RE: legislation of the 1997 U.S. Anti-Pirarcy Act
If you buy a copyrighted software, you are entitled to certain rights, weather that software be stored on CD-ROM, floppy disks, an EPROM chip or a ROM cart. They are all fall under one category: software.
U.S. law allows you, the owner of a software product, to have three (3) copies of that product at once: the original, an installed copy, and an archive copy.
The law does not give a definition to these terms.
So, in the sense of a ROM image, you can arguably say that the image on your harddisk is being used to play Zelda 1 is the "installed" copy, the cart that you bough 10 years ago is the "original" copy and a copy of the ROM image on a floppy disk, tape, website or other medium is a "back-up" copy. But, only one of them can be in use at once. So, playing the game on your NES and on the PC at the same time is ILLEGAL.
The law does not state how you can make an archive copy of your game either. So, there is nothing saying that if you have a guy in New Mexico duplicate Super Mario World for you on an SNES ROM copier, and then have him send it to you after you prove that you own the game.
Its not loopholes, and misinterpreting the law.
its the part of the law nintendo dont detail on its own legal site. the labels nintendo prints on its games and manuals are empty threats that hold no legal baring or contract with us.
the people who's sites get shut down for ROM trading are not following all the laws. but you as a downloader of your legal digital installed copy is.