Current Events > Downloading ROMS...

(+) Yeah! (+)

is illegal, right?

But is playing them in your browser?
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Sure it's illegal, but people play them anyways.
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I'm going to say no. Same reason why streaming pirated content technically isn't illegal (yet). The U.S. law is worded in such a way that it precludes people from getting in trouble when they don't actually download content.
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its illegal in the same way jaywalking is
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But actually downloading them is *more* illegal?
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I thought it was legal as long as you own the game
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Rika_Furude posted...

its illegal in the same way jaywalking is

I didn't know piracy was a traffic infraction
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IfGodCouldDie posted...

But actually downloading them is *more* illegal?

playing them in a browser is exactly the same as downloading. how do you think your browser plays them if it doesnt download the file?
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solosnake posted...

I thought it was legal as long as you own the game

IIRC, it's legal only as long as you dumped the ROM yourself, and only as long as you don't actually use/load the ROM.
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Rika_Furude posted...

IfGodCouldDie posted...

But actually downloading them is *more* illegal?

playing them in a browser is exactly the same as downloading. how do you think your browser plays them if it doesnt download the file?

So it would be looked at the same if you had a ROM and emulator on your PC vs. just playing the game in your browser?
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Distant_Rainbow posted...

and only as long as you don't actually use/load the ROM.

you're allowed to use roms assuming you generated them yourself legally, even if you redownload your own rom you own
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IfGodCouldDie posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

IfGodCouldDie posted...

But actually downloading them is *more* illegal?

playing them in a browser is exactly the same as downloading. how do you think your browser plays them if it doesnt download the file?

So it would be looked at the same if you had a ROM and emulator on your PC vs. just playing the game in your browser?

Who is doing this looking? If it's your ISP, you're fine unless they're super crazy zealous about this (no one is, as there's basically no pressure from the industry for them to do anything). I've never even heard of companies actually prosecuting for ROMs on your hard drive and sending teams to seize your computer, but if that ever happened, you'd be in the worst shape still having a ROM on your hard drive, better shape if it was deleted, and better shape still you'd written data over the sectors where the ROM had been written previously. When you access data in your browser, it is downloaded into a directory of temporarily files that (depending on your caching settings) is deleted as soon as the directory surpasses a certain size and all the older files there have been deleted, or when you close your browser.

Basically, ROM ownership isn't going to get you in trouble. Maybe if you start to host the files for other people.
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They're more legal now than they were back in the day.
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roms are legal

https://www.polygon.com/2016/4/28/11530338/sega-genesis-rom-hacks-steam-workshop-mega-drive-hub
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Emulators and such are 100% legal. ROMs are illegal depending on what they are I guess.
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if own the actual game i don't see the problem long as one isn't distributing it to others.
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As long as you dumped the game yourself and use it on an emulator without spreading the file on the internet it is alright.
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Rika_Furude posted...

playing them in a browser is exactly the same as downloading. how do you think your browser plays them if it doesnt download the file?

No, it's not necessarily exactly the same, just like how there's a distinction between streaming and downloading. I'm not aware of relevant court cases, but it seems quite clear that the law treats putting something in memory differently from putting something in storage.
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scar the 1 posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

playing them in a browser is exactly the same as downloading. how do you think your browser plays them if it doesnt download the file?

No, it's not necessarily exactly the same, just like how there's a distinction between streaming and downloading. I'm not aware of relevant court cases, but it seems quite clear that the law treats putting something in memory differently from putting something in storage.

you're referring to video, yes? the distinction there isn't "memory vs storage" (memory IS storage), the distinction is likely watching a music video on youtube (illegal upload) vs torrenting it
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Rika_Furude posted...

you're referring to video, yes? the distinction there isn't "memory vs storage" (memory IS storage), the distinction is likely watching a music video on youtube (illegal upload) vs torrenting it

No, memory isn't storage. Watching a video on YouTube puts it in memory, but not in storage. Both streaming and torrenting require downloading. Again, I don't know specific rulings in the US, but in my country the distinction is clearly that streaming is fine, storing isn't.
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scar the 1 posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

you're referring to video, yes? the distinction there isn't "memory vs storage" (memory IS storage), the distinction is likely watching a music video on youtube (illegal upload) vs torrenting it

No, memory isn't storage. Watching a video on YouTube puts it in memory, but not in storage. Both streaming and torrenting require downloading. Again, I don't know specific rulings in the US, but in my country the distinction is clearly that streaming is fine, storing isn't.

