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Could you be arrested for using roms?

Discussion in 'Debates' started by gettajob0007, Feb 23, 2010.

  1. gettajob0007

    gettajob0007 Well-Known Member

    If a Policeman was checking your computer for some reason and found a proud collection of roms, does this give him an ideal reason to arrest you? If so what is the posible penalty you could get?
     
  2. melfice666

    melfice666 Well-Known Member

    depends on the country you live in
    in my case I would not get arrested for I have no roms on my computer
     
  3. mds64

    mds64 Well-Known Member

    I know masses of pirated movies and music could land you a rather heavy fine and to be stripped of those files can land you in trouble...but they mostly focus on that rather than games despite the fact game piracy is just as high here in Australia.

    My mate had been raided once...stupid Werribee police didn't check if he had other external drives and ended up only lossing a small portion of what he had XD
     
  4. calvin_0

    calvin_0 Well-Known Member

    dont they need a warrant to search your laptop and computer?
     
  5. mds64

    mds64 Well-Known Member

    They would yes...in person.


    That said, from a few post here and from friends, it seems that certain downloadable content *cough*TORRENTS*cough* is tracked, once it's detected, they contact the isp, shut you down, with a letter of cease and desist, stating to STOP downloading and to remove the content from your computer.

    That said, it's (according to a user here...) just something in the torrent that tracks your ip adress (the risk of torrents is people can see your ip adress) and an email is auto generated...but would you take the risk?

    I keep all of my files off my Laptop, that way a quick format will hide my work XD
     
  6. Loonylion

    Loonylion Administrator Staff Member

    Its possible to recover data from formatted drives.
     
  7. bhatooth

    bhatooth Well-Known Member

    care to enlighten us?
    and
    i wonder what would be my reaction when a policeman kicked my door and raid me
     
  8. Loonylion

    Loonylion Administrator Staff Member

    formatting doesn't erase data, it just recreates the filesystem (full format) or clears the FAT/MFT (quick format) rendering the data inaccessible because the filesystem doesnt know about it. the data itself is still on the drive and can be recovered with the right software.
     
  9. bhatooth

    bhatooth Well-Known Member

    so you could actually put more files to your drive than the advertised capacity?
     
  10. Loonylion

    Loonylion Administrator Staff Member

    no, they gradually get overwritten by new data.
     
  11. bhatooth

    bhatooth Well-Known Member

    i see time heals all wounds...

    so i have not heard any rom downloaders here in my country maybe there too busy with dvd piracies
     
  12. calvin_0

    calvin_0 Well-Known Member

    dont they have a program that allow you to fill your hard disk with junk data after format? that will surely make the hard disk unrecoverable to data forensic
     
  13. mds64

    mds64 Well-Known Member

    True, I already knew about this...but I prefer my hard drive to remain empty as much as I can anyway XD


    The laptop just holds it until I can be bothered to move to one of my 1tb drives.
     
  14. Loonylion

    Loonylion Administrator Staff Member

    yes, not after format but an alternative method of formatting that doesnt just wipe the FAT/MFT but also overwrites the entire drive with random bits multiple times.
     
  15. garychencool

    garychencool Well-Known Member

    Why would they bother raiding you? You don't have any drugs! Unless you with a gang of pirates or run a ring or site of some sort (like this one). Either way, I think the police would rather raid drugs than illegal roms/mpvies. In Pacific Mall, pirated movies, etc everywhere!
     
  16. MR4Y

    MR4Y Well-Known Member

    Yes and also pay a lifetime indenization on some countries. Every entertainment company treats "pirates"(and even normal people charged for piracy) as terrorists.
     
  17. Mein

    Mein Well-Known Member

    I couldn't be arrested, in my country even roms are legally sold.
     
  18. miros

    miros Well-Known Member

    I can almost guarantee that you will not get arrested from downloading and playing roms. The things that you have to do to be arrested, for example in the US, would be to upload the pirated file, host the file, or try to pass of the file as an official product. Otherwise, the government agencies will over look you, justifying to themselves that the time and resources needed to arrest and sentence you would cost more than they would make from the lawsuit(s).
    miros
     
  19. DragonQuester

    DragonQuester Well-Known Member

    lol I thought of this a while back as well, I think you would be fined
     
  20. Loonylion

    Loonylion Administrator Staff Member

    Honestly, if the police have a warrant to confiscate your computer and search it then roms are probably the least of your problems.