one thing I absolutely cannot deal with is a lawsuit!
More thinking, we need to keep the site private,
or upload only, with
download permission only to selected individuals (who I would hope would
keep a mirror of the site in case the main site had a problem).
Ahhhhh... now THAT might get me around the copyright issues! Set it up
such that only the folks who own equipment that can use the images can get
to it...
Absolutely, in fact I would set it up with a cell type security. One site
that is made public for uploads only, then two or three sites that mirror
the inspected main site and grant access to a limited set of people. For a
one time burn the files are small enough to be emailed from the secondary
sites without granting access. That way if a secondary site gets busted,
they can shut down hopefully without effecting the primary site.
Have it the same way as they do the MAME ROM images; just have it on a
publicly accessable site, but just have a disclaimer that says for 'archival'
purposes only. everyone pretty much understands what the deal is. ;->
Perfect, a working model we can copy, and if the MAME guys get away with
it, we would be entirely safe.
System roms are one of the handiest to include, so that things like a Apple
II can have any rev we choose in them instead of what we find. I have video
cards that become worthless past a certain OS release with a rom upgrade
and the company is offering no practical support (ala Radius and Radius
vintage).
.............................
I don't know about other people, but I see a LOT of boards going into the
scrap stream with eproms on them, and if we can get something organized I
would start picking them off and filling bags or tubes with them.
.............................
Heresy beyond heresy I would actually like to see people with eprom burners
be able to make a few bucks by burning the eproms. I think it would make a
DANDY little web business. Now obviously the database and the burning
businesses need to be completely separate, people would be all over us if
we "sold" burnt eproms, but what would be wrong with burning customer
supplied data and printing a label with supplied text?