Legality of Downloading/owning/burning/playing Roms, emulators, etc.

[l337killa07]

So my older brother was just in my room, and hes Mr. "I'm an uber security guard eye will pwn j00 n00blies with mai gun and mai uber pepper spray lawlz, I can't tell j00 where eye work bcuz its like totally super secret critical government information like oMG" (yea it sounds stupid, and thats the point.)

And I was showing off to him my semi-collection of burned games, PSX mostly, that I've now added thanks to this site (BoF 3+4, FF5, soon FF9, Castlevania SofN). He got uber happy when he saw SofN, but then he goes into big brother mode and gives me his gigantic paranoia speech about the government monitoring every move..."They know what you're doing, when you're doing it, how often you do it...etc." Ok so they know that I shit twice daily, I eat fiber to help regulate my bowels, and do they also keep a tally on how many times I've wanked off? Wtf? Then hes like "well if they bust up in our house and arrest you for infringement of not owning the games, blah blah, I'm not gonna flex my awesome security rent-a-cop muscles to get you out of jail..." .....As if I need him to. Hes like, "Just burn the games you have, wipe out ur comp using 10 diff kinds of deletion programs, and be done with it."

So I'm just thinking about all the.....oh I don't know, couple of hundred of MP3s I've downloaded in the past....8 or so years (back in the ORIGINAL days of Napster, when it was free), and all the games I've been downloading recently....and it just brings into question the legality of it all, and if we really CAN take super responsibilty for all the stuff we've been dowloading, because cmon, I know no one here owns ALL the games and is just downloading it for "backup" purposes. It just makes me wonder how Emuparadise can exist without massive lawsuits and stuff. And I've also noticed that you guys don't have the usual disclaimer about the games being for backup purposes, 24 hour downloads only, and whatnot. Or maybe if you do have it I haven't seen it.

So what are everyone's thoughts/comments/concerns regarding this? And does anyone have any good rent-a-cop jokes I can throw against my brother? (he's not really a rent a cop, persay, hes actually armed security at some sort of super secret site thats so secret because they only have a few 1,000 people as far as in/out traffic goes, so apparently NO ONE knows the location but everyone does? wtf?)

[Evans]

We don't have those warnings/disclaimers because they have no legal standings.

Thoughts? I'll keep on gaming carelessly until they come a knocking.

[Raype]

So my older brother was just in my room, and hes Mr. "I'm an uber security guard eye will pwn j00 n00blies with mai gun and mai uber pepper spray lawlz, I can't tell j00 where eye work bcuz its like totally super secret critical government information like oMG" (yea it sounds stupid, and thats the point.)

I hope you smacked him.

With a hammer.

Sledge, preferably.

It just makes me wonder how Emuparadise can exist without massive lawsuits and stuff.

Legal gray areas, servers in countries where copyright laws are enforced differently, that sort of thing.

It's not "legal", but gaming companies usually have other things to worry about besides people pirating some stuff. Not to mention the fact that if they kill a site others will pop up and there's no guarantee they'd win a lawsuit.

And anti piracy groups target PC games and MP3s moreso than roms and ISOs. And we all know of at least a couple fairly well known piracy sites that are still in operation.

And I've also noticed that you guys don't have the usual disclaimer about the games being for backup purposes, 24 hour downloads only, and whatnot. Or maybe if you do have it I haven't seen it.

That's because those disclaimers are BS. It's illegal to download roms period. The 24 hour thing and stuff is just a bunch of crap someone made up somewhere along the lines to make roms seem more legit than they were.

So what are everyone's thoughts/comments/concerns regarding this? And does anyone have any good rent-a-cop jokes I can throw against my brother? (he's not really a rent a cop, persay, hes actually armed security at some sort of super secret site thats so secret because they only have a few 1,000 people as far as in/out traffic goes, so apparently NO ONE knows the location but everyone does? wtf?)

Due to certain ongoing legal cases I'm not at liberty to insult or talk about insults regarding law enforcement personnel.

[polokitty]

And anti piracy groups target PC games and MP3s moreso than roms and ISOs. And we all know of at least a couple fairly well known piracy sites that are still in operation.

pc games also come in iso format

[Evans]

pc games also come in iso format

Lawl. :X

[Raype]

pc games also come in iso format

(Compress it sexy, we don't want the fuzz to be jackin' our high and puttin' the squeeze on our jig)

[l337killa07]

I hope you smacked him.

With a hammer.

Sledge, preferably.

And sometimes, I want to. Believe me. Hard. With varying levels of force. At various angles. And multiple times over.

Due to certain ongoing legal cases I'm not at liberty to insult or talk about insults regarding law enforcement personnel.

Haha

[Panda Man]

And sometimes, I want to. Believe me. Hard. With varying levels of force. At various angles. And multiple times over.



Haha

That's redundant.

It's not legal. It's more a question of ethics than legality. But who gives a damn? LONG LIVE PIRACY!

[Dr Mario]

It's worth noting that backups are generally not considered legal, and the average media company wants it to stay that way.

