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The Internet Archive presents ....

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Stoic Joker:
Okay, I'm going to put this here not so much because it's on this topic per se, but because you got me started on it with this topic.

I came up a generation or two from the original consoles to the Sega Genesis emulator and scared up a copy of the Sonic the Hedgehog ROM ... Which is stuck in demo mode. How the hell do I get the thing to start the game?!? I've been basically palming the keyboard for the last half an hour.
-Stoic Joker (December 28, 2013, 03:02 PM)
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For me on the "Gens" emulator, try doing stuff with the Enter key. I know, sounds simple, but it seems to be working for the moment. But I almost remember it not working ... so then try the way I found it first, Control-Enter!
-TaoPhoenix (December 28, 2013, 10:15 PM)
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Now wouldn't you just know I tried everything else first... Thanks man!

Apparently the catch was that you have to hit it while the Sega logo is still being displayed. So it's sort of a slow double tap if the demo has already started.

IainB:
I was just browsing The Internet Arcade. Impressive. Well worth a look.
Also see Internet Archive offers 900 classic arcade games for browser-based play | Ars Technica
The below quote (relevant) is from DCF "silly humour" section:
I just saw the news story that the Internet Archive and some other people just released a browser based "Internet Arcade" of old classic games.  Leaving aside the copyright licensing / abandonware stuff,
...
-TaoPhoenix (November 04, 2014, 09:18 PM)
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But that's the big question here.  HOW did they get license to so many of these?  I mean, it doesn't just play in the browser, you can download the ROM!  Last I checked, it was *ahem* technically illegal to own a ROM except under certain conditions.  I mean, are they just throwing it up there in hopes that MOST of them stick?  Or is this a short-lived experiment in "let's take bets as to how long it'll take before the first DMCA takedown notice gets delivered"?

Either way: So... many... games...
-Edvard (November 04, 2014, 10:17 PM)
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Well, trying not to cut myself shaving with Occam's razor, here's a collation a few of the theories floating from the Slashdot thread mixed with my own:

1. It's hosted by the Internet Archive, and not just any ol' Pop & Son outfit who can be scared with a couple of nasty letters. So let's say a big X % of these games are not under license, but through a few corporate layers, there's enough money behind archive.org that other revenue they generate more than outweighs "abuses" like this. For part of this theory, someone pointed out that computer games are much different than most other forms of copyrighted works - classic songs and TV and movies can retain their basic value for a very long time. But with the march of time, nostalgia aside, no one would play these games except for novelty value.

2. Another idea is some kind of "copyright insurance" - suppose they get a silent insurer to switch the burden of copyright chain onto the final record holders rather than themselves. Think of it as a kind of big poker bluff: "Okay, let's just grant the silly notion that a copyrighted work is $300,000 each. But think of the insane prices lawyers charge. Do you *really* want to try to figure out whatever became of Tago Electronics to win your settlement for the game Anteater? After you get done cheering at happy hour, what have you accomplished? Fine. Take one down, pass it around, 899 games left on the wall."

 3. Maybe they somehow used their big money to do some kind of massive bulk purchase saying, "Okay, with a clause that covers subsequent rights owners and flow through, most of these games came from the same twelve companies. So, here's a big chunk of money, because our petty cash numbers in six figures. So can we have these games now?"

The unifying theme is that unlike a Pop & Son team hoping to skate under the radar, archive.org shouldn't be able to just announce a colossal sonic cannon shot like this, looking like it risks copyright armageddon, without some kind of awesome hidden cards in their hand. I just don't know what those are.
-TaoPhoenix (November 04, 2014, 11:33 PM)
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TaoPhoenix:
Super quick playability notes:

1. I have some strange problems between PaleMoon and Firefox. Basically, stuff seems to load in Firefox and not (my copy of) PaleMoon. It's unknown what version control and add-ons have to do with any of that.

2. In Firefox, the few programs I tried seem to mostly behave at regular speeds. I haven't tried changing screen sizes much yet.

3. My machine was decent for its time, but a lot of these programs do def begin to max out my cpu.

4. Sound barely works on any of these games for me for reasons unknown.

5. Ataxx doesn't seem to be available! : ((   
(But I do have the MAME version. I still play it once every five years.)

More rights musings:

I'm not sure how deep the connection was/is between Internet Archive and MAME. I used to believe MAME was "just a bunch of people doing that", and they always had medium stern warnings about the roms (which of course we took liberally!)

This time around, they have a thundering quote on their webpage that says "we're exercising our right to forget" and the mysterious phrase "The site's new arcade offerings are the work of curator Jason Scott, who has previously archived thousands of classic console and PC games as part of the Internet Archive's software collection." from the Ars Technica article.

That last phrase is one that leads me to my earlier musings, and that both might be right - that it did used to "just be people" say back in 2004, but that something changed behind the scenes that's now different.

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