Here’s why Once Were Gaming YouTuber might not be innocent

Creating emulation-focused content online is risky business, since the entire industry is filled with legal gray areas. Italian YouTuber Once Were Nerd found this out the hard way, with authorities seizing dozens of consoles and threatening jail time for sharing copyrighted content.

While his initial response video proclaimed innocence, new details have come to light that tell a different story. While the creater never explicitly shared ROMs, he may have played a little too fast and loose for his own good.

In a video posted in January, Once Were Nerd creator Francesco Salicini ran through the steps to set up a new emulation handheld (h/t Monto Tech). While he clearly wants to avoid giving details on YouTube, he links to a blog post on his website with the text “Where to find ROMs” in the description. The link to the blog post has since been removed, but it’s still visible in the Wayback machine (translated below).

That blog post (which is still live as of writing) links to websites with ROM and BIOS downloads, both of which are protected by copyright. The post does include a disclaimer asking readers to only download ROMs for games they legally own, but this is a very thin legal defense.

The video also recommends buying a handheld that ships with a microSD card filled with ROMs, then copying those ROMs to your other gaming handhelds.

In addition to this, users on the RetroAchievements forums uncovered that he was auctioning used handhelds on his Facebook page. These included the original microSD cards filled with games, which refutes his initial claims that he did not share or profit from copyrighted material.

Still, it’s worth pointing out that all of these handhelds are readily available to buy on Amazon. Handing down jail time to a YouTuber for a relatively minor offense while ignoring the retailers and middlemen who are actively profiting off of selling copyrighted materials isn’t a great precedent to set for content creators in the future.