Hacking Legality of ROMs

[riverchen]

Say if the police found out that i (in theory) had 50+ roms on my computer and some movies and songs, could someone explain the charges (best case scenario) that would be pressed?

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

You'd get your shit pushed in by the judge, that's all I can say.

 

[purplesludge]

None unless they say you were uploading them.

 

[XLarge]

they will beat the crap out of you

no just kidding.
I think they would charge you with a fine. But I think that it's impossible for the police to charge every 'pirate' with a fine...

it would give the government alot of money though

 

[riverchen]

So i won't get thrown in jail or anything?

 

[Aerundel]

Best case is the distributor gets in trouble, not you. Worst case is you get sued for big bucks (by the publishers of the games) and some prison time (criminal charges from the publishers or even a federal attorney's office). But the police wouldn't know anything unless your ISP ratted you out. You'd most likely get a letter from your ISP before the police are even aware you're doing something illegal. It's piracy, and it's too widespread for the ISPs to just get their (paying) customers locked up without a warning or two.

 

[evandixon]

$250,000 max and/or up to 5 years in jail per occurance (for uploading or downloading, however, uploading might be punished more severely, but I'm not sure. Haven't uploaded anything like that before). Just make sure you have legit carts for each game and you should be fine

 

[giratina16]

Over here you could get a £1000 fine and a criminal record but nothing much more.

 

[riverchen]

So.......about how much fined and how many years in jail? (In US, ISP is verizon i think)

 

[MasterPenguin]

You won't get jailed. Antipiracy companies will simply fine you, and that will be the end of it. That's how they roll. Verizon will be a bystander - they will not come after you. The antipiracy company that comes after you will simply pressure them to find out who you are, so they can mail you the bill.

 

[riverchen]

Now, i'm getting mixed replies. Some say i can get jailed, some say no, and a variety of other crap. If i get fined, about how much?

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

You're getting mixed replies because copyright laws are different in countries around the world.

 

[riverchen]

Well, in the US

 

[Amber Lamps]

If you live in the US nothing will happen to you. Here's what generally ends up happening if you are caught for something and have your computers confiscated:

all "contraband" material (games, movies, music you don't own) gets purged
system returned to you
slap on the wrist type of thing

There is a rare occurance that you can get fined. This happens when you are using the ROMs to generate a profit either being included with a mod for sale or just selling the ROM images by themself. The maximum fine is 250,000 per occurance but generally gets cut down to 250,000 and then lessened to $25,000 by some sort of court magic and can even get lessened to public services such as cleaning up trash along the road side and such.

By the Digital Millenium Copywright Act signed by Bill Clinton, you are allowed to have up to $5,000 worth of pirated material but not going over that amount without getting into trouble or being fined. So let's say you have 166 NDS ROM images valued at $30 a piece. You won't get in trouble for that at all. This bill was signed into law. It is mostly there to protect common citizens that share music and also loosely to protect people who are not aware that they have things such as pirated copies of Windows and Microsoft Office for example.

There are many loopholes in the laws and you can hire plenty of skilled attorneys if necessary to avoid the maximum penalties. Also most of the time people dealing with enforcing the law do not have the time, patience, or skill to deal with an issue that is this petty. People living in countries that are not freedom based like the USA is, and from what I hear most countries are not free, have bigger issues with this stuff depending on where they live. Usually communist based countries do not have copywright laws so you don't have to worry if you live in places like Russia, China, North Korea, or Vietnam.

In summary, you live in the USA so you have nothing to be worried about.

 

[Jakob95]

Since when was Russia communist? This century...

 

[riverchen]

slap on the wrist type of thing

and by that you mean? I am reassured i will not be thrown in jail and whipped.

Also, who determines the price? Can i argue theres a dude on ebay selling this game for 1 buck? How is the value of movies determined?

 

[basher11]

"slap on the wrists" means getting arrested genius

 

[Deleted_171835]

"slap on the wrists" means getting arrested genius

Uh, no.
It means to get a light punishment. I assume that she means a minor fine.

 

[giratina16]

"slap on the wrists" means getting arrested genius

Slap on the wrist tends to mean a verbal warning.

 

[evandixon]

By the Digital Millenium Copywright Act signed by Bill Clinton, you are allowed to have up to $5,000 worth of pirated material but not going over that amount without getting into trouble or being fined. So let's say you have 166 NDS ROM images valued at $30 a piece. You won't get in trouble for that at all. This bill was signed into law. It is mostly there to protect common citizens that share music and also loosely to protect people who are not aware that they have things such as pirated copies of Windows and Microsoft Office for example.

I don't remeber seeing that in the bill. What page is it on?
[pdf] http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf