In theory, what the websites have been doing is the Gray-Area stuff in which they share the Roms online and make them available for download. It's to allow people to relieve their nostalgic moments about having played those retro games on retro game consoles in their past provided that they own the games but what stinks about this scene is that sites like those are also used for piracy stuff despite the disclaimers that tell you to remove the roms you've downloaded for the games you don't own within 24 hours. Another challenge is that the assets of the older games are probably ripped with the tools related ot the emulators or something when compared to assets ripped out of the modern games which are obviously bought from whatever stores. That includes the fanmade original characters and assets based on the ripped assets posted in various asset reource websites like The Spriters Resource for instance.
In the recent time, Nintendo had filed lawsuits against those websites that offer those Roms like Emuparadise, Cool Roms, etc. It's going to be an endless fight against piracy that way but other companies already had the workarounds like Sega offering paid roms that can be bought through Megadrive Classics Hub on Steam legally, Hamster Corporation offering classic arcade games via Arcade Archives on 8th generation consoles or even other consoles like NES and SNES Classic Edition consoles and of course Neo Geo Mini. Even better, Megadrive Classics Hub on Steam offers the modding opportunity as if you can mod whatever Megadrive game you've bought and then make it available for other Steam players. One confusing concern though, games you've bought for Megadrive Classics Hub can be played on other emulators and there's no way for others to tell on where you've obtained the roms from.
You know what went worse in terms of piracy scene? An event booth that consisted of a computer running the emulators in which you can't tell where the roms are taken from or even the simulator of some official game in action like there's no way you can tell on where the tracks are taken from. One legal suggestion for example will be to bring the computer running Megadrive Classics Hub on Steam and there you go, provided that the roms are actually bought for that, not obtained elsewhere.
