# How is it appropriate to talk about roms and emulation?



## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

I understand that asking for roms is against the rules. But what about mentioning them in a post? often i'm not sure if I should say "backups" can you get in trouble just for saying you have roms? as in for example let's say you're following a tutorial and you go "ok so I just take my rom and do this/put it here?" so is only asking for them against the rules? is their mention of them discouraged from the site? are you even allowed to mention them?


Just trying to understand the ethic-icy around here. And what are everyones thoughts about it being against the rules in the first place?


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## raulpica (Jun 28, 2017)

Yeah, mentioning them is okay. There are plenty of legal ways of dumping your own games for emulation/backup purposes and that's what we assume most users are doing.

Obviously writing something like "lol I got dis pokaymanz r0m from a website" CLEARLY tells us that user X has pirated a game and as such his/hers post will be removed and the user warned/banned accordingly.


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## V0ltr0n (Jun 28, 2017)

You can talk about roms etc, just not ask for links. Also cannot provide or ask for links to sites that host warez. The rule is only in place so that gbatemp can avoid a takedown


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## DinohScene (Jun 28, 2017)

Mentioning ROMs is allowed.
Mentioning warez sites isn't.
That should include posts containing "that iso site" "that chaos site" etc!

Rules state that members can't mention them.


			
				Rules said:
			
		

> Members may also *NOT* mention torrent or warez-containing sites or channels by name or otherwise.


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## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

V0ltr0n said:


> You can talk about roms etc, just not ask for links. Also cannot provide or ask for links to sites that host warez. The rule is only in place so that gbatemp can avoid a takedown




but what about stuff like wii USB helper and CIAangle/freeshop? aren't those things allowed to be talked about on here?


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## Oleboy555 (Jun 28, 2017)

raulpica said:


> Yeah, mentioning them is okay. There are plenty of legal ways of dumping your own games for emulation/backup purposes and that's what we assume most users are doing.
> 
> Obviously writing something like "lol I got dis pokaymanz r0m from a website" CLEARLY tells us that user X has pirated a game and as such his/hers post will be removed and the user warned/banned accordingly.


whta about the pirating game on the edge of the forum?


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## Zero72463 (Jun 28, 2017)

raulpica said:


> Yeah, mentioning them is okay. There are plenty of legal ways of dumping your own games for emulation/backup purposes and that's what we assume most users are doing.
> 
> Obviously writing something like "lol I got dis pokaymanz r0m from a website" CLEARLY tells us that user X has pirated a game and as such his/hers post will be removed and the user warned/banned accordingly.



A lot of people here say they pirate, but they don't get banned. Or is it just for mentioning the site?


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## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

Zero72463 said:


> A lot of people here say they pirate, but they don't get banned. Or is it just for mentioning the site?



I don't think you could really go after anyone for saying that because the company would have to prove that you have stolen their intellectual property and I just don't see most companies going after a single forum user for admitting to piracy.

Iv'e had Nintendo suspect I had homebrew on my wii or I might have slipped it by accident i'm not sure(it was for a repair) and all they said is that they couldn't help me if it was modded.


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## Tom Bombadildo (Jun 28, 2017)

Zero72463 said:


> A lot of people here say they pirate, but they don't get banned. Or is it just for mentioning the site?


Specifically going around telling everyone "I pirated this game from XYZ website LOLOLOLOL" is warn/banworthy, just saying "yeah sometimes I pirate stuff", not so much (unless it's irrelevant to the discussion, of course).



kbf said:


> but what about stuff like wii USB helper and CIAangle/freeshop? aren't those things allowed to be talked about on here?


Those things still require "legitimate" things, like Titlekeys that people _should_ dump themselves from games they own. We don't allow users to post title keys or anything here, as that would be against the rules.


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## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

Tom Bombadildo said:


> Specifically going around telling everyone "I pirated this game from XYZ website LOLOLOLOL" is warn/banworthy, just saying "yeah sometimes I pirate stuff", not so much (unless it's irrelevant to the discussion, of course).
> 
> 
> Those things still require "legitimate" things, like Titlekeys that people _should_ dump themselves from games they own. We don't allow users to post title keys or anything here, as that would be against the rules.




so basically you can have the chest full of treasure but not the key haha.


