A 22 year old college student from Ohio has been arrested for running a ROM site. For those of you who aren't up to snuff on what a ROM is, Nintendo's Piracy FAQ does a very good job explaining it.

The college student was allegedly running this website in the Spring of 2000. He's been accused of making illegal copies of Game Boy, NES and SNES games available for download. He could face up to 3 years in jail and a 250,000 dollar fine. Ouch.

I'm not sure why there haven't been any arrests in the past. Emulation and ROM sites have been around for quite a while now. Although most major console manufacturers have thrown their weight around forcing ROM sites to shut down, I've never heard of an arrest before now. Perhaps the coming launch of the GBA has Nintendo up in arms.

While many people consider emulation to be ok, because it allows people to play classic games that you can't buy anymore, you must remember that these games are often released again in handheld form, or as part of a compilition. Add to this the short time that it took for Game Boy Color emulators and roms to be made available and you can bet Nintendo is worried. With yet another cartridge system right around the corner, Nintendo is coming out with anti-piracy guns blazing. Even disk based systems are no longer safe with the advent of broadband internet and CD/DVD burners. Fortunately, Nintendo is taking special precautions with it's GameCube system (as I covered in this editorial.

You can read the full article at Tendo Project, and remember, piracy makes Baby Mario cry.