is it wrong to download a rom that you used to have?

qwerty · Post by **qwerty** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:44 pm

so what i hear is it's ok to have those roms if you have the cartridges

i used to have a NES and couple games but gave them to a cousin when i got the SNES

so would it be ok to get the roms from the games i used to have?

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:51 pm

No. Downloading a game (rom) or just having one on your HDD is illegal unless you dumped it from the cart you own yourself.

Magus` · Post by **Magus`** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:51 pm

If you gave them away, you no longer legally have them.

Also, I believe you can only have ROM images you have dumped yourself from your OWN carts.

You will also not find links to ROMs here.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:45 am

Legally, you can only own ROM images you have dumped from software you own. If you transfer ownership, backups are destroyed or go with it.

Hypothetically, you could legally use your backups as replacements for stolen software, but the courts pr'ly won't believe you.

Morally varies, but my view is that downloading NES games you don't own isn't wrong. Unless they're among the handful with modern releases.

The Sage Of Time · Post by **The Sage Of Time** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:10 am

It all just breaks down to cold hard morals, and nothnig else. "Right" and "Wrong" is all in your mind really, since there is zero chance anyone is going to turn you into the cops for it. (I'd be surprised if they understood the situation\cared as well. Though it would vary.)

Do what you want, really. Though your question has been properly answered by Agozer already. If you have a hard copy of something, you can dump it yourself legally, otherwise it's all just up to what you feel like doing.

rlbond · Post by **rlbond** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:24 pm

Magus` wrote:If you gave them away, you no longer legally have them.

Also, I believe you can only have ROM images you have dumped yourself from your OWN carts.

You will also not find links to ROMs here.

Although, technically, is there any difference between two digital copies?
For example, copying my Hybrid Theory cd versus my friend's Hybrid Theory cd.

CheapAlert · Post by **CheapAlert** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:21 pm

My sister swapped Battletoads in Battlemaniacs with Beethoven in 1993, and her friend moved; still pissed over that.

But thanks to the wonders of the internet and emulation, I can play it agains \o/

AntoineWG · Post by **AntoineWG** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:20 pm

Like Sage of Time said, it all breaks down to morals though. Is it illegal to posess a copy of a nearly 20 year old NES game that you used to own (or never owned)? Yes. Is the FBI going to bust down your door and confiscate all the computers in your house? Probably not.

---

According to the current laws, you can't even use a dumper or other device specifically designed to copy copyrighted material. You have to pry the PROM chips from the circuit board and use a PROM reader to get the data off.

You are only legally allowed to have one copy of any copyrighted works that you own (or have owned, provided you still have all of the accompanying materials) legitimate copies of (videos, DVDs, software, etc.) for backup purposes and you may only use one copy at a time. The other must be archived.

That is the law. The end.

Cyrus · Post by **Cyrus** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 7:21 am

AntoineWG wrote:Like Sage of Time said, it all breaks down to morals though. Is it illegal to posess a copy of a nearly 20 year old NES game that you used to own (or never owned)? Yes. Is the FBI going to bust down your door and confiscate all the computers in your house? Probably not.

---

According to the current laws, you can't even use a dumper or other device specifically designed to copy copyrighted material. You have to pry the PROM chips from the circuit board and use a PROM reader to get the data off.

You are only legally allowed to have one copy of any copyrighted works that you own (or have owned, provided you still have all of the accompanying materials) legitimate copies of (videos, DVDs, software, etc.) for backup purposes and you may only use one copy at a time. The other must be archived.

That is the law. The end.

The reason companies want those laws to be so is because they remake games all the time. Usually the remake has enhanced graphics and features (but some are absolute and utter bullshit... PSX Chrono Trigger anyone?). Despite that people would rather download the originals than pay for a new one... or just download the new one anyways -_-". So ya... that's why they want old games to remain copyrighted.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:39 pm

Other reasons include not wanting someone to modify the game to something else and then sell that. I'd imagine that would still be illegal due to character copyrights etc.. but it just opens one more door that could hurt potentially hurt the company.

I think we are at a happy medium. The laws are there to protect the companies and on the flip side, the companies don't go after us for ROMs that are older than most of the newbies in the scene and don't turn any profits. Not like you really have much legal means to obtain many of the games anyway.

