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Comment by chrisjj | Hacker News Reader

> To be clear, these recompiled N64 apps do not include the game itself, which is part of their charm — while protective Nintendo lawyers might argue they encourage piracy, they do not redistribute the ROM files you’d need to actually play the copyrighted Nintendo works.

But you don't need the ROM files to actually play the (c) works. You are now playing a translation of those files that remains (c) Nintendo.

This will not end well.

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It explicitly says that you do need the ROMs, though. The software is all original and it extracts resources from the ROMs. It's useless otherwise, you can't use these to play SM64, OOT, or MM on PC without also obtaining the ROMs.

> The software is all original and it extracts resources from the ROMs.

I missed that. Where does this article say that?

Second paragraph:

> told the app where to find a Majora’s Mask ROM file

That's not "software is all original" or "extracts resources from the ROMs".

to be fair that would also cover verifying the ROM file with a checksum. It might not read any assets.

I too suspect that's all it does. But we'll see.

> They make a distribution that lets you play the copyright works without the ROMs.

I understood the opposite: They make a distribution that will not let you play the copyrighted works unless you have the ROMs.

I saw only that it asks for the ROMs. Perhaps I'm being overly sceptical, but I don't see anything saying it actually requires the ROMs. And that ask will be easily circumvented.

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