One of the most popular websites in regard to romhacks, fan translations and other kinds of pre-patched modifications to retro titles has always been CDRomance. Chances are if you were looking for a specific mod or hack for a certain title, most likely you'd find it there in an already patched form. However, as of this past weekend, the way in which CDRomance operates has changed.

On February 11th, CDRomance's owner, nicknamed "Spike" received what seems to be a notice by the ESA (Entertainment Software Association), which effectively took down CDRomance's ads that helped maintaining the servers online. This action prompted Google to ask for the removal of any kind of file-sharing going on with the website, to which Spike complied and disabled direct links from the website itself. According to Spike, it seems like the possible action taken against CDRomance could have been from someone posing as the ESA, and not the actual ESA itself, but to avoid any kind of troubles as to whether or not the treat was made by the real ESA or not, Spike decided to remove the direct links either way.

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This is surely a big hit for preservation of a great amount of fan translations and romhacks all around, as CDRomance also helped preserve different revisions of projects themselves.

Not all is lost though, as many users online have already found a workaround for the direct links being taken down, and also there's certain scripts floating around that could also help with this endeavour, for those that wish to backup the catalog of CDRomance's files in case of a more dire situation.

 

[ChaoticPumpkin]

This is probably just some pathetic loser that pretended to be from the ESA.

IDK if the ESA does this, but a lot of companies like Nintendo, Sony, etc. hire out to entire law firms to just send out copyright claims. It makes it hard to say who actually sent the message when anyone can just say they are a representative of a company.

Either way, yeah, pathetic losers.

 

[Purple_Heart]

it was called nicoblog before it was cdromance....wonder how they gonna name it next to evade dcma.

wait didnt knew nicoblog is same like cdromance lmao

 

[Metoroid0]

wait didnt knew nicoblog is same like cdromance lmao

"cdromance" was called "nicoblog". yes. same person.

 

[raxadian]

Most of those hacks and fan translations are in the Web Archive but not all.

 

[HandsomeJack]

Most of those hacks and fan translations are in the Web Archive but not all.

PSP eboots are a problem. Loads are custom built.

 

[AxlSt00pid]

Sad to see it go, I used it a lot to get my game patches quicker

Last time I used it was two weeks ago or so to get the new Persona 1 PS1 music restoration patch for the PSP version of the game

 

[Winduss]

Just because it is in their "rights", it doesn't make it right. And before you say "it's da law", I wonder just how many of these "laws" are there because some bigwig rich fucks bribed and corrupted their way into having "laws" to protect their profits.
A certain cancerous mouse (not Civvie's lol) comes to mind.

Plus, I wonder how much profit craptendo is losing over old games they don't sell anymore.

Sure, but what are you gonna do about it, whine about these companies going after abandonware? These sites never are legal, were never legal to begin with and will continue to exist in some form or another. We will continue downloading from these, and these will continue to be shut down due to copyright notices.

Although I wonder how much merit the DMCA holds on sites hosted outside the US. Maybe it's their own fault for hosting their site in the US and why Vimm's Lair isn't shut down yet.

 

[LightyKD]

This sucks ass! CD Romance was my main go-to for Dreamcast games

 

[Elru]

There is two ways to continue occupying cdromance, look in the discord

 

[subcon959]

Hmm, it actually seems quicker to download now if anything.

 

[Playerwii357]

I was not a regular user of CDromance, but any loss of a rom site is very sad sad. Im completely against this move, but as Winduss said, the company has the rights of doing it, and thats a fact that cant be negated.

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[kitestar]

TL;DR, check the discord, they already have a workaround set up

 

[tsam2]

PSP eboots are a problem. Loads are custom built.

Yes. That's why last year I made a backup of them

 

[Kioku]

I supported Archive.org with a Donation to pay for their server & attorney costs. I'd urge anyone who can to do the same, the freedom of the entire Internet depends on Archive.org to continue existing without interference and censorship from mega corporations.

People are actually laughing at this, but the servers aren't cheap and I'm sure there's some legal struggles on the horizon. Can't imagine it would hurt anyone to drop a few bucks every once in a while.

 

[Dontuuch17]

Never even knew about this place. Looks like I missed out on the fun.

 

[therabbitofthenorth]

This is what I think of Disney Fairytale Copyright
HAhahaha

Holy shit this my new favorite thing, thank you

Hmm that means Nintendo is within their rights, right?

Their legal rights? Sure. And I’m well within my moral rights to ignore their aforementioned legal rights.

 

[impeeza]

"cdromance" was called "nicoblog". yes. same person.

and the cdromance.org site is still working.

 

[HandsomeJack]

Yes. That's why last year I made a backup of them

Fantastic!!!

Any chance of uploading them to archive dot org?

 

[tsam2]

Fantastic!!!

Any chance of uploading them to archive dot org?

No need to. There is still a workaround to download from cdromance. Just Google it.

 

[chrisrlink]

wait's for people to get hammered by the mods for exposing how to do it/where to go