Gaming Official Warning! Associating your identity with ROM dumps!

jimmyj

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They know what they're doing when they hide their identities. Or at least, they hope they are. Some scenes have just "the group" do it, with no unique handles/usernames/identifiers added, for that extra layer of protection and deniability.
well cool I guess
 

Steph72

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Its true because the bad guys out there doing the bad things are looking for a victim were they can dump all this case in one person to redirect the authorities out of there site so yah

BE CAREFUL everyone, do not reveal any useful information to this people.. they are smart and they are using it the wrong way -_-
 

SFDelta

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Warning has been received and is much appreciated. It needs to be known that there are always risks when stepping into the moral grey area of gaming and safety to yourself and your assets should be prio #1. Definetly nice to see someone taking an initiative.
 

Roly32

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So it has come to my attention that members of this site are attaching their forum usernames and internet handles on ROM dumps. This is a practice that I find extremely worrisome and as an admin here I feel a certain responsibility to warn all of the members here that this practice is extremely dangerous.

By associating yourselves with this kind of piracy you make yourselves EXTREMELY vulnerable to legal action by the developers, publishers and IP owners of the materials you are releasing. Your attempts to get fifteen minutes of internet fame and kudos may very well lead to a lifetime of hardships for you and your family.

Make no mistake about it Nintendo and other entities ARE WATCHING and if they identify a target and have the identity of someone who is costing their business hundred of thousands of dollars they will retaliate against you and claim it back in court. In fact a member of this very site who dumped a game for bragging rights years ago was sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars and had his life derailed because of it.

This is not me scaremongering or me being anti-piracy, the risk is real, it has happened before and it is definitely not worth it!

Do not say that we didn't try to warn you if the worst happens.
Thanks.
 
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Anxiety_timmy

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I mean this: don't do piracy.
Hell even releases early dumps of games can get you to basically hell.
Just look at what happened to the guy who did the sm4sh leak.Nintendo cough him and landed him in jail and demanded a giant fee.So trust me don't do piracy.
If you do and release it online with your name well, don't be surprised when the FBI knocks on your door
 

Anxiety_timmy

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To be honest even releasing a game is illegal, However if you dump a game\bios it is legal if and only IF YOU KEEP THE DUMP TO YOURSELF. The second you share the game its illegal.Unless the game was not intended for release such as a demo disc found in a gamecube kiosk demo.Another exception would be that of a game that was never trademarked
 
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Foxi4

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To be honest even releasing a game is illegal, However if you dump a game\bios it is legal if and only IF YOU KEEP THE DUMP TO YOURSELF. The second you share the game its illegal.Unless the game was not intended for release such as a demo disc found in a gamecube kiosk demo.Another exception would be that of a game that was never trademarked
Even that is not necessarily true - many countries do not guarantee the right to backing up software for their citizens, while many others put restrictions on that right, most notably technology circumvention restrictions. It's all highly dependent on your local implementation of copyright law, nothing is universal in this regard.
 
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Iibui

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So it has come to my attention that members of this site are attaching their forum usernames and internet handles on ROM dumps. This is a practice that I find extremely worrisome and as an admin here I feel a certain responsibility to warn all of the members here that this practice is extremely dangerous.

By associating yourselves with this kind of piracy you make yourselves EXTREMELY vulnerable to legal action by the developers, publishers and IP owners of the materials you are releasing. Your attempts to get fifteen minutes of internet fame and kudos may very well lead to a lifetime of hardships for you and your family.

Make no mistake about it Nintendo and other entities ARE WATCHING and if they identify a target and have the identity of someone who is costing their business hundred of thousands of dollars they will retaliate against you and claim it back in court. In fact a member of this very site who dumped a game for bragging rights years ago was sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars and had his life derailed because of it.

This is not me scaremongering or me being anti-piracy, the risk is real, it has happened before and it is definitely not worth it!

Do not say that we didn't try to warn you if the worst happens.

That’s what I don’t get. People know how strongly big mama pursues people. Why even try to gain bragging rights. The people downloading won’t care who you are months after they downloaded your file. Worse of all, none of them will try to help save you when the worst happens. If you plan on doing this kind of stuff, stay anon and just enjoy the fact that people are thankful at the moment for your work.

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

Even that is not necessarily true - many countries do not guarantee the right to backing up software for their citizens, while many others put restrictions on that right, most notably technology circumvention restrictions. It's all highly dependent on your local implementation of copyright law, nothing is universal in this regard.

This. Everyone keeps seeing the world through the laws of their country saying “I have the right to....” or “You have the right to....” but that’s a horrible arguement and ethnocentric. Just because your country’s laws say it’s okay doesn’t mean it’s fine in other countries. In my country even doing save mods is an offense that outside you in jail. Dumping a game, even for personal archiving, will land you muuuuch worse over here.
 

Jaguar22

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I've been reading some parts of this thread, and it's a bit scary. I'm just wondering if just talking about dumps or posting about an issue here regarding, say, dumped games and DLC on your 3DS would land you in jail? This is all hypothetically speaking, of course.
 
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Iibui

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I've been reading some parts of this thread, and it's a bit scary. I'm just wondering if just talking about dumps or posting about an issue here regarding, say, dumped games and DLC on your 3DS would land you in jail? This is all hypothetically speaking, of course.

Discussion no. Distributing or sharing and having your identity tied to the files, absolutely. Even my country who jails you for modding saves won’t jail you for discussing it.
 

eternaldream

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Sometimes fan translations are distributed that way, like with the Box Boy Collection. If someone wants to go that way, I'm not judging one way or another... but he/she should be very careful to commit to that and not brag about that work elsewhere to endanger himself and others who post on the same place and get dragged down by his own fault. It's only common sense.

Otherwise, it's really heartwarming to see people here look out for each other, rather than use this as an opportunity for witch hunting, which would lead to less transparency, frank talk, and then the problem would fester. Avoiding these trappings is how the scene was able to go on for so long and so strong. Let's not cause lasting damage in real life because of stupid, avoidable mistakes, everyone. Remember the New Super Mario Brow Wii situation in 2009.
 
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a4n

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is it safe to post cia and 3ds files? dumb question, but nintendo seems to have stopped caring about anything aside from the switch.
 

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