Downloading stuff you legally own
 

I want to clarify something that's been bothering me for a while:

1. Is it OK to download a game you legally own?
-and-
2. Is it OK to download the BIOS file for a console you legally own?

I bought my WrestleFest motherboard so I could legally download the ROM for use with emulators. But according to the MAME team, you can't do that. They say in order for it to be completely legal, you have to dump the data from your own motherboard to your computer.

Also, I own two PS2 consoles, but I always download my BIOS file to use in PCSX2. But the PCSX2 team literally forces you to dump your own BIOS from your own console, not caring that you need a modchip installed in your PS2 in order to dump it.

Is this true? Do I really have to do what these people say in order to call myself legit? Or are these people just a bunch of evil ***** who like to impose their will on others just because they think they're right?

I do want to be a legal gamer, but I don't have to be 100% clean. And IMO, anyone who expects you to be is a psychopath.

Under DCMA laws doing anything to defeat software or hardwares DRM (or other such things) is illegal. So it comes down to technicalities, dumping a bios could be considered an attempt to defeat a DRM, same as rom dumping. The only way to be 100% legit is to own everything legally, any emulation could be argued to be illegal if you felt like dropping into the technicalities of the law as I understand it.

Like our site, sites that provide close to illegal stuff tend to be very careful about telling people to stay within the law and not allowing any leeway. Just like we block any attempts to post link to games we consider unacceptable they ensure they tell people to get a hold of bios and the like legally so no one can blame them for others breaking the law.

1. Morally yes, because you already paid for it. Legally, it's still piracy.
2. Morally... perhaps. Legally not at all.

The police are probably not gonna bother to come down there and arrest you. Its illegal, but I prefer to go by the morality rule and download stuff thats not easily obtainable (no re-releases, no digital downloads, all used copies are overly expensives). Pretty much the same kind of guidelines Abandonia follows.

EDIT: When it comes to roms (and BIOS files too, If I remember correctly), the legal way to emulate them is to make a rom (or BIOS) dump by yourself. Using someone else's files is illegal. But again, I apply the morality rule.

I totally agree with this.

Sure? Nowadays we dont really buy software anymore, technically we just rent a license to use it. At least that what they tell you when you ask for a refund after they banned your ass from all the games because you said something wrong on the origin forum, or so I heard...
So once you have obtained a license downloading the program should not matter.
Even Microsoft now offers their windows CDs for everyone to download.

I heard that if you buy something then talk about it you get banned from the club! No one talks about fight club!

The worst I have ever heard about that was a guy who got banned from one game, then his Origin account for abuse. He still had the content on his PC and could easily crack it, but couldn't play online any more, which must have been a godsend for the other people since according to some the first ban was from racial slurs being used. You have only ever really rented a license to use copyrighted material, and that license has always had restrictions, "Can't be resold, can't be copied, can't be used to make your own program". Nowadays part of that license lets you onto forums and other places and they add in "Don't be a dick on our sites". Even if you download digitally you still have the game on your computer, you can even make backups with Steam so you don't need to redownload the game. And if you do get your ass banned perhaps you should look at yourself and wonder why that happened, not just blame everyone else and chuck a hissy fit.

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I prefer to hoist the colours high, because why not. Emulation is quite a complicated matter as you just wrote, but for PC software I think it is legal. Or used to be - old games, like LucasArts ones from the Monkey Island era required you to make backup copies of the original floppys and play with the backups, so the originals wouldn't be damaged from daily use. This is logical, since who would want an original disk to be scratched? You just can't be careful enough. I myself lost an original Star Wars: Jedi Knight II disk due to a fatally broken drive literally cutting it in half. Too bad I didn't make a backup to use.