Is it legal to own a ROM of a game from a compilation?

[Ack]

[LCDSCREEN]

got us a dudley do right over here. I'm gonna have to agree with tinz. I am actually very curious as to why you don't want to do it if it's illegal.

I think it's mainly that I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for a new computer that I would fill with illegal material. It would make me feel dirty.
When it comes to downloading a game to play around with if I'm bored, or using a ROM to try before I buy then I'm cool with that, I just don't want a ton of the stuff hanging around.

[Incognito D]

got us a dudley do right over here. I'm gonna have to agree with tinz. I am actually very curious as to why you don't want to do it if it's illegal.

I think it's mainly that I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for a new computer that I would fill with illegal material. It would make me feel dirty.
When it comes to downloading a game to play around with if I'm bored, or using a ROM to try before I buy then I'm cool with that, I just don't want a ton of the stuff hanging around.

But you've already purchased these games at some point or another, so it's not like you're getting them for free...

If you feel really bad about it, why not send a random cheque to Capcom or Nintendo one day?


For me, the issue wouldn't be whether it was legal or not, but whether or not I'd get caught. If I knew 100% that I wouldn't get caught, then the roms would be coming my way, baby!

[the7k]

Well, it's not like companies make a load of money off of those games anymore - if you buy a real copy, it isn't helping Nintendo, or Sega, or anybody except GameCollector69 of eBay.com.

Well, okay, Nintendo is still making money off of ROMs by making people pay $5-10 for 'em on VC... but seriously, $8 for an SNES ROM? Who is ripping off who? Stick it to tha man!

[Breetai]

LCDSCREEN, with all do respect to many of the posters here, most of them are American. You are Canadian. The laws effecting copies of media you have acquired are totally different to what most of the people on this site will be telling you.

As far as I know, and I very well could be wrong since it's so hard to find reliable sources on this, it is legal for you to have a game ROM as long as you made the copy yourself (fair usage). I think it's safe to conclude that, unless it's possible to extract the same ROM from a compilation you have, that it's technically illegal to have a ROM of a game from a compilation.

Morally, I don't have a problem with it. I have every game that I own that can run adequately on my Wii running on it via emulation, as well as on my PC, X-Box and DS. I don't think that's illegal, although the methods in which those sorts of ROMS are often acquired probably is, since it's a copy of someone elses purchased copy of a game. In effect, I don't think there's a way that you could ever actually get in trouble for having a ROM of a game that you own since it's nearly impossible to prove how you obtained a copy of it.

[corn619]

Thats awesome!

[Hatta]

Legality != morality. Do what you feel is right, and if the law conflicts with it, the law is wrong.

[bobbynewmarkiii]

^^^

Well, here in the UK, I don't think our judges would take too well to this argument... but I do hear that americans do have a kind of ass-backwards legal system - so it might work...

[weasels]

no ones gonna hunt you down, true, but its still stealing nonetheless which, by social standards, is wrong.

you put things into perspective for me thanks. but still based off social standards piracy and or stealing is still wrong. but once agian i really don't care too much because i do it all the time.......maybe

[MrPopo]

The way I see it is similar to the diagram. In the first instance the person now does not have something that he once had. In the second instance the person still has that thing, it's just now that person B also has it. Everyone needs to work out their own morals. When I was young and couldn't afford games I'd pirate everything I wanted to play. Now that I have a job I buy everything, sometimes trying out a game first. Pretty much the only emulation I do these days is for translation patches.

One of the guys from Stardock (big anti-DRM proponents) illustrated it best: you cannot stop piracy, as it is too easy to pull off. So you just need to do all you can to support the people who give you money and just ignore the pirates. Trying to stop piracy is like trying to stop people who would copy songs off the radio or make copies of their videos for friends. It's just too easy to do.