Look at the library of Japanese games opened up to us due to emulation and ROMs. Yeah every now and then a company gets off their lazy ass and localizes an old game, but that's few and far between.

avoidz · Post by **avoidz** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 1:54 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:Other reasons include not wanting someone to modify the game to something else and then sell that. I'd imagine that would still be illegal due to character copyrights etc.. but it just opens one more door that could hurt potentially hurt the company.

I think we are at a happy medium. The laws are there to protect the companies and on the flip side, the companies don't go after us for ROMs that are older than most of the newbies in the scene and don't turn any profits. Not like you really have much legal means to obtain many of the games anyway.

Look at the library of Japanese games opened up to us due to emulation and ROMs. Yeah every now and then a company gets off their lazy ass and localizes an old game, but that's few and far between.

On that subject I agree. I would never have got the chance to play games like Seiken Densetsu 3 - in English - without the rom out there. Even Chrono Trigger never made it to Australia back in 1995, so what other option is there? Never play it?

I can understand companies having the IP laws there to protect their works, but after so many years some things just don't have the mass value they used to and either go into obscurity or live on through fans and emulation. I'd rather the latter happen.

NoobixCube · Post by **NoobixCube** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 10:28 am

Hi, I'm new to this board but I thought rather than waste space with an intro post I'd just jump right into the swing of things

Anyways, morally I don't see anything wrong with downloading roms for outdated games - I had a full set of NES games (or near enough to it) a while back. It's not like Nintendo was going to rerelease every one of them, and even if they did I wasn't going to fork out $50+ for a handful of games well past their prime. Emulation is the only way I could play the old Final Fantasy games (and it's the only reason I actually bought Dawn of Souls for the GBA, even though I had a rom of it). And also, without emulation, noone could play the REAL Final Fantasy VI unless they bought a Japanese console and happened across the Japanese cart. Instead we have the wonderful folks of RPG1 or something who made a translation patch for it. Bottom line in my morral book is, if a game is off the shelves it's up for grabs, and it can only HELP a company's fame. Having played FF4 with ZSNES I've resolved to buy it when it gets rereleased on the GBA - if that isn't good publicity I don't know what is.

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:54 am

NoobixCube wrote:Hi, I'm new to this board but I thought rather than waste space with an intro post I'd just jump right into the swing of things

Anyways, morally I don't see anything wrong with downloading roms for outdated games - I had a full set of NES games (or near enough to it) a while back. It's not like Nintendo was going to rerelease every one of them, and even if they did I wasn't going to fork out $50+ for a handful of games well past their prime. Emulation is the only way I could play the old Final Fantasy games (and it's the only reason I actually bought Dawn of Souls for the GBA, even though I had a rom of it). And also, without emulation, noone could play the REAL Final Fantasy VI unless they bought a Japanese console and happened across the Japanese cart. Instead we have the wonderful folks of RPG1 or something who made a translation patch for it. Bottom line in my morral book is, if a game is off the shelves it's up for grabs, and it can only HELP a company's fame. Having played FF4 with ZSNES I've resolved to buy it when it gets rereleased on the GBA - if that isn't good publicity I don't know what is.

RONG, since FF V + VI were realeased over here for PSX. (Sure it was a little late, but better late than never)

Also, beware of mentioning the FF VI patch around here as it seems to be a touchy subject.

And last, concerning NES roms, would you buy the NES rereleases for GBA, if you already had them in rom form on your computer? Something tells me ....

No.

Edit: DAMN IT! Need to think clearly.... We did get FF6 released over here. as FF 3!

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 1:37 pm

SquareHead wrote:
NoobixCube wrote:Hi, I'm new to this board but I thought rather than waste space with an intro post I'd just jump right into the swing of things

Anyways, morally I don't see anything wrong with downloading roms for outdated games - I had a full set of NES games (or near enough to it) a while back. It's not like Nintendo was going to rerelease every one of them, and even if they did I wasn't going to fork out $50+ for a handful of games well past their prime. Emulation is the only way I could play the old Final Fantasy games (and it's the only reason I actually bought Dawn of Souls for the GBA, even though I had a rom of it). And also, without emulation, noone could play the REAL Final Fantasy VI unless they bought a Japanese console and happened across the Japanese cart. Instead we have the wonderful folks of RPG1 or something who made a translation patch for it. Bottom line in my morral book is, if a game is off the shelves it's up for grabs, and it can only HELP a company's fame. Having played FF4 with ZSNES I've resolved to buy it when it gets rereleased on the GBA - if that isn't good publicity I don't know what is.
RONG, since FF V + VI were realeased over here for PSX. (Sure it was a little late, but better late than never)

Also, beware of mentioning the FF VI patch around here as it seems to be a touchy subject.

