One of the most popular websites in regard to romhacks, fan translations and other kinds of pre-patched modifications to retro titles has always been CDRomance. Chances are if you were looking for a specific mod or hack for a certain title, most likely you'd find it there in an already patched form. However, as of this past weekend, the way in which CDRomance operates has changed.

On February 11th, CDRomance's owner, nicknamed "Spike" received what seems to be a notice by the ESA (Entertainment Software Association), which effectively took down CDRomance's ads that helped maintaining the servers online. This action prompted Google to ask for the removal of any kind of file-sharing going on with the website, to which Spike complied and disabled direct links from the website itself. According to Spike, it seems like the possible action taken against CDRomance could have been from someone posing as the ESA, and not the actual ESA itself, but to avoid any kind of troubles as to whether or not the treat was made by the real ESA or not, Spike decided to remove the direct links either way.

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This is surely a big hit for preservation of a great amount of fan translations and romhacks all around, as CDRomance also helped preserve different revisions of projects themselves.

Not all is lost though, as many users online have already found a workaround for the direct links being taken down, and also there's certain scripts floating around that could also help with this endeavour, for those that wish to backup the catalog of CDRomance's files in case of a more dire situation.

 

[JFizDaWiz]

just wish archive.org download speeds were not shit.

do you stick to DDL only or dabble with the torrents? the torrents have been good to me for the things I've picked up that were not small in size.

 

[MasterJ360]

The owner Spike is definitely a name drop b/c that site had its name/link changed so many times to dodge DMCA. That was my
main source for PS Vita, PS3 and, 3DS (Before he removed Nintendo games) back in those days.

 

[Jayro]

If Archive goes down, everything is gonna blow up in Nintendo's face in the aftermath. So many sites will pop up, they won't be able to take it all down. I treat Archive as if it's the library of Alexandria, but I don't want it to share the same fate.

 

[linuxares]

If Archive goes down, everything is gonna blow up in Nintendo's face in the aftermath. So many sites will pop up, they won't be able to take it all down. I treat Archive as if it's the library of Alexandria, but I don't want it to share the same fate.

https://archive.org/about/dmca.php

 

[Jayro]

https://archive.org/about/dmca.php

PRAISE BE!

 

[osaka35]

I'd be perfecly happy with just patches. I can modify my own games.

 

[jomaper]

I'd be perfecly happy with just patches. I can modify my own games.

You can just use romhacking for that

 

[retKHAAAN]

That’s nuts… I was just on there last night…

 

[Metoroid0]

how would i know? because he doesnt want to be sued? i got no clue, im just telling you what he told me.

i wasnt being argumentative i was just asking. so thats the reason...

 

[Ryccardo]

does the ESA get really involved?

"This download is ESA protected"
-- the rom hustler site on most nintendo games circa 2005
Indeed that was the only time I've heard of them lol

 

[HandsomeJack]

The PSP eboots would be one of the biggest losses. There's loads of them which had to be custom done to get them working.

 

[SylverReZ]

"This download is ESA protected"

ESA-protected my ass. I've seen that there's a Tampermonkey script to bypass that restriction, so not the end of the world. Can't post it here, tho.

 

[brunocar]

i wasnt being argumentative i was just asking. so thats the reason...

lol fair, im a LOOOOOOOOONG term user, even contributor once or twice, so if i cant figure this out, i dont think they'll be many people that can sadly

 

[Fugelmir]

I'm so angry about this that I'm gonna stop feeding my cat.

 

[Xdqwerty]

I'm so angry about this that I'm gonna stop feeding my cat.

Don't stop feeding it, it will starve

 

[ZeroFX]

was a good website for undub, when you don't want to deal with the inherently terrible eng dubs.

 

[Bladexdsl]

wonder if nintendo had anything to do with this?

 

[scoobydude51]

wonder if nintendo had anything to do with this?

well since the ESA is involved, it would be equivalent of a movie/tv sharing site getting shut down by the MPA(A).

it hosted files that isn't just Nintendo's. but a large majority of them are all in the ESA (Sony, SEGA, T2, Microsoft, etc)

 

[MarkDarkness]

Wow... this website is a really good resource.

 

[tsam2]

ESA-protected my ass. I've seen that there's a Tampermonkey script to bypass that restriction, so not the end of the world. Can't post it here, tho.

Same happened with emuparadise. There was a workaround in the beginning but after a while stopped working.