Is it still illegal to download ROMs if you actually own the game on another system?

[elsexo]

I was just wondering because i dont wanna get caught or what not. plus, i own about 30 SNES games that i would also like to have on my PSP. . .

[midnitdragoon]

dude dont worry be happy no one aint getting cought and sued for owning mario bros on psp. Unless some1 is stupid enough to go to a police precent and say " heres my psp its hacked" then ya ull get raped but nah if you play it safe. As for having roms and the actual game either way it dont matter. still illegal.

[DementedLullaby]

PSP Police are out to get you! PH34R!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, it's illegal to download any copyrighted game. If you own the original it is still illegal to download it, you are however allowed to make a back up of the original yourself for whatever use(besides distribution)you see fit. Hope this clears things up.

[linkboy]

PSP Police are out to get you! PH34R!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, it's illegal to download any copyrighted game. If you own the original it is still illegal to download it, you are however allowed to make a back up of the original yourself for whatever use(besides distribution)you see fit. Hope this clears things up.

Exactly.

Its illegal to download a game even if you own it becuase it isn't a backup of your game, its a backup of someone else's game.

[maj039]

what about old games that no longer have copyrights ?
(if they even exist)

[corneliousjd]

yes its illegal. that "24 hour deletion" **** is false. everything you've ever heard about ROM's being legal because they are backups of your games is false.

ROMs are not legal... emulators are.

but as the others said. millions of people have ROM's. nobody's done hard time for playing SMB3 on their PSP or PC

[tourettes]

thats ****ing gay, if i own the game it shouldnt be illegal.i put the 20-50 dollars out at one point in time, so getting the same exact game but in a different format should be my busness.

[BlingShyne2 TAA]

Dude, Who the **** gives a ****?

Get caught? Are you ****ing joking?

[EM1L]

I was just wondering because i dont wanna get caught or what not. plus, i own about 30 SNES games that i would also like to have on my PSP. . .

Lets say you own gta on ps2 then it is illigeal to own an iso for the xbox.if you own super mario for SNES then it is legal to own a rom of it.

[Pumahawk]

No I've seen rom sites that say it's legal to own a rom if you own the actual game.

[EM1L]

That's what i mean but you have to own the actual game the exact ver. if it's limited edition it must be a limited edition iso or rom.

[Joey]

it is illegal to Download a rom PERIOD!!! regardless of if you own the game or not... the ONLY time roms are legal, are when you (meaning yourself) copied the rom from your own personal copy of the game... that being said, you really shouldn't worry... I never actual heard about any body being caught for this kind of thing...

[inky]

thats ****ing gay, if i own the game it shouldnt be illegal.i put the 20-50 dollars out at one point in time, so getting the same exact game but in a different format should be my busness.

you don't own the game. you own a licence to the software. this is standard in all software licence agreements. read one sometime. lets say you are the IT guy for corporation X. and all the PC's need to upgrade to a new OS. you can't just go to best buy and grab one copy and use it to upgrade all the corp's PCs. you have to get a special corp. licence. the same goes for games. just because you bought mortal kombat for snes doesn't mean you have the right to download the arcade and megadrive versions of it.

[whitehawk]

it is illegal to Download a rom PERIOD!!! regardless of if you own the game or not... the ONLY time roms are legal, are when you (meaning yourself) copied the rom from your own personal copy of the game... that being said, you really shouldn't worry... I never actual heard about any body being caught for this kind of thing...

Ya, I heard one 22 year old get 2 years or more, but that was because he had a site with tons of roms, and none of the piracy policy jazz so he couldnt get sued.

[Tetsuo9999]

No one's going to raid your house looking for ROMs of decade-old games, so relax. The only way you would get caught was if you had a site with ROMs that became large enough to alert the higher-ups (many GBA/GBC ROM sites got sent cease and desist letters by Nintendo because the games were still new and able to be purchased).

[At∀RaҖiA]

And if they were to raid your house, how are the gonna know the ripped game is not really a copy of your own game.

The way i see it, it doesn't matter if you brought the game ten years ago, or ten minutes ago, its still yours, they got your money once, they dont need it again.

[roberto]

i heard from another website that is not illegal

[Freehate]

This doesnt make any sense. You would think companies would sell roms. I mean, if they sold dead console games for like 2 bucks or so, theyd be making some money and everyone would be happy. But since they could never distinguish legal roms from the illegal, this will probably never happen unless they took serious action to shut down all rom sites. this is really weird since roms are illegal but theres practically no way to get prosecuted, its like stealing candy from stores. Its illegal, but nobody really cares and they cant tell if you made that candy yourself or bought from another store.

[Ha! Ijustfoundmygenesis!]

No one from the Atari time is look around the internet look to sew people..............Chanc es of getting caught is like 1 in 1,000,000.

[snaynay1]

Read this.. it should clear everything up.. Straight from nintendo.