And last, concerning NES roms, would you buy the NES rereleases for GBA, if you already had them in rom form on your computer? Something tells me ....

No.

Edit: DAMN IT! Need to think clearly.... We did get FF6 released over here. as FF 3!

That's a poor comparison. I'm not interested in playing inferior portable ports of console games ROM or no ROM. Most of them suffer from reduced sound quality, reduced on screen viewing area, etc..

You can only use re-releases on other consoles that are at LEAST the quality of the original or better.

kumakouji · Post by **kumakouji** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 2:16 pm

The bottom line is, ROMs are illegal. the internet is rife with illegal downloads, and if everything that was illegal was stopped online the internet would be a very boring place.

It all comes down to personal morality. In the eyes of the law, downloading roms is the same as stealing from someone.

SquareHead · Post by **SquareHead** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:21 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:
SquareHead wrote:
NoobixCube wrote:Hi, I'm new to this board but I thought rather than waste space with an intro post I'd just jump right into the swing of things

Anyways, morally I don't see anything wrong with downloading roms for outdated games - I had a full set of NES games (or near enough to it) a while back. It's not like Nintendo was going to rerelease every one of them, and even if they did I wasn't going to fork out $50+ for a handful of games well past their prime. Emulation is the only way I could play the old Final Fantasy games (and it's the only reason I actually bought Dawn of Souls for the GBA, even though I had a rom of it). And also, without emulation, noone could play the REAL Final Fantasy VI unless they bought a Japanese console and happened across the Japanese cart. Instead we have the wonderful folks of RPG1 or something who made a translation patch for it. Bottom line in my morral book is, if a game is off the shelves it's up for grabs, and it can only HELP a company's fame. Having played FF4 with ZSNES I've resolved to buy it when it gets rereleased on the GBA - if that isn't good publicity I don't know what is.
RONG, since FF V + VI were realeased over here for PSX. (Sure it was a little late, but better late than never)

Also, beware of mentioning the FF VI patch around here as it seems to be a touchy subject.

And last, concerning NES roms, would you buy the NES rereleases for GBA, if you already had them in rom form on your computer? Something tells me ....

No.

Edit: DAMN IT! Need to think clearly.... We did get FF6 released over here. as FF 3!

That's a poor comparison. I'm not interested in playing inferior portable ports of console games ROM or no ROM. Most of them suffer from reduced sound quality, reduced on screen viewing area, etc..

You can only use re-releases on other consoles that are at LEAST the quality of the original or better.

So very true, but unfortunately thats few and far between.

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 11:00 pm

NoobixCube wrote:Hi, I'm new to this board but I thought rather than waste space with an intro post I'd just jump right into the swing of things

Anyways, morally I don't see anything wrong with downloading roms for outdated games - I had a full set of NES games (or near enough to it) a while back. It's not like Nintendo was going to rerelease every one of them, and even if they did I wasn't going to fork out $50+ for a handful of games well past their prime. Emulation is the only way I could play the old Final Fantasy games (and it's the only reason I actually bought Dawn of Souls for the GBA, even though I had a rom of it). And also, without emulation, noone could play the REAL Final Fantasy VI unless they bought a Japanese console and happened across the Japanese cart. Instead we have the wonderful folks of RPG1 or something who made a translation patch for it. Bottom line in my morral book is, if a game is off the shelves it's up for grabs, and it can only HELP a company's fame. Having played FF4 with ZSNES I've resolved to buy it when it gets rereleased on the GBA - if that isn't good publicity I don't know what is.

Well, the Revolution will enable people to download old games of Nintendo's past, but I'am not sure if this will affect anything.

NoobixCube · Post by **NoobixCube** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:20 am

concerning NES roms, would you buy the NES rereleases for GBA, if you already had them in rom form on your computer? Something tells me ....

I just don't see the point in buying remakes of games that I only played for 10 minutes anyway. If they rereleased something good like Metal Gear (I am aware it will be included in MGS3: Subsitance, and I'm planning to buy that) then I would buy it. Seriously, how many times can you play through some of those games?

