[khedoros1]

> It is silly to argue that how those bills were acquired is not a factor in your claimed ownership of them.

Robbery and online downloads are worlds apart. The first is a violent act that deprives someone of their property. It's an unjust action that harms one party for the benefit of another. Downloading a ROM from the internet, for a game that the downloader already owns, lacks all of the negatives that make robbery repugnant. Legality is a different question entirely, of course; legally, it matters how I acquired the ROM.

> Nintendo says nothing about making ROMs from official copies. It does not claim they are illegal.

False. They claim that making ROMs from official copies, as well as the devices that allow you to do so, are illegal because they can be used to illegally distribute the games online. Quoting from Nintendo's FAQ:

Are Game Copying Devices Illegal?

Yes. Game copiers enable users to illegally copy video game software onto floppy disks, writeable compact disks or the hard drive of a personal computer. They enable the user to make, play and distribute illegal copies of video game software which violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. These devices also allow for the uploading and downloading of ROMs to and from the Internet. Based upon the functions of these devices, they are illegal.

> A copying device is illegal if it tries to circumvent this DRM. Therefore if a game has DRM, there is no legal way for a person to own a ROM of that game.

That's not Nintendo's claim, but it's a claim with stronger legal support than Nintendo's. It's also moving the goalposts, IMO. Take an NES game as an example. There was a game lockout system (and similar systems in the SNES and N64 consoles), but those don't prevent access to game data, just cause the console to reboot if authentication fails. Those are 3 of the major systems that I'm thinking of when I think about getting copies of ROMs.

[BHSPitMonkey]

> Yes. Game copiers enable users to illegally copy video game software onto floppy disks, writeable compact disks or the hard drive of a personal computer.

Source that says copying bits from my own retail game disc to my own hard disk is a crime, please?

> They enable the user to make, play and distribute illegal copies of video game software which violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks.

If I make a copy of a DVD and place it on my shelf beside the original, which laws/copyrights/trademarks have I infringed upon? Redistribution may well be an issue in most jurisdictions, but we weren't talking about that.

[khedoros1]

> Source that says copying bits from my own retail game disc to my own hard disk is a crime, please?

That's Nintendo's claim, not mine ;-) You'll have to ask them.

> If I make a copy of a DVD and place it on my shelf beside the original, which laws/copyrights/trademarks have I infringed upon? Redistribution may well be an issue in most jurisdictions, but we weren't talking about that.

In the specific case of DVDs, and in the specific case of my jurisdiction (I live in the US), I think that the argument would be that you circumvented the DRM of the Content Scrambling System, in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In other jurisdictions, you'd have no problem. In the UK, for example, my understanding is that there's no restriction against breaking DRM, and that creating a copy of a copyrighted work for personal use is perfectly legal.

[DanBC]

> If I make a copy of a DVD and place it on my shelf beside the original, which laws/copyrights/trademarks have I infringed upon?

Which country are we talking about? There's something about "circumvention of technical prevention measures" which is part of WIPO and so in many laws. It's in the DMCA and in the European laws. Some of these contain exceptions for backups, but not all of them.

[detaro]

The parent isn't arguing that these things are true. Just providing quotes of things Nintendo says.