Question about ROMS

[Spidey-Bat]

I'm at school and I downloaded a Sega emulator and a ROM (Gunstar Heroes) when I was home this weekend and put the files on my laptop. I want to download another ROM but I'm not sure if I should since I'm at school. Are ROMs considered illegal?

 

[Kable24]

Only if you don't own the game

 

[Neto Magnus]

Gunstar Heroes was the awesome

but yea don't be downloading stuff from ur school's line. A friend of mine actually went to prison for 5 yrs for downloading illegal stuff from his dorm room.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

Didn't think so. I downloaded an NES and SNES emulator (they are freeware) but I deleted those just to be safe (didn't extract the files).

My school has a page on Legal issues but the only thing that is mentioned relevant to me is peer-to-peer sharing (which I assume means torrents or Limewire).

I guess I will have to wait until I go home again to download them. I don't know if sending a file on AIM is a loophole but I won't try.

 

[Optikal]

Roms are legal if you have a hard copy of the game in question

 

[Kable24]

hence what I posted 6 days ago

 

[D4rkShaDoWz]

Don't do this at school because you might get in trouble. A kid at my school's library plays Super Mario Bros 64 and they tell him to stop playing games - but they don't know it's a emulator - Just to be safe, if you do by any chance download a ROM, do it at home. I don't think it's still illegal since NES and SNES systems are probably unobtainable and I don't think Nintendo cares either - but do it at your own risk.

 

[Yerzrinot]

Gunstar Heroes was the awesome

but yea don't be downloading stuff from ur school's line. A friend of mine actually went to prison for 5 yrs for downloading illegal stuff from his dorm room.

I call BS on this. What country do you live in?

ROMS are illegal but who cares? Download them at home and you'll have no trouble.

 

[bgates87]

I would only download ROMs from a private connection, just to be safe. There's nothing wrong with having emulators though, although technically if the emulator remembers games you've played recently then it could potentially be used to prove that you have played ROM's for which you do not own the original cartridge. If you're playing mainly NES, SNES and SEGA games though then I don't think you need to worry about the FBI raiding your house.

The only thing that's really going to get you in trouble is downloading ROMS from a non-private connection or downloading illegal ROMs for newer platforms. I'd say it's probably risky to download illegal ROMs for any platform newer than N64. You probably won't run into trouble downloading PS1 ROMs but the problem I've always faced is just finding a good PS1 emulator that will run fast on my fossil of a computer.

Also, are you talking about High School or College? You shouldn't download during school regardless but College tends to be more lenient when it comes to playing games, at least in my experience. When I was in College I had an awesome programming instructor and I would copy emulators and ROMs to my flash drive and waste hours playing MegaMan and Zelda during C++ and AP classes. The instructor would even come over to my desk sometimes and watch me play. As long as you got the program written he didn't really give a damn what you did in class.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

The stuff I'm interested in playing is Super Nintendo and older. I could never play a game that uses an analog stick on my computer.

I'm at college. We weren't able to download things onto the computers in high school or connect to their internet with our laptops.

 

[Matt Murdock]

Just to be safe, I'd head to your local gamestop and get all the cartridges of the games you want, that way you can avoid any trouble. They're only about ¢99 each.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

Gamestops don't sell them anymore. It's even becoming difficult to find GBA games.

 

[Matt Murdock]

Damn.
The ones around me have a ton of NES cartridges.

Sorry about that.

 

[Drakon]

Emulators are technically legal. A lot of starter game developers actually use it to homebrew games as practice. However, ROMS are, in fact, frowned upon. And I'm sure Nintendo WOULD care, since they're currently charging people money for their older games via the Wii channel.

 

[bgates87]

Yeah my local gamestop doesn't have them anymore either, it's tough to even find good PS1 games there now. You could try checking garage sales and stuff, but if you just want to play SNES and older then I don't think you have anything to worry about. I have a friend who has about 60 SNES ROMs and 40+ NES ROMs and not a single cartridge. He's had them for 6 years and has never run into any trouble.

 

[Philly Phanboy]

Emulators are technically legal. A lot of starter game developers actually use it to homebrew games as practice. However, ROMS are, in fact, frowned upon. And I'm sure Nintendo WOULD care, since they're currently charging people money for their older games via the Wii channel.

Right the legal stuff with the ROMS is the issue. The intellectual property rights on the ROMS may or may not expire after 10 years depending on the ownership so you may or may not be breaking the law getting downloaded ROMS. Best not to tempt fate downloading something that still has a license holder.