Roms site

[berlinka]

I was just visiting my favorite roms site, where they also have a community, much like GBAtemp. I was wondering how it's possible that this site (and many others) can offer us these roms (they also have roms for GBA, N64 and even Gamecube iso's) without ever being shut down!!!

 

[Toni Plutonij]

These type of talk never ends up well.....

To give you answer, they don't get shut down, but are under constant risk of that possibly happening..
Not to mention that admins/owners of the site won't only loose the site, but could get legally treated, and stuff like that..

Just look what happened to owners of one of the most popular torrent site..

There is no reason to risk loosing the community to host illegal files when you can get it on so much places..

And we're having server problems already, without additional stuff, and getting members that register only to download one game and visit never again..

 

[mervyn797]

doing something like that is illegal. so forget something like that.

 

[Veho]

GBATEMP used to host ROMs, and got closed so often the site's name stems from the short lifespans of its previous incarnations. ROM sites are at constant risk of being stomped on. It's just that they're like bubbles under wallpaper, you squeeze one flat and two others pop up elsewhere.

 

[benjaminlibl]

Because there are so many. Too many too keep track of.

 

[NeSchn]

GBATEMP used to host ROMs, and got closed so often the site's name stems from the short lifespans of its previous incarnations. ROM sites are at constant risk of being stomped on. It's just that they're like bubbles under wallpaper, you squeeze one flat and two others pop up elsewhere.

Ooo, good analogy there.

 

[Nerdii]

GBAtemp was a romsite?

 

[Sir-Fritz]

Many years ago yes.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

But not for a long time.

 

[p1ngpong]

GBATEMP used to host ROMs, and got closed so often the site's name stems from the short lifespans of its previous incarnations. ROM sites are at constant risk of being stomped on. It's just that they're like bubbles under wallpaper, you squeeze one flat and two others pop up elsewhere.

I always thought the site was called GBAtemp because when it did host roms it only hosted the latest ten releases or something like that. As in GBA temporary.

 

[berlinka]

But the site I'm referring to has been there for years now. So it's not exactly another "bubble".
I was just wondering if some sites meet "certain criteria" to be able to stay up. I just think it's strange that the now famous site is still there. I mean if I google the word "roms" it's almost hard to avoid it.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Hah, I think I use the same exact ROM site. Damn you!

Well, most sites offer a disclaimer that downloading the games without owning them is illegal. Although it's pretty much unspoken law that no one cares about that and it's about as mandatory as schools serving you 5 different food groups (well, my school says they have to but no one enforces it). If anyone comes knocking at the door, they can simply put up the "Downloading stuff you don't own" is illegal sign.

While piracy is an issue, it's also never something that people go after. The internet is still a virtual Wild West. You can find anything from how to build a bomb to child porn on it, and it's still hard to stomp them down. Most companies never lose significant enough profit from piracy for it to be an issue. I doubt Nintendo will go belly up because 100,000 copies of SMG are pirated (well probably more, but still). While it's illegal, it's not on top of the "bad stuff we need to do" list.

 

[Panzer Tacticer]

Just about anything online, is good for about 5 years at most, legal or otherwise.

Case in point, remember when online Journals were the rage? Then Blogging was the thing to do. Now it's Twitter, and how long will that last. MySpace and Facebook, yawn it's already sounding old.

My NDS rom site of choice proudly proclaims 'since 2006'. Oh like that means anything hehe.

The first Nintendo rom site I discovered is currently just magnet for automated porn spam fishing. No idea where the site owner went, but my guess is involved legal threats and maybe even repercussions.

But the thing is, posting links to sites is not the crime, actually hosting the file is where it gets risky.

Granted, it seems GBAtemp prefers to not even offer the links to the offsite locations. Makes a kind of sense. Although if I was Nintendo, or someone like them, chances are I would have strong armed someone a long time ago to turf GBAtemp, even if there are NO files hosted here.
Because it hosts a community that essentially is a teaching facility for all you ever wanted to know about using the data you downloaded, which is essentially an illegal dowload in most cases, which is generally acknowledge as illegal in enough countries to matter. I mean, the fact that I as a Canadian CAN legally copy anything I bought, won't help you in another country where it is NOT legal.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

My NDS rom site of choice proudly proclaims 'since 2006'. Oh like that means anything hehe.

I use the same one, it's the best IMO. But this week it's been down for a few days, without any notification or excuses... Well, it's back, so YEAARRR!