About Distributing ROMs...

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I have received a lot of mail about this, so I want to clarify the situation about distributing ROM images of software.

Many emulators, for example, iNES, or SNES9X, are next to worthless without software titles (ROM images) to use them with. However, it is against the law to distribute any copyrighted ROM images against the wishes of the developer.

In some cases, the original developers have decided that they are no longer making substantial profit from their older technology, and have allowed individuals to duplicate software for the platform. As an example, most Commodore 64 games are now in the public domain, and therefore emulation.net will provide links to allow users to download them.

However, in the case of many corporations, this is not the case. For example, Nintendo is very protective of their trademarks and software. A few users have purchased Nintendo cartridge loading devices, copied ROM data from their cartridges, then distributed these images across the net. Most of these users have had their web pages shut down, and may have been legally threatened by Nintendo.

Also, I personally port several shareware emulators to Macintosh. Since I am earning money from my involvement with these emulators, I could be in severe financial liability if I were to pirate software for use with the emulators I am involved in. Gaining profit by being involved in piracy can be legally, financially and even socially devastating. In short, emulation.net would be shut down, I would face severe fines, possibly go to prison, and would almost certainly lose my job.

For these reasons, emulation.net cannot distribute ROMs for some emulators, or support sites that only serve to hold ROMs. Sorry, but I'm not going to jail over a web page. I admit that it's not the best of situations, but it's a fair compromise. If you really want ROM images for an emulator, try using Altavista or Excite.

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