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## Kioku_Dreams (Jun 28, 2017)

This site changed completely since I've been here. Back when there were downloads on this site itself. Nowadays it's taboo. Not without reason, I'm aware. Just have to be careful how you word things.


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## migles (Jun 28, 2017)

raulpica said:


> Yeah, mentioning them is okay. There are plenty of legal ways of dumping your own games for emulation/backup purposes and that's what we assume most users are doing.
> 
> Obviously writing something like "lol I got dis pokaymanz r0m from a website" CLEARLY tells us that user X has pirated a game and as such his/hers post will be removed and the user warned/banned accordingly.


i never seen an user getting is post removed or warned because they say "i got rom from internet"


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## Alex658 (Jun 28, 2017)

migles said:


> i never seen an user getting is post removed or warned because they say "i got rom from internet"



You don't get to see when somebody gets warned. Only the mods and the person in question can.

I have seen multiple posts removed just for mentioning that iso site's real name. So there's that.


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## WiiUBricker (Jun 28, 2017)

Dude chill, even certain 'clean' Nintendo news sites already went to the dark side apparently because they ran out of interesting 'clean' content.


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## naughty_cat (Jun 28, 2017)

As far as the video gaming industry is concerned, "roms/backups" and "piracy" are 2 very different things. Also it should be noted that the "ethical" side of the matter is actually quite different from the "legal" side. 

Back in the good old days, people used to record whatever they could view on their TV using their VCR's , and it wouldn't be called piracy until someone would start to sell a recording of copy-righted material and actually make illegal profit out of it, which was "ethically" different from sharing your favourite tv shows with your friends and family without actually charging them, or setting the VCR to record your favourite TV show while you were away at work or something... And a REAL pirate had to be someone that retained an actual physical existence out in the real world, selling actual physical copies of copy-righted material, thus it was far more practical and economic to leave it up to the actual physical law enforcement agencies to get out there and go after people who could for sure be proven guilty with the crime of piracy... 

However, after DVD's, the internet and the advent of digital formats came along, things started to change dramatically, since people could easily have access to "100% free media" from within the safety of their own home... as opposed to going out there into the slums or wherever you could buy "cheaper,not free" copies at the risk of entangling with dubious "pirates/criminals". Thus the laws and the entertainment industries began to steadily draw very clear lines and limitations around the market and the various media products... Back in the old days almost nearly any God given, run of the mill vcr could record anything from TV right out of the box, and blank vhs tapes, cassette tapes, and blank discs was a lucrative industry in its own right... Nowadays a single flash drive can store bulks of mixed media of any type of format, and recording TV shows is somewhat tricky and requires purchasing additional equipment... 

Video games happens to be a very specific case scenario, partly because video games, unlike movies and music, were never aired directly to people's TV sets, and their native format started out as 1st party proprietary cartridges, which were never available in "blanks"... and no video gaming console has ever given paying customers the ability to record and share their games, or back them up (at least until the end of the 1990's), thus the concept of "sharing" your game was always rendered 100% illegal.
     Another one of the many things that sets video games apart is "regional lockout"... Quite a lot of decent titles (such as all those cool Japanese RPG's that were never released outside Japan) were far more easily accessible via pirate/warez channels, and this is mostly because, simply, most people outside Japan don't speak Japanese... And even if one was to purchase a legal copy of a foreign game and have it imported all the way from Japan at additional costs, they would eventually still have to back it up in order to be able to implement English subtitles, or perform the so called "un-dubbing" process (And mind you all that during the cartridge days this was not possible... It's only when games started to come out on compact discs that people started to be able to do it the legal way, since there weren't any practical means of extracting the game from the cartridge onto the computer - and this is still true for 3DS as well as SWITCH games! - But, with that being said, one could still pay for the Japan-only game and put it on the shelf, thus abiding to the good morals and ethics of a good consumer, and then go on ahead and download the same game via a pirate/warez channel, which is is still "technically" breaking the law! This is one of the case scenarios that justify the clear cut difference between what is "ethical" and what is "legal")

Sorry for the tedious long post, it's just that this is one of the rather important subject matters that is hardly ever discussed with proper justice... and this thread just seemed to hit the spot for me...


