Could you be arrested for using roms?

100% agreed.

 

I could not agree more.
miros

 

Isn't it legal to have a ROM of a game that you own? As long as you are only using it for personal use and not distributing it.

 

Like to see them prove I didn't!

 

as said, it depends on the country you live in.
in my country (the netherlands), you can download everything you want, including movies, games, roms, music and whatever you can think of, AS LONG as it is personal use only. you are not allowed to lend, hire, give away or sell anything you have downloaded and has copyright on it. and you can ceartainly not upload you're downloaded stuff... so my collection of ROMs and movies and stuff is all legal (a). but hey, thats just the netherlands xD

 

Fair use policies, XD

 

Yeah like loony said, a format won't work since it's recoverable, but there are also programs that can take files and, I guess you could say, scatter them across your PC, thus deleting them and making them inaccessible to anyone

 

Uh-oh. I keep my backup NDS games in my computer. Oh well. My dad said there is a strange reason why Nintendo or any big-shot company cannot sue us. Maybe because we are too many. Hehe.

That is freakin' awesome. Wait, so you won't get arrested, but the site you got it from will? I'm confused.
I'm not sure about here in the Philippines, but just in case,

Even for a 12 year old, that is true. One of my friends have a big collection of those, and if police see it, *whistles*.

 

wrong. So long as the rom was made on the same version of the game you have, its perfectly legal to just download it. Had this problem before xD... the cop wasn't happy when I showed up to court with about 300+ NES carts to prove him wrong.
(example: playstation 1 GR disks were usually version 1.1, although the subtlties are usually undectable)

 

It all depends. If you already own an original copy of the game then i feel they shouldn't. If you dont then they should becuase it is basically piracy

 

Also, your government's policies & laws on Digital Piracy.

Here in my country, we do have laws & an Agency that fights the never ending battle against Digital Piracy, but because the foothold of the problem is so vast & strong in the end it is never stopped.

Also, the agency is more invested in stopping porn rather than gaming piracy per se, which often only gets caught in between buy bust operations (or raids) against porn piracy. And yeah, the gaming industry (abroad) seem to don't give a flying f... er duck to the situation as we don't get an ambassador from Nintendoland crying like a wuss on the whole matter.

Microsoft, being the big douche that they are does however invest time & money in stopping the piracy of their products here. But just like with the case for gaming piracy, they have not been successful in stopping it.

That's why it's so funny when you go to some of the middle to low rated malls in this country & you'd find stalls or even occupied mall lots where the people in it are blatantly coming up to you and saying things like, "PSP Games, we're selling PSP Games & we'll mod your PSP for you if you don't know how". And even funnier, they talk well versed in said field, as if they frequent places like RomUlation to gain the knowledge.

 

Depend on your country if your country has a rule or not

 

Some people see fair use as piracy, and piracy as fair use.

 

if its the USA you really dont have to worry about much unless

1: you have a wireless isp (they seem to be more observant to what you download)
2: you host a ton of roms via torrents, your own personal server
3: you download terabytes everyday


most likely you'll get the letter from your isp demanding you stop the downloading before you get the cops showing up at your house..though it may not be true ive heard that you can have a rom on your pc for up to 24 hours or something like that.. i download roms but i still buy plenty of games regardless.. i mainly use roms to see if i wouldnt mind spending the $5-$60 on it.. i couldnt image waking up every morning to find out someone "pirated" my bag o' marijuana haha which is what you do to a game maker/publisher everytime you dont buy a game you've downloaded and beaten it hahahaha


if you're a good pirate you'll help pirate ubisoft and EA since they make it to where some of their games REQUIRE an online connection at all times just to play it... this isnt helping anyone but reverse engineers get better at what they do in my humblest opinion but i dont have a reliable connection in the boondocks so it might just piss some people off but it makes me furious

 

thanks for clearing that up for me... this is why i love romUlation.... no bullshit

 

You cannot get arrested playing Dumped videogames or roms... however you had to make this for yourself... because playing a pirated game breaks the copyrights from the developers. and thus if you are captured selling or dumping videogames by those companies you will get your ass filled with Lawyers, Bills, and a possible prison sentence... However Romulation is like chuck norris, They are invincible.

 

In the United States, no. Since the Judge in the United States of America v. Dove trial found that an illegal download does not equal a lost sale, piracy is NOT the same as theft. They can however, in certain states, remove the files, and can report you.
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In the rare event that it did go to trial, they would not have to prove that you did not create it yourself. You would need to prove that fact by showing that you own a copy of the media, and the method to create the copy that you have. Because United States of America v. Dove trial, piracy is not longer considered theft, so the case could not be tried in a criminal court, where the burden of proof is much higher, and much more fair.

Instead, it would be tried in a civil court, where there burden of proof would be on you to prove that your backup was legitimate, and in order to make a finding, guilt DOES NOT have to be 'beyond a reasonable doubt' as in criminal trials.