Legality of downloading roms

[Dominator211]

I want to build a movie PC/emulation station PC but to do this I need ROMS I have researched this before hand and really didn't answer much. so my questions are..... sites like -removed- and -removed- illegal if so why do they exist. I am just looking at pleasuredome at the moment and I need to keep a ratio of 1.0 meaning I upload somethings I get some things. the guy I found this out from was from Uk and he absolutely pounded this service it terabytes and terabytes of roms. I just want to check the legallty of these sites and want to know why they exist..... to get us all arrested

 

[Dimensional]

Due to the complexities of Copyright law and DMCA, and how they conflict with each other, sadly it's next to impossible to give a straight answer, other than if you own the games, you have a more legal right to the roms than those who don't own said games. That doesn't mean it's completely legal, just that it's more illegal to download the rom if you don't legally own a copy of the game.

 

[luckymouse0]

Do you think that someone will close every rom or illegal download page???

They can't even close 4chan, which some boards have CP.


But you can make a station or pc emulation machine, just not include the roms within it.

Example: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retroengine-sigma-mini-video-game-console-cool#/

ROM(**) usage: If you decide to install the additional Emulator Pack to enable the system to run game backups from older systems, the legality of using such ROMs depends on your countries laws and on additional circumstances such as for example your continued possession of the original copy of the game as well as the original hardware it ran on. The functionality is meant to allow you access to your old gaming favorites, in cases where e.g. technical reasons prevent you from continued use of those - always subject to the laws of your country. We do not condone software piracy.

 

[Jayro]

The funny part with this, is if the ROM is NDS or earlier, every good dump should look the same, so nobody can prove you either did or didn't dump/download it just by looking at it.

 

[evandixon]

By US law, it's illegal to download ROMs, period. It's legal to make backup copies of your own copies, as long as you don't break encryption in the process (like DVDs and BluRays). I haven't heard of anyone being fined or jailed for breaking encryption while not downloading (doesn't mean it hasn't happened), but be aware there could be potential legal troubles if you try it and are caught. Up to 5 years in jail and/or up to $250,000 fine per occurrance.

 

[Jayro]

By US law, it's illegal to download ROMs, period. It's legal to make backup copies of your own copies, as long as you don't break encryption in the process (like DVDs and BluRays). I haven't heard of anyone being fined or jailed for breaking encryption while not downloading (doesn't mean it hasn't happened), but be aware there could be potential legal troubles if you try it and are caught. Up to 5 years in jail and/or up to $250,000 fine per occurrance.

If that's the case, I'd be locked up for over 50,000 years by now.

 

[evandixon]

If that's the case, I'd be locked up for over 50,000 years by now.

You monster

 

[luckymouse0]

Whether or not a use is fair depends on what the use is. Usage for commercial purposes usually fails this test. Usage for nonprofit educational purposes passes this test. Taping a show off of TV to watch later passes this test. Taping a movie off of TV, and then selling that videotape of the movie does not.

Now let't apply this test to dumping a ROM of a game that you OWN the media for to play on an emulator. Is this use commecial? No, it is not. You aren't buying, selling, trading, or even giving anything to anyone. There is no commerce involved, so it is not commercial. Is it non-rofit? Yes, you aren't making any money from it. Is it educational? No. However, because it is non-commercial, and non-profit, it can be presumed to pass the test, just like taping a TV show and watching it later, which has been found to pass this test in the world-famous Betamax case (Sony v. Universal).

In other words, anyone may copy a copyrighted work, as long as that copy is a fair use. This exemption is not restricted to just certain groups of people, such as students, teachers, and public libraries mentioned in the law and other places.

The second point is that use that is non-commercial and non-profit may be persumed to pass test one. The use quoted, taping a show so you can watch it later, was non-commercial, and non-profit, though it was not educational. It was ruled to pass. The same is true of peronal ROM dumps to use on an emulator. The use is non-commercial, and non-profit.

Now, I will answer some questions which may or may not have occured to you.

1) Does inviting a friend to play a game on an emulator with you make it illegal? No more than inviting a friend to watch the show you taped, or having a friend listen to the music tape you made of your CD in your car. It's okay, because it's still private use, and not public use.

2) Can you download a ROM image if you own the original media? NO, unfortunately. The instant the dump was put into a forum for commerce, which any FTP or web site qualifies as, it became infringing, and you cannot turn an infringing dump into a legal one by any means. You have to make your OWN non-infringing dump, eventhough it's more convenient to download the infringing one.

