taking gb/gbc/gba games and dumping them onto pc

[Legendeer]

Oh ok. What about ROM sites that have a disclaimer about how "these roms are for backups for people who've bought the actual games" kind of thing? Then the website couldn't be shut down because it's not actually illegal.

I think you're allowed to have ROMS as long as you've bought the game, just in case the game breaks.

[Jet Set Willy]

You're allowed to make a personal backup of the ROM, but you can't publish it online anywhere. ROMs that you download (especially living in the U.K.) are likely to be slightly different overseas versions of the games (most often American) and so it's not the same software, and hence illegal.

The disclaimers sites put up are absolute nonsense, and only intended to buy the site a little more time or convince their hosts that they are doing things for legitimate purposes.

[Legendeer]

Oh right. But that means that eventually there will be no roms available ever. If the companies have ROM sites shut down.

Could you get sued for owning a ROM site, even if it said on it that it was only to make it easier for people to get backups for the games they have bought?

I thought I might make a ROM site, because of how there never seems to be more than 3 working ROMS on any one site, but if they are regularly shut down, I don't think I will. Plus I'd rather not be sued if I can help it. :P Ah well,

[Jet Set Willy]

ROMs will always be available. The Internet is too vast and distributed to police entirely. Some sites get away with it by being sneaky (though most eventually get shut down) and by swapping hosts. Also, BitTorrent sites such as Suprnova are able to spread ROMs by only placing the torrent files (which contain no ROM data and hence are legal) allowing people to share directly from their hard disks.

And that's just the "Web" portion of the Internet, (HTTP). There will always be P2P apps, including decentralised ones which can't possibly be shut down. There's also IRC, manual file trading, USENET, etc. - piracy has always found a way, and always will. So don't panic about losing ROMs :-)

If you want to spread ROMs, opening a site probably isn't the best way, especially if you're relying on free hosts, as it WILL be shut down. What you could perhaps do is learn about IRC and BitTorrent and share through those.

[Legendeer]

My site is hosted at my ISP. But it's just a personal site.

Are IRC and BitTORRENT like Shareaza? Cuz I used to go on a game boy roms site but now you can only get the files through shareaza and it just doesn't download when you start it.

[Jet Set Willy]

Shareaza is annoying because it tries to intercept BitTorrent downloads. If the Game Boy site has torrents, you should use this client rather than Shareaza. However, since you're only on dialup Internet you might have trouble using torrents - works best on faster connections.

[Legendeer]

How did you know I'm on dialup internet?

Could you tell me how the torrent stuff works? You said that some sites offer bittorrent files that have no rom data so are legal, but then where are the roms? They'd have to be hosted somewhere, wouldn't they?

I think it has something to do with finding people who own a rom, and downloading it through shareaza or others from their computer to yours, or something like that?

[Jet Set Willy]

I knew you were on dialup 'cos of your IP address.

Torrents basically work by a site hosting a file, which directs your Bittorrent client to a "tracker". You connect to this, and it gives you the address of other computers sharing the file, and registers your computer as a sharer. So all the host does is keep track of computers - it's the sharers/downloaders who send all of the data. As you download the file you are also sending it to other people.

I hope that makes sense, it's a hard thing to explain. It's a lot like normal file sharing applications in a way, but also a lot like a normal Web site.

[Legendeer]

Okay, I'm just looking at bittorrent now, from that download link that you posted. Is it simple to use?

And it would be perfect legal to have a ROM site as long as there were no actual ROM files on it? (eg. they were all torrents or whatever)?

Would I still need to put a disclaimer?

[Jet Set Willy]

It depends. I expect most hosts are stills sensitive about torrents, as they're a gateway to illegality. You'd also have to find a tracker to use - since running your own is probably out of the question, you'd have to use one an established torrent site gives you access to, and so your torrents would be displayed on their site also.