Is there a reason why new users can't read the rules?

[Alucard_The_Dex]

Theres really no easyer way to put this....your an idiot....

[Zapotech]

Theres really no easyer way to put this....your an idiot....

Coming from a Howard the Duck impersonator kissing up to the management I find that rich. If you're going to call some one stupid, Al... I suggest you do it with proper spelling. Also, if you're such a proponent of upholding the rules of this forum you should start by not flaming other members. Rest assured that in a war of words I would be the victor, but that would leave me with an empty feeling inside; there would be no challenge in defeating someone who already lines the bottom of my shoes.

[Ryanfaescotland]

This discussion is laughable. For one, without copyrighted and/or commercial ROMs available there would be no practical use for emulators. Secondly, sites which host emulators only rely on other sites hosting the ROMs(and paying for the bandwidth) in order to exist. I'm sure this site is run on a relatively small inexpensive server since it hosts no ROMs and I still get server busy messages. Letting the guys hosting the ROMs pay for everything and avoiding the server headaches, that's the real reason behind this. The legal issue is the smoke screen. Take the most recent emulators, for example... in order to make them function most of them require a copyrighted BIOS. Sure, this site doesn't host the BIOS files but it facilitates the commission an illegal act. A good analogy would be giving away unloaded guns, emulators don't kill people; people kill people.

edit

There must be a blue moon phase lately, me posting here is a rarity. You can ban me now for nonconformity, thanks.

Regardless of whether or not emulation appears to condone copywrite theft is irrelavant. The rules should be followed by all users for what ever reason they are in place, be it a "smoke screen" or not.