3) What if the site says it's a public library, from which you "check out" ROMs? Makes no difference. To check out a ROM, it would have to delete it's own copy, util you returned it. Same goes for those
"checkout BBSes." The disclaimer that you "must delete at the end of the checkout period" does not provide the BBS *any* legal protection.

TO sum up, dumping a ROM for use with an emulator is legal, under both statuatory law and case law precedent.

Source: http://www.zophar.net/articles/FairUseROMs.html

 

[osaka35]

Source: http://www.zophar.net/articles/FairUseROMs.html

that's...not quite how the law works in the US. Other countries are a different story, though, I only know US law and how international law affects US citizens. But it's a moot point as no one's going to come after you for them, and you're not going to be fined for them. So while on the books it ain't right, you're going to be fine downloading them. You just have to be wary about hosting them.

 

[luckymouse0]

that's...not quite how the law works in the US. But it's a moot point as no one's going to come after you for them, and you're not going to be fined for them. So while on the books it ain't right, you're going to be fine downloading them. You just have to be wary about hosting them.

As computers and global computer networks continued to advance and emulator developers grew more skilled in their work, the length of time between the commercial release of a console and its successful emulation began to shrink. Fifth generation consoles such as Nintendo 64, PlayStation and sixth generation handhelds, such as the Game Boy Advance, saw significant progress toward emulation during their production. This led to an effort by console manufacturers to stop unofficial emulation, but consistent failures such as Sega v. Accolade 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992), Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation 203 F.3d 596 (2000), and Sony Computer Entertainment America v. Bleem 214 F.3d 1022 (2000),[2] have had the opposite effect. According to all legal precedents, emulation is legal within the United States. However, unauthorized distribution of copyrighted code remains illegal, according to both country-specific copyright and international copyright law under the Berne Convention.[3][better source needed]

Under United States law, obtaining a dumped copy of the original machine's BIOS is legal under the ruling Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc., 964 F.2d 965 (9th Cir. 1992) as fair use as long as the user obtained a legally purchased copy of the machine. To mitigate this however, several emulators for platforms such as Game Boy Advance are capable of running without a BIOS file, using high-level emulation to simulate BIOS subroutines at a slight cost in emulation accuracy

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console_emulator#United_States

Nintendo of America v. Bung Enterprises Ltd. created a weird precedent, but opened up a potential loophole for games which you legally own on their original media. The court ruled that you are legally entitled to a backup copy of your software, you just can't dump it yourself or obtain it from any other previously forbidden source (ROM sites or torrents, for example).

Archive.org has academic exemptions from the DMCA, and currently hosts full ROMsets for everything up to N64 and GBA.

There hasn't yet been an explicit ruling on this yet, but at worst, it isn't explicitly illegal to download ROMs for games you own, so long as you get them from a source which isn't hosting them illegally. Downloading the full set, however, is a no-no.

And yes, it is possible to download individual games from the larger files hosted on Archive.org. Copy-pate the URL for the large file, then add a forward slash ("/") at the end of the URL to view the contents of that file.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/...t_legal_to_download_roms_for_old_games_right/

TL;DR version - If you open a ROM site, get paid quite a bit of money, there is a tiny chance you will be cellies with Bubba. But you need to make millions, and flip off everyone in court to get that far. As for roms, they are illegal, no matter how you spin it. Not as a backup, not as "24 hours before it becomes illegal." Only legal ROM is the one you write yourself using official SDK, preferrably.

1 - ROMs are illegal, even if you own a game. Nintendo's legal page actually has interesting explanation. Technically, you are entitled to make a copy of a game for a backup purpose. You cannot download one from internet, even if it's the same game as what you own. Because one you downloaded already infringed on copyright. But even then, it's a moot point. They claim that since devices used to dump ROMs are illegal (violate DMCA), then no matter if it's a ROM you dumped yourself, it can't be legal because there's no way for you to obtain it legally from a console/ROM chip.