Which is as good an argument as any that the current copyright system is fscked.

[Mistral]

It's worth noting that backups are generally not considered legal, and the average media company wants it to stay that way.

Which is as good an argument as any that the current copyright system is fscked.

Thank you, 17 USC 117. Hiding far off in the corner of the American legal system, you now permit the "owner of a copy of a computer program" to make one (1) backup copy for "archival purposes," as long as it does not fall under 106's exclusivity rights. And thank you for your vague wording leading to EULAs that refuse to turn over ownership of the game CD, effectively turning it into a rental agreement with the "possessor" instead of a purchase to the "owner" and making 117 completely non-applicable.

That is assuming you're American, at least. I like to believe most countries are a bit more sane about that, at least, but that's foolish optimism. What we do here is, of course, quite illegal.

[Jetsetlemming]

Nobody cares about console piracy online. Physical console piracy ala modchips occasionally. But roms? Nobody gives a fuck.
The government couldn't care less about piracy except when corporate lobbies force them to.

[SegNin]

The government only goes after piracy groups; they don't bother with individuals, preferring to let the civil courts handle individual pirates through lawsuits.

But the ESA isn't going to sue you for downloading old games because they'd have a tough time proving the profitability of games which they're no longer manufacturing or selling.

Which is another reason they don't bother suing, since it would actually cost them money (legal fees) rather then save them money.

What the ESA does, is if they catch you hosting or sharing roms or ISO's from their "protected" list, they send you cease and desist (C & D) letter ordering you to remove those "protected" games.

Which is why the big rom sites often don't have Mario or Zelda games because the ESA sent them a C & D demanding that they remove those games.
Ironically though, you'll find Mario and Zelda games on crappy little GeoCities sites, because the ESA can't search for every site on the "Net that has rom downloads.

And then there's the curious fact that there are well-known GBA rom sites that have lasted for years without any interference from the ESA or Nintendo, even though they have Mario and Zelda GBA games. Same with NDS rom sites.

To be honest, I can't figure out the ESA's strategy, but then, who can ever understand how lawyers think anyway?

In any case, you shouldn't worry about it.
So, keep your collection, and just ignore your brother, who's just being an ass.

[Paladin_Hammer]

Only if your PC is running through some kind of regularly checked database/server could the US Government even possibly know what your up to. Even then, this is assuming they even CARE. After all, they have terrorist, actual thieves, child-rapist, and other assorted rift-raft to go through before they get to us.

Even then, what are you downloading? Some games from ten years ago that are no longer in production and not even a source of income for the companies that made them? Now, if you were going after some brand-new movie or game, then they'd be willing to look into you. But what we do here? We play games that the companies who made them only care to talk about on G4's eary morning programming!

Were safe here. So long as no-one dumps his stash of Warhammer: 40,000 Soulstorm, Mass Effect, and Gears of War 2 builds on the General Gaming forums. And if he does, you can bet your ass that the mods will remove him ASAP. Or at least close the thread.

EDIT: Although, if you have some kind of Warhammer: 40,000 "Soulstorm" build available, oh DO NOT POST A DOWNLOAD LINK, heavens no! But, could you tell me what its like? Whats the second new race? Is the campaign in-depth? Are the graphics any better?

[MasJ]

The government only goes after piracy groups; they don't bother with individuals, preferring to let the civil courts handle individual pirates through lawsuits.

But the ESA isn't going to sue you for downloading old games because they'd have a tough time proving the profitability of games which they're no longer manufacturing or selling.

Which is another reason they don't bother suing, since it would actually cost them money (legal fees) rather then save them money.

What the ESA does, is if they catch you hosting or sharing roms or ISO's from their "protected" list, they send you cease and desist (C & D) letter ordering you to remove those "protected" games.

Which is why the big rom sites often don't have Mario or Zelda games because the ESA sent them a C & D demanding that they remove those games.
Ironically though, you'll find Mario and Zelda games on crappy little GeoCities sites, because the ESA can't search for every site on the "Net that has rom downloads.

And then there's the curious fact that there are well-known GBA rom sites that have lasted for years without any interference from the ESA or Nintendo, even though they have Mario and Zelda GBA games. Same with NDS rom sites.

To be honest, I can't figure out the ESA's strategy, but then, who can ever understand how lawyers think anyway?

In any case, you shouldn't worry about it.
So, keep your collection, and just ignore your brother, who's just being an ass.

Very well said, that's more or less the deal. The thing is, it's pretty much illegal for us to host roms and for you to download them. However, legal and ethical are completely different things.
As far as the ESA's strategy is concerned they play sly, they never really email the webmaster of the site. They always email the hosting company hoping that the company will get scared and shut down the site. But in any case, we take C&D's as they come our way, not much we can do about that, they DO have a legal leg to stand on and may use it for some donkey-style kicking if we let them

I don't think there's anything YOU should worry about though, because a very big part of catching individual downloaders is cooperation from the website. We don't even log what our users are doing, let alone turn over our logs to authorities. We don't have any logs, for yours and our security

[Evans]

Hell, we don't even have forum backups.