So what are the risks of having illegal ROMs, anyway?
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Hey, noob here, sorry if that question seems naive or somehow offensive, especially after I saw an extensive forum above about where to get legal ROMs. Now obviously, we're not gonna talk about where to find the contraband stuff, however I guess it begs the question: what really are the risks of having/running ROMs that you HAVEN'T paid for? Or that are prefaced with warnings that they're "illegal if used outside the country of" (blank)?
I know there's a risk that having something illegal on your device could invalidate any warranty you have, but has anyone had any experience with-- or heard legitimate stories of-- ROMs that they found on unofficial sites having viruses, or even bricking their devices/making them unusable?? (especially if you're not really planning to connect your Pi to the internet/are hoping to just plug it into your TV via HDMI and play things that way?)
Just felt I should ask, since I have a couple old ROMs that I'd collected/played on my desktop/laptop computers over the past few years (before Raspberry Pi was even developed), seemingly without any problem, but know that RP is a different beast.
Obviously though if the Raspberry Pi and its emulation software (whether it's RetroPie, RecalBox, Lakka, whatever) is designed to NOT recognize/run illegal ROMs, that's understandable. But I have glanced over some of the sites where you're supposed to be able to find/buy legal versions of games, and frankly just don't know if I'll be able to find a lot of the older/obscure games on there (especially for some of these overlooked arcade games).
Sorry, just curious and couldn't help but ask.
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@mortalwombat the risk is absolutely zero...
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@chubsta Really lol?? I have seen a couple people on forums like these emphasizing, "you have to get LEGAL games," buy them, etc etc.
Frankly I don't have a problem buying games WHEN they're available/affordable-- hell, on my original XBox, some of the first games I got were the Capcom, Midway etc compilations-- but needless to say, not everything is available to own (besides the fact that now that video stores and renting games are kind of a thing of the past, if you're forced to buy and download every game that you're merely curious about, you're gonna be stuck owning a lotta mediocre games...).
Eh I was mainly just concerned about any technical risks: the emulators refusing to play them (and potentially bricking your Pi), viruses, that kinda thing.
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@mortalwombat from a legal standpoint unless you are distributing them, or aiding in their distribution by offering links or advice on where to get them then the risk is zero, no law enforcement in the land would be willing to prosecute for a rom file.
in terms of virus etc then i can’t imagine there is any risk at all there either unless you decide to run some dodgy executable that come with a rom pack.
just download the roms by anonymous means and enjoy them!
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@mortalwombat it's quite possible to get a virus etc from some of the websites hosting unlicensed roms, depending on the OS/browser etc you use to download them.
i think the chief risk with unlicensed roms is legal action against the websites and projects related to them (however spuriously). retropie is not doing anything illegal (the emulators are legal, and it doesn't distribute unlicensed content), but were the association to become there (via links, open discussion in retropie circles about getting roms, etc), then large publishers may be encouraged to take legal action which would possibly have the desired effect whether they won or not.
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Regarding "only" downloads, it's vital to know that the software used won't share the already downloaded parts in return. Peer-to-peer file sharing programs like BitTorrent do that in their standard setting, and some of them don't even have an option to disable it, or may slow down the download rate of so-called Leechers to a crawl. Such automatic file sharing may actually put you into the crosshairs of law enforcement or copyright holders, whereby the latter's privat actions can result in very high damages even for only a few shared files, see Legal aspects of file sharing.
So, aside from thinking twice about breaking any laws of your country even if the risks seem to be low, never ever use file sharing tools doing it.
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@clyde It is very messed up that the P2P file sharing programs can potentially ruin someone's life even when they only wanted to download something that is copyrighted and not deliberately share it online.
Even worse is the legal system makes no considerations for cases like this and can still deal out the maximum fine or even a jail sentence with the fine against the individual who didn't even write the program to begin with.
I do sympathize with the companies losing a lot of money to piracy, but I do ask that they show mercy on the small time offenders who aren't even trying to host content illegally for millions of people to download.
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@agtrigormortis said in So what are the risks of having illegal ROMs, anyway?:
@clyde It is very messed up that the P2P file sharing programs can potentially ruin someone's life even when they only wanted to download something that is copyrighted and not deliberately share it online.
I get what you mean, but ultimately, they "only" knowingly want to download software illegally. So, it's a little bit like feeling pity for the trespasser who hurts himself on unfamiliar terrain that he was not allowed to tread.
That, and the general advice to make yourself familiar with any software you plan to use, aka RTFM.
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@clyde Except this is not a life or death situation, the individuals who infringe on copyright laws are not killing or injuring anyone in the process of infringing on copyright law, this is about private property and the copyright holders know it.
to put someone in insurmountable debt over this would be cruel. It's more comparable to an exploitative loan company increasing interest until the debt payer is no longer able to pay the debt down.
In fact this is one of the arguments that get brought up when people make criticisms against free market capitalism, if business people are given free reign to dehumanize other people for the pettiest of infractions, then we have a serious problem that has to be dealt with. I don't agree that people should have their lives ruined, just because they stole private property, especially if first offence. When you're talking about violent offenders then lengthy jail terms with or without fines, are justifiable.