2 - If you are just playing games, not redistributing, nobody really cares. Companies may want to make an example out of someone, but you have better luck of winning lottery than being sued by company. Potential punishment is $700 - $30,000 for each ROM, plus up to $150,000 statutory punishment, plus actual economic damage. Up to a judge, really. Or, for criminal cases, up to $250,000 per violation, plus up to 10 years. TO be charged criminally, you must make over $2500 in profit from illegal activity in 180 days. Chances are you won't get that far.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/3zq3cr/what_are_the_laws_with_using_roms/

 

[osaka35]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console_emulator#United_States



Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/...t_legal_to_download_roms_for_old_games_right/



Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/3zq3cr/what_are_the_laws_with_using_roms/

thanks for the backup =]

 

[the_randomizer]

Which is weird, considering supreme court judges ruling emulators as being perfectly legal, as hardware is reverse engineered and contains no copyrighted code, that and hardware cannot be copyrighted. Sony V. Connectix, Sony v. Bleem!, and Nintendo v. Galoob Toy Inc all had cases ruling emulation and derivative works as legalized, despite Nintendo's staunch opposition to unofficial emulation; nevertheless, the rulings in those lawsuits have one and all, deemed emulators legal as long as there is no copyrighted code. That being said, ROMs contain copyrighted code, that makes it a bit trickier. For games that are no longer being actively sold in any form other than eBay, Amazon, eShop, Steam, etc, I personally have no moral objections as only secondhand retailers get the money. YMMV.

Sources: https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/203_F3d_596.htm
https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/Sony_v_Bleem.htm
http://www.invispress.com/law/copyright/galoob.html

I see ROMs and emulators as a means of preserving/archiving, esp. when companies go under, lose licensing rights and all that jazz.

Edit: Seems someone beat me to it, in a nutshell, emulators aren't illegal as long as they don't use copyrighted material in the code, dumping BIOS files for personal use is legal. Nintendo likes to use fear-mongering to make it sound like you're evil for using emulators.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Umm don't videos and games both have warning of making copies of it? Least somewhere before loading the disc or even in the manual? If owning backups either by creating them yourself or downloading isn't illegal then why do game publishers keep adding copy protection anti piracy patches to games?

 

[osaka35]

Umm don't videos and games both have warning of making copies of it? Least somewhere before loading the disc or even in the manual? If owning backups either by creating them yourself or downloading isn't illegal then why do game publishers keep adding copy protection anti piracy patches to games?

the long and short of it is that it may be technically illegal, but if it went to court, it might not be illegal if it wasn't ruled in their favour (see the galoob thing). So they say "it's illegal! don't do it!" but they're not going to take you to court over it and risk not being able to say it's illegal. not over roms anyway. isn't law fun?

 

[the_randomizer]

the long and short of it is that it may be technically illegal, but if it went to court, it might not be illegal if it wasn't ruled in their favour (see the galoob thing). So they say "it's illegal! don't do it!" but they're not going to take you to court over it and risk not being able to say it's illegal. not over roms anyway. isn't law fun?

The DMCA has a lot of contradictory statements, such as it's legal to make personal backups, but not legal to use software to circumvent DRM to make backups, how else does one make personal backups? DRM I couldn't care less about.

 

[osaka35]

The DMCA has a lot of contradictory statements, such as it's legal to make personal backups, but not legal to use software to circumvent DRM to make backups, how else does one make personal backups? DRM I couldn't care less about.

as i recall, it's also fuzzy on what's defined exactly as able to be backed up. i know mp3s were ruled 100% legal to back up, but movies aren't. to be honest, it probably won't be defined precisely unless a judge rules on a case about it (or the laws get super specific). this only applying to the united states(only laws i'm familiar with)

 

[the_randomizer]

as i recall, it's also fuzzy on what's defined exactly as able to be backed up. i know mp3s were ruled 100% legal to back up, but movies aren't. to be honest, it probably won't be defined precisely unless a judge rules on a case about it (or the laws get super specific)

Again, the DMCA is bloody confusing, more exemptions are needed.

 

[Dominator211]

If that's the case, I'd be locked up for over 50,000 years by now.

yep i don't think I'm that guilty thou

 

[the_randomizer]

yep i don't think I'm that guilty thou

The likelihood of being caught for just downloading is extremely unlikely, you're more likely to get caught if you're profiting off of pirated material. I have my fair share of ROMs, but I've never sold them or hosted them for downloading.

 

[Dominator211]

the stupid people on this site want to know if I am in law enforcement. coincidence I think NOT. then they can't exactly tell me if this whole operation is legal tey just tell me to look at the wiki when the wiki says nothing about the legality bunch of BS on this site.

The likelihood of being caught for just downloading is extremely unlikely, you're more likely to get caught if you're profiting off of pirated material. I have my fair share of ROMs, but I've never sold them or hosted them for downloading.

im not going to profit at all here but i ink the whole opperation they have going is based on ratio so if the ite is taken down everyone is guilty

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entire conversation as of right now not going to say the name of the sight at this time