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

[Cookie Monster]

Hell, we don't even have forum backups.

I do

[Ahkei]

Hell, we don't even have forum backups.

[Jetsetlemming]

Didn't EP get cease and desist letters over Pacman and Final Fantasy?

[SegNin]

Didn't EP get cease and desist letters over Pacman and Final Fantasy?

A few years ago, yeah, for the tracker.

So, we couldn't share those games on BT, but we could through upload service links on the forum, and the main site since they were on a different host then the tracker.

And I think there was something else from before then.
Something where all or most of the downloads had to be removed.

Sorry, but my memory's fuzzy since I wasn't an active member back then--still on dialup then, so I had to choose between using most of my time online for d/l gba and other roms, or posting on message boards.

I chose the games.

[oceanofdarkstar]

Well To Tell u The Truth As Long As The Media, Console, Or Accessories Are No Longer Sold Or Can Be Purchased Through Any Sort Of Retail Or Wholesale Means And the Company Who Created The Characters Have Not Developed Anything New With That Character In 10 Years From The Last Known Date Of Use Then the Company Forfets All Legal Ownership Of Previously Made Games And they are Open For 100% Legal Trade In Any Form Or Fasion. Thats The Reason They Have not Shutdown The GREAT Sites Such As The Romhustler And EmuParadise. Now IDK how Long U All have Been Into Backing Up Game's Or Emu's But I Do Know For A Fact That There Was A Main Site With A Sister Site Out There Once That Would Sell u Every Single PSX Game Backed Up Completely (This Included All The Us,Uk,CHN,jap,rus,fr,br, aus And Any I Forgot) For the CHEAP Price $235 And Every Single DC Game For $150. The Sad Thing "They"(Still not Sure Who It Was) Shutdown The Site And I Had just Come Up With The Money Too. Well Their Sister Site Had The Same Thing But They Were Setup Through Torrents Everything Free If U Had The Space And Bandwidth. But U Would Be Stuck At 99% Untill U Reached Exactly 100% Seeding. It Was VERY Effective However Before They Closed The Site Down I Managed To Snag A Few DC Torrents. So I Have Like 2 Dvd's Of Dc Games, But I Never Got A Chance To Get Some PSX Games. So If Anyone Out There Knows Anything about What I Was Talking About And Maybe They Just Changed There URL PLEASE For The Love Of All that Is Sacred And Holy Tell Me!!!!!!! Oh And Let Me Just Throw This Out. As Far As Security Is Concerned I Use Linux Its Harder To Track Unless Ur A Total Idiot. And If U Are Then I Recommend Some Lite Reading Try Linux For Dummies And Being A Total Linux Ghost.

[Dr Mario]

And the award for most counter-factual information in a single post goes to oceanofdarkstar.

[Raype]

Well To Tell u The Truth As Long As The Media, Console, Or Accessories Are No Longer Sold Or Can Be Purchased Through Any Sort Of Retail Or Wholesale Means And the Company Who Created The Characters Have Not Developed Anything New With That Character In 10 Years From The Last Known Date Of Use Then the Company Forfets All Legal Ownership Of Previously Made Games And they are Open For 100% Legal Trade In Any Form Or Fasion. Thats The Reason They Have not Shutdown The GREAT Sites Such As The Romhustler And EmuParadise. Now IDK how Long U All have Been Into Backing Up Game's Or Emu's But I Do Know For A Fact That There Was A Main Site With A Sister Site Out There Once That Would Sell u Every Single PSX Game Backed Up Completely (This Included All The Us,Uk,CHN,jap,rus,fr,br, aus And Any I Forgot) For the CHEAP Price $235 And Every Single DC Game For $150. The Sad Thing "They"(Still not Sure Who It Was) Shutdown The Site And I Had just Come Up With The Money Too. Well Their Sister Site Had The Same Thing But They Were Setup Through Torrents Everything Free If U Had The Space And Bandwidth. But U Would Be Stuck At 99% Untill U Reached Exactly 100% Seeding. It Was VERY Effective However Before They Closed The Site Down I Managed To Snag A Few DC Torrents. So I Have Like 2 Dvd's Of Dc Games, But I Never Got A Chance To Get Some PSX Games. So If Anyone Out There Knows Anything about What I Was Talking About And Maybe They Just Changed There URL PLEASE For The Love Of All that Is Sacred And Holy Tell Me!!!!!!! Oh And Let Me Just Throw This Out. As Far As Security Is Concerned I Use Linux Its Harder To Track Unless Ur A Total Idiot. And If U Are Then I Recommend Some Lite Reading Try Linux For Dummies And Being A Total Linux Ghost.

Let's dissect this thing, shall we?

(meh, I'm bored. Sue me.)

Well To Tell u The Truth As Long As The Media, Console, Or Accessories Are No Longer Sold Or Can Be Purchased Through Any Sort Of Retail Or Wholesale Means And the Company Who Created The Characters Have Not Developed Anything New With That Character In 10 Years From The Last Known Date Of Use Then the Company Forfets All Legal Ownership Of Previously Made Games And they are Open For 100% Legal Trade In Any Form Or Fasion.

Check the tracker sometime. We're trading games that are mere days old and we're still up.

Also, IIRC Sony is still in business and the PSX didn't "die" 10 years ago. Oh and patents/copyrights can last longer than 10 years and such.

The reason this site is up has more to do with the people who can stop us not giving a shit than the site owners exploiting some sort of loophole or obeying bizarre obscure laws.

Oh And Let Me Just Throw This Out. As Far As Security Is Concerned I Use Linux Its Harder To Track Unless Ur A Total Idiot. And If U Are Then I Recommend Some Lite Reading Try Linux For Dummies And Being A Total Linux Ghost.

Absolute myth.

