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This should be corrected..
ROMS in and of themselves are of course not illegal; when you buy a cart, it has a ROM or EPROM chip on it containing what you've bought. You usually (depending on country) can legally and ethically back it up; The US (you'll have tro check, I'm not from the US) has special rules to allow you to make use of obsolete ROMs in other mediums to make use of them when the company stops supporting them (see the DMCA). There are all sorts of laws.. but certainly, if you own something, you cna do a lot with it..
Distributing ROMs is of course illegal, since you do not have license to do so; downloading them is also illegal usually, since the guy serving them doesn't have license to distriute them. Owning or not isn't really relevent on a legal basis.
Emulation is and always has been legal and is used every day in business; certainly it is legal and ethical.. why not carry a PDA around and buy GB carts so that you now own ROM license? And what about all those ROM files you get with RetroGamer magazine among others.. they're legally licensed for you, etc etc.
The trick is how you get ROMs.. thewre are many fully legal methods (such as buying them on StarRoms.com say, or buying carts on ebay, or reading the gamecards freom the GBA card reader, etc)..
jeff
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