Is doperoms legal

The idea of downloading and emulating game roms seems to be a legal gray area. According to copyright laws, people can create backups of their files, so the website itself is legal. Weather downloading them is legal or not is hard to say. Say you were making backups of your dvds and one dvd broke before you could back it up. Could you go get a backup that your friend made? Or are you only allowed to use your own backups? In my opinion, I think the former should be acceptable. This is basically the same situation we have with doperoms. We would basically be downloading their backups instead of making our own. Anather problem is weather we sould be able to play them without your physical game being broken(remember, they are backups). It should be legal to use a backup, but if you are concerned about how legal it is, I'd consult someone who knows more about copyright laws.