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@mortalwombat The risks are other than the obvious fact they can get you sued
yes, you're absolutely correct that viruses (or malware as the modern term for malicious software is) is entirely possible to be downloaded to your device if you're not careful.
You should never trust software from unofficial sources or websites that don't actively filter out harmful software. All it takes is one time and something belonging to you can be taken, it may be something insignificant like ads which at the very worst would slow your PC down, but sometimes it can be something much more destructive like keyloggers or ransomware.
That said I've ran Ristar from my Sega Genesis collection library from Steam on my Pi4, and it worked without a hiccup, also definitely legal, since it is not an encrypted ROM or given to somebody else.
I wouldn't advise taking the chance on illegal ROM's for the reasons mentioned though, yes you're less likely to get into trouble if it is just downloading and not sold or hosting, but the chance still exists. If you download illegal ROM's, then the consequences are on you, no one else.
I would advise doing something that would at the very least fall into a grey area, such as dumping ROM's of cartridge games you already own, to use with your RetroPie system.
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Legal answers are useless if no one cares to ask what country/legal jurisdiction you fall under.
For instance in my country it's not (yet) illlegal to download copyrighted media, cause technically you don't know if uploader is licensed to, but its illegal to upload.
But that's not what you're looking for anyways.
Technical, worst case scenario is that you have to reboot your pie, but it is the same with legal roms.[Edit] sorry just notice this is a necro thread.
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@crush said in So what are the risks of having illegal ROMs, anyway?:
Technical, worst case scenario is that you have to reboot your pie
Or rather that a malware that you picked up on an illegal download site eats through your network and the computers connected to it.
I know this should be very unlikely with the common emulation romsets, but it is the worst case scenario that I can think of.
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@clyde said in So what are the risks of having illegal ROMs, anyway?:
Well he did ask about roms, not dodgy sites, no downloaded file you try to run as a rom in retropie is capable of doing what you say.
I'm not going to comment on how to surf the web safely. -
@crush I wasn't sure if your answer was connected to @AGTRigorMortis' one directly above it. Thanks for the clarification.
As for dodgy sites, apart from maybe archive.org, I'd call every site that you can download illegal software from dodgy and potentially dangerous. And although it doesn't seem to have been heard of (I called it very unlikely after all), I wouldn't be so sure that a capabably hacker couldn't come up with a modified rom that exploits some security flaw in an emulator, just like malicious image files can infect your system by simply viewing them. Ultimately, roms are just code executed by other code.
It may be very hypothetical at this point, but I would never say that it couldn't happen principally. Especially since emulators are a niche software that isn't audited for security issues regularly like many mainstream applications are, and which are found insecure on a quite regular basis. Thus, I expect emulators to have undiscovered security flaws almost certainly.
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@clyde It's also hard to know if segaretroorg doesn't have malware, Steve Snake hasn't updated Kega Fusion in a very long time to my knowledge and the site that originally hosted it (Eidolons Inn) is no longer available. Plus there's the whole requirement for BIOS files in Sega CD emulation on Kega Fusion, which is another security problem and illegal.
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@clyde Ok i will comment on surfing the web more safely lol.
Just because this has made my life on the world wide web so much better for years.
In Chrome under privacy and security settings block javascript.
Now no site can use javascript without your permission.
Get this addon to simply give or revoke javascript permission with the press of a button. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quick-javascript-switcher/geddoclleiomckbhadiaipdggiiccfjeYou'll find many site's wont need javascript to function.
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@crush
Yes JavaScript is a problem these days.
I prefer browser extensions that default to blocking but give you the option to selectively enable the scripts one at a time until the website starts working properly.It turns out that almost every website I visit regularly has necessary scripts (1 or 2) and also they usually have something google related that is completely unnecessary. So I leave those blocked. Sometimes it can be quite the adventure figuring out which 4 or 5 scripts need to function out of the total 17 or so in order to submit forms or login properly on some website out there.
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@yfzdude Another heavily flawed extension is Flash, which is now disabled by default these days but back when it was relevant and commonly used, it apparently was one of the most exploitable software out there. For security reasons it's best to have it disabled. And while some software can't run without Adobe Flash, most can, and Youtube uses HTML5 I believe, so this made Flash Player obsolete. The only thing Flash was good for is free online games but the security risks just aren't worth it imo.
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I think the biggest risk from within retropie is Kodi when used with unofficial repository, an overwhelming number of them does exactly that, there was a piece on it a while back on tv where they they researched Kodi and its security, you're golden with the official repository, but the majority of the ones that enabled illegal downloads of shows and movies also caused compromised networks.
Where as with emulated roms they're mostly contained in an emulated workspace on an emulated machine, especially when it comes to the console games, the profit vs effort ratio needed to breech that for malicious purposes is not very attractive, when there's easier and much more popular things like Kodi out there.
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@crush May as well consider it phishing, it's the same end result if it means more people get hacked. If it's just advertisements then I would say who cares, sure they're annoying but generally are not harmful and there's often workarounds for stuff like that, but from what you're suggesting it seems a lot more serious than that.
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