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## Vipera (Jun 28, 2017)

_This post has been removed due to the staff's corruption to money and other people._


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## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

naughty_cat said:


> As far as the video gaming industry is concerned, "roms/backups" and "piracy" are 2 very different things. Also it should be noted that the "ethical" side of the matter is actually quite different from the "legal" side.
> 
> Back in the good old days, people used to record whatever they could view on their TV using their VCR's , and it wouldn't be called piracy until someone would start to sell a recording of copy-righted material and actually make illegal profit out of it, which was "ethically" different from sharing your favourite tv shows with your friends and family without actually charging them, or setting the VCR to record your favourite TV show while you were away at work or something... And a REAL pirate had to be someone that retained an actual physical existence out in the real world, selling actual physical copies of copy-righted material, thus it was far more practical and economic to leave it up to the actual physical law enforcement agencies to get out there and go after people who could for sure be proven guilty with the crime of piracy...
> 
> ...




No that's a great post, always glad to see a lot of thought put into something.



Although that reminds me iv'e heard that companies have legal rights over your physical property because the copywrite protects it as property as well but i'm not sure if that's true because iv'e never seen a company literally try to force itself to take something away phsyical you bought for violating a contract/law.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



Vipera said:


> I don't like the hypocrisy of saying "what if I'm using backups!". I would be surprised if there is one active user here with a hacked 3DS who doesn't use illegally obtained ROMs. Let them discuss their stuff. It's like when some tobacco stores are selling bongs or grinders. It shouldn't matter as long as they aren't idolizing illegal acts in public or contribute to "commercial piracy" in private (as in, paying for actual warez, directly or indirectly, should _always_ be wrong).
> 
> But I agree that saying stuff like "that iso site" should be forbidden too.





I almost agree but on the other hand there's plenty of warez sites still up that have been around for years.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 29, 2017)

Leaving aside the discussion of ROMs then why would emulation be a problem? It is perfectly legal in most places and there are several laws and bits of case law which would back it up.


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## The Catboy (Jun 29, 2017)

kbf said:


> but what about stuff like wii USB helper and CIAangle/freeshop? aren't those things allowed to be talked about on here?


First, FreeShop is legal
Actually all of these homebrews fall under a legal grey area. Ultimately they give the power to break the law, but do not endorse, support, nor encourage piracy.


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## Deleted User (Jun 29, 2017)

The way I've always seen it is as long as you don't go requesting copyrighted content or linking to it then you're all good. The Wii sub-forum has an entire section dedicated to backup loading. Nobody gets their posts edited for saying "the cool site". But if I post a link to www.[the cool site].com then my post will get a {snip} in it and I'll probably receive a warning.


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## kbf (Jun 28, 2017)

I understand that asking for roms is against the rules. But what about mentioning them in a post? often i'm not sure if I should say "backups" can you get in trouble just for saying you have roms? as in for example let's say you're following a tutorial and you go "ok so I just take my rom and do this/put it here?" so is only asking for them against the rules? is their mention of them discouraged from the site? are you even allowed to mention them?


Just trying to understand the ethic-icy around here. And what are everyones thoughts about it being against the rules in the first place?


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## duffmmann (Jun 29, 2017)

Think about it this way, most people don't really care if they see someone talking about an experience they had while on illegal drugs.  Perhaps it may weird out the most conservative of people, but for the most part, no one is going to care about someone talking an experience they had on drugs, it can even be informative.  If however that same person is instead asking where to find drugs and expecting our community to help him out, that is a completely different story.  We're not here to encourage or give direction to do whatever you may do, but we will talk with you about whatever it is that you may do.


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## YuseiFD (Jun 29, 2017)

raulpica said:


> Yeah, mentioning them is okay. There are plenty of legal ways of dumping your own games for emulation/backup purposes and that's what we assume most users are doing.
> 
> Obviously writing something like "lol I got dis pokaymanz r0m from a website" CLEARLY tells us that user X has pirated a game and as such his/hers post will be removed and the user warned/banned accordingly.


What about claiming to have drugs ? like "lol I got dis pokaymanz $hr0mz from a d34l3r"


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## Nightwish (Jun 29, 2017)

AFAIK, you can talk about piracy all you want, as long as you avoid posting direct instructions on how to obtain pirate copyrighted bytes. It doesn't matter if it's legal, companies don't care and don't need to care since they can bribe governments (and is probably hosted in the US, let me see... godaddy? seriously? sigh) and bully webhosts to comply with their will. Don't get the site into trouble they can do nothing about and nobody cares.


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