Memory is storage.

You can easily watch a video on youtube and store it for later. In fact, you could do that entirely in memory, preserved between boot cycles if you wanted to.
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Rika_Furude posted...

Memory is storage.

You can easily watch a video on youtube and store it for later. In fact, you could do that entirely in memory, preserved between boot cycles if you wanted to.

Memory and storage are physically two different things. They're distinctly different terms because they're used for different things. The fact that you can use shenanigans to store stuff in memory doesn't change that. A screwdriver isn't a hammer just because you can use its butt end to hammer in nails.
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Lots of developers post prototype and beta ROMs on the Internet these days. It's not the same as posting retail ROMs but it's kind of just a step away. The Rayman SNES game a few weeks back is a good example.

Also, I've heard of some cases where the ROMs in classic collections were just flat out downloaded from the Internet. The giveaway is the header format, though most ROMs floating around now are headerless so it's harder to tell with the more recent collections. Also I can think of at least one official Sega game collection that has evidence in the binary that the devs were downloading random third-party games from the Internet, illegally, and testing them on their emulator. Tsk tsk... And of course there's the classic case of the Sega Smash Pack where the developers left a readme file on the disc addressed to a Dreamcast crack group with clues on how to add their own ROMs.
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scar the 1 posted...

They're distinctly different terms because they're used for different things

their use cases are irrelevant. what do you think memory is? it's for caching, i.e., stuff that is being used goes in memory so it can be accessed faster. how do you think memory works? it's just storage that is faster. the main difference is that memory generally isnt preserved when power is lost.
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Rika_Furude posted...

their use cases are irrelevant.

No? If they were, everything would be called the same thing.
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scar the 1 posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

their use cases are irrelevant.

No? If they were, everything would be called the same thing.

They are. Memory is storage. Hard drives are storage. They are both called storage.
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Rika_Furude posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Rika_Furude posted...

their use cases are irrelevant.

No? If they were, everything would be called the same thing.

They are. Memory is storage. Hard drives are storage. They are both called storage.

First of all, no they're not. If I talk about memory and storage with any qualified professional, they'll know exactly what I mean. If you keep referring to memory as storage in any discussion where the distinction is necessary, you'll be misunderstood.
Secondly, streaming is legal here while "downloading" isn't. The only difference is where the data is stored.
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scar the 1 posted...

If I talk about memory and storage with any qualified professional, they'll know exactly what I mean.

you mean, they will be able to understand you are untrained and then speak in a way that you will be able to understand. No professional would say "memory is not storage" in any other context

come on man, just take a 1 second google to see what you are talking about. Memory is not some magic stick, it's just fast storage.
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I hope you're just pretending to be this dense. I'm not bothering with you anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random-access_memory
Try reading the first sentence of wikipedia.

I'm out. Have fun.
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Are you going to pretend that no one uses memory to refer to RAM and storage to refer to the hard drive?
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Yeah, I always heard that "backups" were legal. People generally say that if you have the original game, you're fine. The point of it is to at least pay for it once, which is a worthwhile goal. I'd wanna get paid for my work.
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scar the 1 posted...

Are you going to pretend that no one uses memory to refer to RAM and storage to refer to the hard drive?

does your law use the non-technical descriptions of the words?
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Rika_Furude posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Are you going to pretend that no one uses memory to refer to RAM and storage to refer to the hard drive?

does your law use the non-technical descriptions of the words?

That's a good question. I'm guessing they use the terms primary and secondary storage. Actually, no. IIRC the ruling is just that streaming is fine, so the technical meaning would have to be interpretation.
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StucklnMyPants posted...

I'm going to say no. Same reason why streaming pirated content technically isn't illegal (yet). The U.S. law is worded in such a way that it precludes people from getting in trouble when they don't actually download content.

So using that theory, you're saying that streaming CP wouldn't be as bad as actually downloading CP? That doesn't sound right to me. But I'm in no way a lawyer so idk. :/
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