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[zemus]

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act means that a service provider isn't responsible for what its users do with the service.  Rather than suing YouTube, companies should be going after whoever uploaded the contested video.  YouTube does make every effort to comply with  takedown notices. YouTube is categorized as a service provider, just incase you didnt know.

This site is not a categorized as such, and is liable.  Also copyright Infringement is a violation of this Act and it is not a law, in a sense that it isn't illegal(possible jail time).  However if the value of the material you are steal is worth more than a certain amount, it can be categorized as grand larceny, which is a jail time.

[Perseid]

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act means that a service provider isn't responsible for what its users do with the service.  Rather than suing YouTube, companies should be going after whoever uploaded the contested video.  YouTube does make every effort to comply with  takedown notices. YouTube is categorized as a service provider, just incase you didnt know.

This site is not a categorized as such, and is liable.  Also copyright Infringement is a violation of this Act and it is not a law, in a sense that it isn't illegal(possible jail time).  However if the value of the material you are steal is worth more than a certain amount, it can be categorized as grand larceny, which is a jail time.

That law applies to ISPs and phone companies. If I trade illegal files over my cable modem the cable company isn't responsible for it. If you host illegal files on your site or link to sites that host illegal files those files/links are on your servers, not merely passing through them and you are responsible for them.

Copyright infringement is always illegal. It's just that the feds won't send you to jail for sharing a Britney Spears album. That sharing is illegal, though, and her record company can sue you for it.

[tenba]

YouTube is categorized as a service provider, just incase you didnt know.

This site is not a categorized as such, and is liable.

Why is a web forum different from YouTube in Section 203 of the CDA?  The relevant text merely says, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."  One possible interesting protection from this (although I don't think it's been tested) is that, if I'm on a web forum responding to you, and I quote you saying something defamatory, I'm protected from being sued as if I were the one doing the defaming.  Also, I'm also protected if I link to a site that's publishing something defamatory as long as I didn't say something defamatory myself in the process of linking.

However, there's a reason I used defamation as the example: this doesn't apply to federal criminal liability and intellectual property law.  To reiterate the point made earlier, copyright violations are copyright violations, and linking to or quoting copyright violations are still copyright violations.  (Likewise, child porn is still child porn, and linking to or quoting child porn can still land you in jail.)

So, when you get right down to it, the Section 203 of the CDA is irrelevant when discussing ROMs.  YouTube can be held responsible for the copyright violations people put up there.  The only reason nobody sued YouTube previously was that it didn't have enough money to be worth suing.  Now that it's purchased by Google, however, it's suddenly worth suing, so it has to be a lot more strict and careful.

Most copyright violations end up flying under the radar because there's no money in suing them.  However, if the copyright violations get bad enough that the copyright owners start feeling pinched, they will come back exert their right to sue people, even if the person being sued doesn't have enough money to cover the lawyer fees.  If you think about it, maybe that one person isn't worth suing, but making an example of some unlucky person usually discourages other copyright violators, and the regained sales from those other potential copyright violators might be worth it.  (On the flip side, suing some small copyright violator just to set an example costs the company goodwill.)  So, suing for copyright violations is a gamble for the company, just like the copyright violators are gambling that they won't be the one of the unlucky examples that get sued.

I see no reason why people would want this forum to take that gamble when it's a useful forum without having to do so.

[sneef]

wow.. this thread lasted a lot longer than it needed to.  I think the DeVS set it straight in the first post.  Bottom line: whatever the rationalization for or against linking to roms, it is not going to happen in these forums.

[Hi]

sneef, when we were cavemen, we knew that everyone stayed on the ground, but didn't know why. And that simple question, why, is what has led us to discover gravity. So know we know WHY we stay on the ground.

And guess what, if we didn't ask why, we probably wouldn't know enouph about the world to figure out how to make things like the nds.

Devs made it clear that we couldn't link to roms BERFORE the first post-he did it when he laid out the rules for this site ages ago. BUT we wanted to know WHY we couldn't link to roms. So, Devs started this topic, and I'm glad he did because it's quite interesting.

So, yes, Devs made it clear that we couldn't link to roms, but we want to know WHY!

[zektor]

I'll tell you why. Regardless of all of the mumbo jumbo bullcrap legality anybody wants to throw at the situation, websites are STILL taken down because of rom linking. You can say all you want about this or that, but that is the bottom line. I have seen it happen dozens and dozens of times (since 1996) and certainly do not want to see it happen to this place as well. So, DeVS said no...and that's all the "why" any SCDev member should ever need, period.

[Gleasonator]

Especially with the Wii out now, and virtual console, Nintendo has probably hired people to surf the internet and take out old school ones so they can sell. Nintendo is the kind of company, I've noticed, that accepts it if their games are dumped and instead of suing, fight it by putting in better security, which I think is cool. (Now there IS the exception where they're losing a ton of money off of a site, they'll probably shut it down) But NOW, because of VC they're probably a bit more savage about it.

Even if we ever were to put ROM links on this site, now would be the worst time to do it.