I've noticed lately that many people seem to be recommending/asking how to obtain/talking about Warez, ROMs, and emulators on the JCF. It is true that there are strict anti-Warez rules, but it seems that many people ignore them.

Warez
The most common retort to saying that Warez is illegal seems to be that it does not hurt anything. This is absolutely untrue. Sites caught pushing Warez often get taken down from the Internet, sued, or frowned upon. Also, the "it helps Jazz 2" excuse is just as senseless. It may get another player to JJ2, but most players leave quickly. Besides, Warez does not help JJ2's future at all. Also, Warez is illegal. Whether or not the person who distributes it thinks that they are doing the right thing, what they are doing is illegal.

Emulators
I don't really know huge amounts about emulators, so be free to correct any misstatements I make. From what I've seen, emulators pretty much just allow you to play a game that wouldn't normally run on the PC (such as a GBA game) on the PC in "ROM" form. While I'm not sure if emulators are illegal or not, I'm pretty sure ROMs are, and I haven't heard of any other use of console emulators than playing ROMs.

ROMs
Some people say that ROMs are legal if you own the game. I'm not 100% sure if this is false, but I'm sure that people would not download a ROM for a game that they already own. Another thing many people say is that if you delete a ROM after twenty four hours, it is perfectly legal. I recall reading somewhere that this is not true, and even if it is, most people would not actually follow that rule.

I wanted to say this because I'm tired of people suggesting ROMs and/or Warez of games. They are both illegal. Whether one person thinks they are right morally or not, they are against the law, and it's really just not worth it. And, for those who insist on distributing/downloading such illegal things, I ask that you do so off the JCF. It's in the rules when everyone signs up, and I really hate seeing illegal content, as if there is too much of it, it could get J2O in trouble with their web space provider.

It's really not worth the trouble it could cause, in my opinion.

Trafton: Grammatical edit. The last sentence wasn't supposed to mean what I wrote previously.