Linux connects to the internet more or less the same as every other OS, and therefore suffers the same security flaws.

Basically if they were cracking down a different OS isn't going to save your ass.

Especially since tracking is mostly done through the servers you're going through to access the site rather than your computer itself.

As for the books, those are readily available to the people tracking pirates, so I REALLY doubt it would work

[Ahkei]

Well To Tell u The Truth As Long As The Media, Console, Or Accessories Are No Longer Sold Or Can Be Purchased Through Any Sort Of Retail Or Wholesale Means And the Company Who Created The Characters Have Not Developed Anything New With That Character In 10 Years From The Last Known Date Of Use Then the Company Forfets All Legal Ownership Of Previously Made Games And they are Open For 100% Legal Trade In Any Form Or Fasion. Thats The Reason They Have not Shutdown The GREAT Sites Such As The Romhustler And EmuParadise. Now IDK how Long U All have Been Into Backing Up Game's Or Emu's But I Do Know For A Fact That There Was A Main Site With A Sister Site Out There Once That Would Sell u Every Single PSX Game Backed Up Completely (This Included All The Us,Uk,CHN,jap,rus,fr,br, aus And Any I Forgot) For the CHEAP Price $235 And Every Single DC Game For $150. The Sad Thing "They"(Still not Sure Who It Was) Shutdown The Site And I Had just Come Up With The Money Too. Well Their Sister Site Had The Same Thing But They Were Setup Through Torrents Everything Free If U Had The Space And Bandwidth. But U Would Be Stuck At 99% Untill U Reached Exactly 100% Seeding. It Was VERY Effective However Before They Closed The Site Down I Managed To Snag A Few DC Torrents. So I Have Like 2 Dvd's Of Dc Games, But I Never Got A Chance To Get Some PSX Games. So If Anyone Out There Knows Anything about What I Was Talking About And Maybe They Just Changed There URL PLEASE For The Love Of All that Is Sacred And Holy Tell Me!!!!!!! Oh And Let Me Just Throw This Out. As Far As Security Is Concerned I Use Linux Its Harder To Track Unless Ur A Total Idiot. And If U Are Then I Recommend Some Lite Reading Try Linux For Dummies And Being A Total Linux Ghost.

Jesus christ, dude.


That is all.

[l337killa07]

And the award for most counter-factual information in a single post goes to oceanofdarkstar.

Not to mention amazing capitalization skills

[Mistral]

Copy...paste. Set capitalizations style...sentence case. OK, it burns slightly less now.

OK, patents in most countries last somewhere around 20 years, not 10. That doesn't matter for us, because we aren't dealing with hardware. For software, which is a literary work, we are dealing with copyright, which lasts until...well, however many years it's been since Steamboat Willie was created (I know it's not really Disney's fault, but it's still funny ). Also, if you're actually buying ROMs online for any price, you're paying too much.

[Evans]

Not to mention amazing capitalization skills

More like, failed caps lock.

Also, what Darth said.

[Dr Mario]

For software, which is a literary work, we are dealing with copyright, which lasts until...well, however many years it's been since Steamboat Willie was created (I know it's not really Disney's fault, but it's still funny ).

Actually, it is (partially) Disneys fault. Every time some of their early work comes close to becoming public domain, they start leaning on politicians to extend the copyright.

A right case of bastardry, given how much of their wealth comes from animating public domain stories.

[Ahkei]

Actually, it is (partially) Disneys fault. Every time some of their early work comes close to becoming public domain, they start leaning on politicians to extend the copyright.

A right case of bastardry, given how much of their wealth comes from animating public domain stories.

Yea fuck Disney. The company, that is. Walt was awesome. I mean.. Fantasia...








...

[Paladin_Hammer]

Well To Tell u The Truth As Long As The Media, Console, Or Accessories Are No Longer Sold Or Can Be Purchased Through Any Sort Of Retail Or Wholesale Means And the Company Who Created The Characters Have Not Developed Anything New With That Character In 10 Years From The Last Known Date Of Use Then the Company Forfets All Legal Ownership Of Previously Made Games And they are Open For 100% Legal Trade In Any Form Or Fasion. Thats The Reason They Have not Shutdown The GREAT Sites Such As The Romhustler And EmuParadise. Now IDK how Long U All have Been Into Backing Up Game's Or Emu's But I Do Know For A Fact That There Was A Main Site With A Sister Site Out There Once That Would Sell u Every Single PSX Game Backed Up Completely (This Included All The Us,Uk,CHN,jap,rus,fr,br, aus And Any I Forgot) For the CHEAP Price $235 And Every Single DC Game For $150. The Sad Thing "They"(Still not Sure Who It Was) Shutdown The Site And I Had just Come Up With The Money Too. Well Their Sister Site Had The Same Thing But They Were Setup Through Torrents Everything Free If U Had The Space And Bandwidth. But U Would Be Stuck At 99% Untill U Reached Exactly 100% Seeding. It Was VERY Effective However Before They Closed The Site Down I Managed To Snag A Few DC Torrents. So I Have Like 2 Dvd's Of Dc Games, But I Never Got A Chance To Get Some PSX Games. So If Anyone Out There Knows Anything about What I Was Talking About And Maybe They Just Changed There URL PLEASE For The Love Of All that Is Sacred And Holy Tell Me!!!!!!! Oh And Let Me Just Throw This Out. As Far As Security Is Concerned I Use Linux Its Harder To Track Unless Ur A Total Idiot. And If U Are Then I Recommend Some Lite Reading Try Linux For Dummies And Being A Total Linux Ghost.

Lol, Capsblock. Ah yes, I remember my first encounter with it.

EDIT: <--- Whoever adds these, you deserve +1 rep for this one.

[Blaise170]

I think as long as you actually own that system/game then it doesn't really matter does it?