3 ms·

Downloading roms from pirate bay is not legal, regardless of whether you have the NES cart sitting in storage.

• lightedman 9y ago
  The EFF says otherwise. https://w2.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.php https://w2.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.php Also see the 1984 Betamax decision and the 1999 Rio MP3 player decision.
  • joosters 9y ago
    Downloading a torrent has more complications that mere time-shifting. Users are also distributing copyrighted software to other torrent clients. (unless you've completely disabled uploads in your torrent app) Owning a cartridge may give you the ability to legally download the same software but it certainly doesn't give you permission to supply copyrighted works to other people.
    • stale2002 9y ago
      That's why you never seed/upload.
  • Fej 9y ago
    (IANAL.) Downloading ROMs is almost certainly illegal. Dumping cartridges one owns is almost certainly legal. I'm not saying that you shouldn't download ROMs, just that it isn't legally justified. The EFF says nowhere at that page that downloading files is legal. It does say that backup copies are.
    • placeybordeaux 9y ago
      Typically it's not the downloading that gets people in trouble, but the fact that if you are downloading a torrent with default settings you are also uploading said torrent.