Random Hacks I Found

[Quietus]

While there are a few places where the laws are different, generally speaking it's a never ending battle between people's rights.  Some laws state that you're allowed to make backups of your own stuff, in which case ROM dumps that you have created yourself would be OK.  Other laws (at the same time) state that trying to circumvent any form of protection is illegal, so they negate each other, leaving the argument going in circles.  Either way, distributing and downloading are illegal.

[Crashtour99]

I thought the uploading/distributing of ROMs was illegal, but downloading not. Oh well.

I don't know in what ways it applies to ROMs, but as far as movies, music, books, etc. then yes, that is correct.  I've been contacted by Warner Bros. and Disney through my ISP for downloading DVD rips (forgot and left my p2p software open/running) and from the info I've read it's the uploading and distribution that are illegal, not the downloading (though they won't explicitly say that downloading is OK).  Luckily I didn't get fined or anything, just had to tell them that I deleted the files from my computer.  Now I'm smarter and set my upload to 0 kps when downloading such things from public trackers.