They were accessible for logged in users at least a week before the hack.

There was some Nintendo, Sega, etc. “backups” available.

Archived roms are not available, so there might be some truth in suspicions about publishers being involved…

I presume from superb owl that you are from USA.
No. It was deemed legal and fair use as was recording radio on c-cassettes.
Considering digitizing, Web stores are full of usb capture dongles and rca/scart adapters. Obs and Videolan are free and easy to use.
For editing, Openshot is free and quite easy to use.
All these are available on Windows, Linux and Mac.

Their private ftp seems to have disappeared as well as site admins contact info. I thing “going private” means “going away completely”.

Personally I wouldn’t mind having a phone with modern cababilities and Nokia Communicator / E7 type keyboard.