The thing I find interesting about all of the ROM topics are just how ambiguous the rules really are. The laws are in place, but dependent on where you are they are different. Even with these laws, there are so many grey areas and misinterpretations (or at least the ambiguity to cause them.) One good example is the Retrode, mentioned in this thread. I have seen the discussions about it. Legal Interpretations, Fair Use rules, etc. and everyone says it's a "legal: way to use games on your emulators, yet Nintendo's site has a page that describes the Retrode perfectly and declares it illegal.
There are two problems here: first, the law itself is ambiguous (and there are multiple separate bodies of law that could apply). It's the job of the judicial system to create precedent which can clarify the interpretation of the law, but that hasn't really happened yet.
Second, and more worryingly, corporations like Nintendo deliberately misinterpret and/or outright ignore the law in order to ... what? Is it an attempt to strengthen their position for any case that might come up in the future? I don't know, but it doesn't help the situation.
Then we are in agreement, as when I read your reply it seemed to be saying what I said, yours of course being said better.
That is why I brought up the Retrode, by rights and according to most common sense interpretations of known laws, it would be considered to be a device that promotes use of physical media, while it's ability to allow the media to be copied to a computer in a file form allows Nintendo to use it as an example of a device that allows the media to become the file form that gets pirated. So technically, both sides are right. It can be used for illegal purposes but since all these "roms" are out there already it doesn't seem likely to be used for such a purpose. Even so Nintendo considers any form of space shifting the data from cart to file to be illegal, and until a court somewhere rules it illegal, they are just using scare tactics based on the assumption of illegal intent.
R4 cards are the same way, they allow the running of homebrew code, but that wouldn't be enough to warrant large quantities of people buying them, so they enabled running commercial game copies, which while it does create an unjust supposition that anyone with an R4 type card is pirating DS games, in this case we know that the majority of sales was not to play an Atari emulator or Homebrew Checkers game. So I can understand why these companies declare all forms of these devices illegal.
I also find it funny how no one ever touches on the topic of the library, where old NES or other games or CD's and DVD's are available for consumption free, but if you download a Mario Rom, or Get the cart from the Library, the result is the same. You enjoyed the content without paying for the privilege. Even game rentals could be looked at as piracy, as after the first copy is purchased, the second owner sells the experience of the content in bites of time. Seriously I never understood how the industries allowed that!
After all it IS their opinion that if you buy a CD and wish to have a song on your Ipod, you should have to purchase the song in Mp3 format, as ripping it is making an illegal copy. So yeah, these companies are WAY out there in what they believe versus what is reality.
