Alright, this is getting out of hand.. So I'm going to make a few statements and that's the end of it.
As has been pointed out already, what is and isn't allowed here is at the discretion of mods and administrators, or GHD the person who owns, and hosts the site on his servers.
Members don't need to be telling other members what they should and shouldn't posts, unless there are clear rule violations and a mod has not yet OK'd the content of a thread - I already did that here.
This is not a free speech issue. You do not have a right to free speech on this forum, and that extends to what you think should and shouldn't be debated. EZ is not a public forum that guarantees free speech rights. It is a privately run site and forum, of which you are subject to agreement terms to post here. A common misconception about free speech is that it extends to everything just because someone is from the USA (and I know many of you aren't) and the Internet is unregulated. This isn't really much to do with this discussion but I've seen inuendo that eludes to it, so I'm saying it for clarity.
The EZ servers are subject to the laws of whatever country they are hosted in, and I'm not sure where that is. However, GHD has made it clear that posting links even to sites that provide copyrighted material, or to the material itself can get EZ sued or shut down. That's why these rules are in place. I made a judgement call because of the age of the software and because Lemon does not actually host copyrighted material themselves; GHD could still show up and delete the link, because they do link to it.
Also.. Google vs Lemon is NOT the same thing. Google is a search engine that was designed to crawl pages and use search algorithms to return relevant results. I can be misused to find copyrighted material just like a CD Burner can be misused to burn/copy copyrighted matertial. The law still makes a distinction.
Lemon LINKS to copyrighted material exclusively, within the interest of the site format. In terms of the law that is considered a facilitation of copyrighted infringement, because the purpose of those links IS to explicitly provide you access to material that may still be subject to copyright law.
This isn't about what is morally right or wrong. I don't have a problem with Lemon as I already made clear. But as a moderator it is also my duty to enforce the rules of the forum, including rules meant to protect EZ from possible criminal liabilities. Many countries have laws similar to US laws, such as facilitating a crime, aiding an abetting in the commission of a crime, etc. Just like drug dealers or addicts caught with a certain amount of drugs, even if they are not dealing, can be charged with possession with intent to distribute. Granted linking to sites who link can be a stretch of the law, a case could still be made because of the format of our site and forum, being about emulators and playing old games, and supporting users in those activities. That is why direct links are not allowed, and linking to sites who link is usually not allowed either.
The same thing goes for torrent trackers. The majority of traffic on those sites is to download torrents that connect you to people serving copyrighted material. Plenty of sites specialize in categories of material (games, anime, retro) while other are more general and also include non-copyrighted materials. However I have yet to come across a site solely dedicated to P2P file sharing of legal materials. That's why sites like Supernova have been shut down in the past, and many sites like Pirate Bay are hosted in foreign countries with lax or no copyright law enforcement, and are still prone to legal attacks that can temporarily interrupt their service.
Some guys homepage with tons of links to cool sites, is one thing as you pointed out. But when dealing with Retro emulation sites, linking to roms or linking to sites that link to roms, or multi-level linking still shows a clear intent to provide access. Period. You don't need a court case to set precedent to know what can happen. We have rules, I could have easily deleted the link, and maybe I should have. But my decision is made. Why I allow lemon and not something else is not up for debate - I only have to explain my reasons to other moderators, Lefty, and GHD Pro. Period.
Now everyone do yourselves a favor and let this thread die, so I don't have to lock it.
BTW.. Nameless, talking about batteries on a camera forum is completely acceptable. People will want to know the best batteries to power their camera.. Your logic goes a little too far when you try to make analogies. Talking about roms or issues getting them to work is NOT breaking the rules here. The only thing we do not tolerate is giving other users a means to get those roms. Again, Lemon is a gray area and I made my decision. That's it.