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp

[Joey]

yeah guys, it's like pretty much every thing on the internet... your never gonna get caught... there not concerned with those that download roms, there more concerned with thoses that distribute them... there not even looking for you...

[inky]

yeah guys, it's like pretty much every thing on the internet... your never gonna get caught... there not concerned with those that download roms, there more concerned with thoses that distribute them... there not even looking for you...

tell that to the agents watching my house <.< >.>

[linkboy]

This doesnt make any sense. You would think companies would sell roms. I mean, if they sold dead console games for like 2 bucks or so, theyd be making some money and everyone would be happy. But since they could never distinguish legal roms from the illegal, this will probably never happen unless they took serious action to shut down all rom sites. this is really weird since roms are illegal but theres practically no way to get prosecuted, its like stealing candy from stores. Its illegal, but nobody really cares and they cant tell if you made that candy yourself or bought from another store.

Nintendo is going to do that with the Revolution. It will be able to connect to the Internet (via its wi-fi capabilities) and download NES, SNES and N64 games from Nintendo's severs.

Also, they will give games away with the purchase of other games (for example, you buy a Zelda game and get a free download of A Link to the Past).

They will be charging for the games, but they haven't set a price yet.

[laird]

The funny thing is that people will pay for this. Many of "us" already have every nintendo game ever made on our harddrives as well as hidden in secret loacations in case of catastrophic computer failure or a CSIS raid. But I think that the majority of people out there are blissfully ignorant of anything besided using the internet for porn. Most people have no idea that emulators play roms....they dont know what roms or emulators are...The day the 1.5 firmware was cracked I went into my local video store singing and jumping like a 12 year old boy---Once I explained the big deal to him...he had a slightly retared stunned face. The words firware and homebrew meant nothing to the poor boy who worked at a "computer" shop. So this downlaoding of Nintendo (tm) games will seem like heaven to those who play by the rulez or who are slight brain damaged!

[atlfalcons]

theres a 1 out of like a million chance that u could get cought unless ur stupid and bring it to school and get it taken away and ur teacher call the cops saying u have illegal download on it so DONT TAKE IT TO SCHOOL and if u do be carefull or u go to the police station and say arrest me cops i download games illeagally

[Tetsuo9999]

Again, the bigwigs are more interested in prosecuting the people who distribute the ROMs, not the people who download them. Taking legal action against downloaders would take too long, cost too much money, and would in general be a big waste of time, and for every person they did it to, there would be thousands more to take their place.

[Joey]

theres a 1 out of like a million chance that u could get cought unless ur stupid and bring it to school and get it taken away and ur teacher call the cops saying u have illegal download on it so DONT TAKE IT TO SCHOOL and if u do be carefull or u go to the police station and say arrest me cops i download games illeagally

I doubt your your teacher would know about ROMs, and if they did, they wouldn't tell... they just tell you not to bring it to school...

[brain_stew]

Can Websites and/or Internet Content Providers be Held Liable for Violation of Intellectual Property Rights if they are Only Providing Links to Illegal Software and/or Other Illegal Devices?

Yes. Personal Websites and/or Internet Content Providers sites That link to Nintendo ROMs, Nintendo emulators and/or illegal copying devices can be held liable for copyright and trademark violations, regardless of whether the illegal software and/or devices are on their site or whether they are linking to the sites where the illegal items are found.

That is why we so strictly enforce our piracy policy, if you guys publish links to roms then our webmasters can be prosecuted. See, we do things for good reasons, and to stop this site from being brought down.

[Arwin]

I think that as long as Nintendo isn't able to provide replacements for broken down copies or consoles, and there are no other ways of playing the old NES and SNES games, they won't be too bothered. You can see it on the ROM sites, the GBA games, PS2 games and so on, basically everything that you can actually buy in the shop, is taken off and taken action against. But the other stuff they can leave on.

Now, if its true that Nintendo, in the future, is going to rerelease the SNES and NES games for a new platform, then I can understand them going after the ROM sites for those games too. But I'll wager that if they do incorporate that function, it is only because the ROM sites made them realise that there's a market for this. In fact, the ROM sites and emulators probably partly created the market for this.

Legally they are mostly right. There is one point that I think could be argued in a court of law. The Copy Device is a debatable issue. Backup copies for personal use are generally accepted, and just. But Nintendo's cartridges can't be backuped without a Copy Device. A little bit tricky, especially if they also can't provide a replacement (though I haven't tried something like that, I've never owned any Nintendo hardware in the first place).

[pspman123456]

dude dont worry be happy no one aint getting cought and sued for owning mario bros on psp. Unless some1 is stupid enough to go to a police precent and say " heres my psp its hacked" then ya ull get raped but nah if you play it safe. As for having roms and the actual game either way it dont matter. still illegal.

lol... damn no wonder the police found me :hand: :)