The legality of including game rom files with original media?

[Harrison]

Does anyone know the legality of this?

Physical media, especially floppy disks, for retro systems are getting very old now. Most Amiga game floppies and now 30+ years old. It's amazing many do still work.

I have a massive collection of boxed Amiga games but now I hardly ever look at them, let alone use them. There are some I will always keep, but many are just being stored away, so I'm thinking of starting to sell some. But I know some of the floppies will fail and can't be read. Obviously I will state that as thy games are so old there is no guarantee the original disks will still with, but I had the idea of including the ADFs of the disks with the sales. Possibly using a storefront so that buyers could unlock access to download the files after purchase. But what would the legality of doing that be? My thought is that because they have purchased thy game they have a legal right to using the roms for that game as a backup in case the original media fails.

Thoughts on this?

[Demon Cleaner]

:huh2:

You can host the files here and send them a message how to access.

[J T]

Interesting question, and possibly a muddled and murky one.

A parallel I thought of.... If I buy a second hand CD, do you think The Man would be happy if I was also given the MP3 files at the same time? I mean, sure I could just later rip them from CD myself... but The Man wields the legal stick that all the money enables.

It's a good idea for sure, but legally I reckon it could be dicey UNLESS you created the ADFs from the floppies yourself.

Also, if they sell the disks on, what's stopping them from keeping the ADFs? Nothing, which would not please The Man's accountants