Legality of Roms

[sponge]

A select few emulators can actually run it right from the cartridge. So select that no names stick out.

Sigen: Because you have a crappy Geoshitties page with a few ROMs. Those are a dime a dozen. We're talking about stuff like PlasticMan.org, which had ~2000SNES ROMs before they were shut down.

The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy-protection. Backing up CD of games I'm unsure of the legality, but if you were to use a No-CD crack (which I and many do, since putting in the CD sucks and once it's scratched, it's gone) THAT would now be illegal. Frankly, I'm still not accepting that it must be the same media as fact, as much of the DMCA is largely untried.

[SiGen]

[randall]

[damian]

[sponge]

[SiGen]

[Drex]

I can't believe some moron started a thread on this topic again, much less some idiot keeping it alive. If I had tens of thousands of roms I would maintain a personal library of these along with isos for game consoles. Here's the point: it would be a personal collection; I wouldn't traffic them or make money off of them--I would keep them for posterity, just like I do books and other sorts of items. Even if I had the cartridges, the electronic storage method is so much more convenient and workable and the outdated form would be thrown away or sold if I owned them. There is nothing morally wrong with this, though there are some hall monitors out there (and here) who live off of telling you "what's right." By the way, just because it's on the books, doesn't mean it's right. And if someone were to sell roms or make money off of them (or maintain some kind of livelihood off, say Nintendo's, work, this would be wrong because then it would be stealing in a way that truly impacts. Guess I'm now the idiot who is keeping this alive.

Drex

[Guest]

[Bradskey]

Illegal? Not illegal? Who cares? Nobody except a few anal cases. DL to your heart's content. They're not going to start busting you, I don't care what's on the books. The onus is on Nintendo or whoever to get the stuff off the net, and that is done by prosecuting the really big distributers, not Fred Smith who just wanted to see if some novelty emulator would run crappy old SMB. Not that much prosecution really happens anyway. Anybody ever get on Usenet anymore? Oh my freakin' gawd! Who gives a rat's ass about Napster/Kazaa/warez sites/whatever, do they know what you can find out there? And I don't see anybody shutting them down, so don't tell me they're going to hunt down some solitary surfer who grabbed a couple stupid little ROMs that can be found in any garage sale for 25 cents.

[Guest]

randall you just showed your lack of education and maturity. So get an education and learn how to read.
Like I said, and you also confirmed, ROMS are NOT illegal, you stupid idiot. The copyrighted material in it is a different matter. I never said that downloading a ROM with copyrighted material was legal. I just told the guy to go ahead and do it if he owns the ROM.
Also, regardless of who owns the copyright or not, I am still allowed my backup copy. So before you go and show your stupidity and childishness again by insulting people(instead of having an educated argument) go to school and learn something.

[damian]

[sponge]

[jongjungbu]

[James S]

LOL! Anonymous, you should really take your own advice before you embarass yourself some more, HAHAHA

These discussions are so ridiculous. No one posts in them except guests and newbies that register simply to post in here. This thread attracts the unseemly kind of people that a) don't know anything, and b) don't care that they don't know anything because they're not going to change.

ROMS, copies of copyrighted console games to the computer which can then be distributed over the internet and used in emulators, are illegal. It's as simple as that. I don't care HOW you morally or ethically justify downloading ROMs, they are illegal. You can't make an ethical case that downloading ROMS is alright. Laws are in place for the times in which your ethics fail.

[Drex]