Also, I played both the US FF3 and the patched FF6, I even played it in Japanese a while ago when I was still learning it (damn class size got too small so the school wouldn't keep it up. My Japanese isn't very good anymore, I hardly knew enough kanji to keep up when I played it). After comparing it to the translation there were a few pieces I wasn't happy with, it seemed Sky Render only took litteral translations in a lot of situations and not what I call the "poetic translation". To truly form an oppinion on something you need to experience all aspects of it. I'm not going to turn around and say "The PSP is crap and the DS rules" because, while I own a DS, I don't have the right to give my opinion on the PSP because I have never used one.

At some point I probably would have bought Final Fantasy Anthology, but I can't find it on any shelves at the moment. Not even EB Games has a second hand copy. The closest I can come to owning it is renting at Blockbuster, and I just refuse to rent an RPG for three nights (renting a beat em up or platformer I have done though).

Simply, as I said earlier, if I like a game and it's available to me to actually buy, then I'll buy it. I'm going to buy, not download, Final Fantasy XII when it's released because that's called piracy, even though the line is very thin.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:34 am

ebay is your friend for finding those anthology games.

and for roms, whatever. i don't care. i download them. i haven't even played them in a very long time. i think i'm going to hold off on beating ff4 until the gba version comes out.

i can't really lay down a line, becuase then i'd be jumping over it a whole lot, as far as what i pirate and what i don't.

NoobixCube · Post by **NoobixCube** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:42 am

In all honesty I DID pirate the Megaman games that were on Playstation for my little brother. Capcom's USA people wouldn't ship a PAL version (which I now realise wasn't a problem because of his mod chip... Meh, hindsight is 20/20), the European division wouldn't ship to Australia and my brother looked into the Australian division so I can't guarantee the accuracy of this, but apparantly they wouldn't sell him one online without a credit card, which is simply not an option. Long story short, Capcom weren't going to get any money for the games we couldn't get a hold of anyway, so piracy made no difference to them in that case. I mean, that was downright illegal and probably a little immoral but Capcom desserved it

On another note I probably shouldn't have posted this because it's a little off topic, we were discussing the morality of ROMs, not the morality of piracy on a case by case basis

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 1:58 pm

NoobixCube wrote: Simply, as I said earlier, if I like a game and it's available to me to actually buy, then I'll buy it. I'm going to buy, not download, Final Fantasy XII when it's released because that's called piracy, even though the line is very thin.

That is a very good point. I usually make this point(I forgot this time). Games are simply not available for us to purchase. I understand producing these old games wouldn't generate much profit, but at the same time, it encourages us to obtain the game via other means because it is unavailable to us.

You can't even get most CURRENT generation games unless they are second hand(those sales don't go to the company anyway.). That definitely encourages me to download games. What options do I have? Search through bargain bins for a second hand copy.. maybe get a rerelease for a console I dont' have.. OR an inferior rerelease for a portable.

The 'piracy' of ROMS and ISOS PROVES there is demand for these older games, but they are simply not available. I don't want to hear companies complaining about piracy UNLESS it's games that are currently *NEW* ON THE SHELF. And really.. how many PS2/gamecube/xbox games are actually availabel for new purchase? 25%? 30%? I'd estimate somewhere around that mark.
ROMs/ISOS certainly look very appealing when you look at your options.

So, companies should(and most of the time do) turn a blind eye toward this because it's THEY who aren't giving us better options.

Sure, black and white it's illegal, but there's alot more to it.

lockharte · Post by **lockharte** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:41 pm

if someone repackaged all the old atari, commodore, nes, snes, turbo-grafx, genesis, SMS, etc games and made them playable on the computer or other modern media on a single (or several) DVDs, i wonder if there would be a demand for them

Joe Camacho · Post by **Joe Camacho** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:26 pm

. wrote:if someone repackaged all the old atari, commodore, nes, snes, turbo-grafx, genesis, SMS, etc games and made them playable on the computer or other modern media on a single (or several) DVDs, i wonder if there would be a demand for them

It depends on the copyright holder's intentions, of each individual game.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 9:50 pm

sweener2001 wrote:ebay is your friend for finding those anthology games.

also applies to anything else you might want to pirate. it doesn't go deeper. you're a pirate, or you're not. just live with it if you are.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:41 am

sweener2001 wrote:ebay is your friend for finding those anthology games.

Sometimes. Some things I haven't even been able to find on eBay.