Is it illegal to download games if you own them?

Perhaps this is a stupid question, but is it illegal to download video games from the internet if you already own those games in question? I have a few wii games that I would like to back up, but it would be easier and faster to download them from the net instead of ripping them piece by piece from the wii itself, and them compiling it all together.

 

yes it is illegal. even ripping right off the disk. they have copyright for a reason. when you purchase a game, you own one copy,and you dont have the right to make copies. plus torrents r highly illegal and closely watched. a few games are not worth the risk

 

I'm pretty certain if you own the original copy you can create a back up for your own use...

 

not with wii. theres copyright laws, plus you have to rip the game which is illegal . look on the disks,it says you are not permitted to make copies

 

ahh ok. thanks for the info.

 

i mean its up to you... i used to use those but have since quit... i wouldnt trust them

 

Krick3t is right. Even if you purchased the game, you cannot download or even make a copy. In the U.S., I believe it is still illegal to even rip CDs to make MP3s.
Even if you own an old NES game, you can't download the ROMs legally.

Having said that, I disagree with Krick3t that they are being heavily watched. Maybe for repeat distributors of cracked software but not for the majority of downloaders. You would be taking an unnecessary risk, though.

 

Yeah I'm a little concerned. I started downloading a few but now I'm worried that I'll get busted. It was really a dumb idea considering I could just rip them from my modified wii. Wanted to save some time though. I'm going to stop the download ASAP me thinks.

I was hoping the fact that I'm in Canada would make some kind of difference, they don't seem to be as aggressive in enforcing copy right laws here as they are in the U.S

 

Now they know you have a modified wii, you'd better run, at least out of canada, maybe even as far as China.:gnorsi:

 

Yea, they aren't as strict in Canada from what I heard.

Don't stress it, dude. The chances are extremely slim that you would get caught. Of course, the more you do it, the higher that chance is.

 

It's all about what you download and, most importantly, where you download it from. Find a small(ish) tracker that has what you want and download from there, rather than go for the biggest, most populated torrents on the list. Seed, but remove the torrent from your client as soon as you reach 1.0, sooner if it's a laaarge torrent (population-wise) and you're really paranoid. If a torrent, any torrent, has fewer than 20 seeds the chances of it being watched are next to nil.

Finally, if you're really, really, really paranoid - pay for Usenet access and download from there.

 

Yep really really really paranoid. Really... I think I'll stick with ripping wii games as I rent them. But as for whether its ok if you back up games that you own, I'm a little uncertain. I've read countless times that its ok to back up what you own as long as you don't sell it. But now theres people saying that you can't do that. Even with roms, I've read right from the sites that if you don't own the original then you must delete it within 24 hours otherwise its illegal, which would imply that its ok if you have them if you own the original. And is it not ok to copy CD's that you own, for your own use?

 

You are really paranoid. You're on this site, and you're going to let the government tell you you can't make a copy of something you own? And you're going to listen to them?

About ROMs, firstly, that 24 hours thing is bull. It's illegal from the get-go. Secondly, shouldn't the fact that ROMS are so readily available tell you something? Nobody cares about the ROM scene, because there's no money in it. The people who get prosecuted for piracy are the ones who are costing the media companies big money. You downloading Yoshi's Story for the SNES, while illegal, doesn't cause Nintendo to lose anything. Why would they prosecute you when they can go after people downloading, oh.. Twilight Princess? (They don't, by the way.)

 

I don't know if its really a matter of getting caught so much as being the most active people in the illegal file sharing scene. There are far too many people illegally uploading and downloading only small or moderate amounts of files for the companies or the government to go after all of them. Doing so would end up costing them more than it would make them. They go for the big fish and make examples out of them.

I'm sure it would be incredibly easy for our internet service providers to be aware of every illegal file each of us uploads or downloads. And hell, maybe they are, but they don't go after most people because they'll lose more than they'll gain.

 

do they really watch torrent downloads that closely? i've downloaded a lot it seems like, now you guys have me feeling nervous

 

As far as I know, it's not even illegal to download in Canada. It is, however, illegal to seed. No guarantees, but this is my understanding.

 

I'm sure that these companies usually ignore the small time downloaders, but I've read stories how someone will download like 3 games then BAM, theyre getting sued by the copy right owners. I don't want to be that person lol. I won't stop downloading, I'll just do it in an extremely careful way.

 

This is untrue, archival copies of your own media are legal

hence nero being a legal piece of software.

And, also until very recently no actions were taken by game copyright holders, and the only game copyright holders who HAVE taken legal action thus far have been EA.

SO much misinformation.

 

So, I downloaded an NES emulator to play old Nintendo games on my laptop. Is that illegal too?

 

Doesn't matter -- no one gives a shit.