Apple's philosophy and therefor Apple disallows them. It has nothing to do with legal matters (outside of maybe being in good standing with game developers).
I have to say I hate what freedoms have been taken from users, in general, with the smartphone. Telling me I can't install software without permission on a desktop OS would never fly. Unfortunately we have, more or less, allowed Apple to dictate what we can and can not install on our pocket computers.
Last edited:
Mame also works on the Raspberry Pi which is a LOT cheaper, and is much more fun to play around with. Before any "clever", snotty replies flood in:
~1 Yes, I understand this is great because it's for Apple TV owners and doesn't require much else.
~2 GOTO ~1
If you enjoy MAME, and have an Apple TV, super!
Not at all. The "awesome hardware" (ARM based, for those uninformed) needs a little reminder of its heritage from time to time, IE, Cambridge UK (my home city, YAY!), Acorn Research Machines and how utterly simple and non-distracting older hardware and games were. When you had only your imagination in which to create the worlds and imagine these 8 bit pixels were STUPENDOUS levels, you come to realise that the human imagination is a FAR better machine for creating something YOU can dream up, than some sameish, overly-serious taking-itself-wayyyy-too-seriously rendering of something that is SO polished and fluid that your eyes don't know where to look first, and the irony of all that realism is that you become distracted from the whole point of the game - TACTICS.
This is also why Nintendo were (are?) so ridiculously successful - it's not ABOUT how high res and fluid the graphics are, it's about the gameplay. I can have equal, if not MORE fun on an original Game Boy than anyone can on the latest Xbox etc; you don't need to have everything acted out, visiually and audibly, it's GOOD to use your brain (the modern world has largely forgotten this fact, sometimes, it feels.)
Watch "Bedrooms to Billions" trailer - I've seen it, what a SUPERB film:
~1 Yes, I understand this is great because it's for Apple TV owners and doesn't require much else.
~2 GOTO ~1
If you enjoy MAME, and have an Apple TV, super!
Not at all. The "awesome hardware" (ARM based, for those uninformed) needs a little reminder of its heritage from time to time, IE, Cambridge UK (my home city, YAY!), Acorn Research Machines and how utterly simple and non-distracting older hardware and games were. When you had only your imagination in which to create the worlds and imagine these 8 bit pixels were STUPENDOUS levels, you come to realise that the human imagination is a FAR better machine for creating something YOU can dream up, than some sameish, overly-serious taking-itself-wayyyy-too-seriously rendering of something that is SO polished and fluid that your eyes don't know where to look first, and the irony of all that realism is that you become distracted from the whole point of the game - TACTICS.
This is also why Nintendo were (are?) so ridiculously successful - it's not ABOUT how high res and fluid the graphics are, it's about the gameplay. I can have equal, if not MORE fun on an original Game Boy than anyone can on the latest Xbox etc; you don't need to have everything acted out, visiually and audibly, it's GOOD to use your brain (the modern world has largely forgotten this fact, sometimes, it feels.)
Watch "Bedrooms to Billions" trailer - I've seen it, what a SUPERB film:
Last edited by a moderator: