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Are emulators legal?

M

MisterJackson

Lifer
I only ask this because it seems that most softwware becomes available for free after a period of time. Is this also true of old NES games.

I got my son the GBA SP/DS movie player for Christmas and it supports Famicom games, so I was just wondering.
 
For the most part, emulators themselves are legal. It's the game images (commonly known as ROMs) that are illegal. This includes old NES games, even Atari 2600 games, and even farther back. They're not free and I don't expect them to be.
 
I have not heard much about the gaming companies cracking down on roms since 2000/2001. I think they are concentrating more on torrents and such.
 
I still lie in wait for the day that gaming companies realize they could post roms on their website for download (free or otherwise). Just think the business they could do if you could d/l a rom or two, put it on a card, and play it on your gameboy (or something).

Like ringtones, I think they'd make a killing. Buy the adapter, buy the memory card, pay to download... profit?
 
Originally posted by: RaiderJ
I still lie in wait for the day that gaming companies realize they could post roms on their website for download (free or otherwise). Just think the business they could do if you could d/l a rom or two, put it on a card, and play it on your gameboy (or something).

Like ringtones, I think they'd make a killing. Buy the adapter, buy the memory card, pay to download... profit?
Click to expand...

You incorrectly assume that they still have their OWN copies of the software dump for these games. In many cases, they don't. Of course they could just, you know, download it.
 
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Originally posted by: RaiderJ
I still lie in wait for the day that gaming companies realize they could post roms on their website for download (free or otherwise). Just think the business they could do if you could d/l a rom or two, put it on a card, and play it on your gameboy (or something).

Like ringtones, I think they'd make a killing. Buy the adapter, buy the memory card, pay to download... profit?
Click to expand...

You incorrectly assume that they still have their OWN copies of the software dump for these games. In many cases, they don't. Of course they could just, you know, download it.
Click to expand...

Now that's funny.
 
Emulators mostly are legal; however, ROMS are not if you do not own the game.
 
Yes they are legal. They were made as development tool for programmers. Using it for piracy just like anything else is illegal though.
 
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Originally posted by: RaiderJ
I still lie in wait for the day that gaming companies realize they could post roms on their website for download (free or otherwise). Just think the business they could do if you could d/l a rom or two, put it on a card, and play it on your gameboy (or something).

Like ringtones, I think they'd make a killing. Buy the adapter, buy the memory card, pay to download... profit?
Click to expand...

You incorrectly assume that they still have their OWN copies of the software dump for these games. In many cases, they don't. Of course they could just, you know, download it.
Click to expand...

If Nintendo (or whoever), sold the ROM's themselves, then you wouldn't need the actual game. I think people would pay to download ROM's, especially if it was all legal.
 
Originally posted by: RaiderJ
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
Originally posted by: RaiderJ
I still lie in wait for the day that gaming companies realize they could post roms on their website for download (free or otherwise). Just think the business they could do if you could d/l a rom or two, put it on a card, and play it on your gameboy (or something).

Like ringtones, I think they'd make a killing. Buy the adapter, buy the memory card, pay to download... profit?
Click to expand...

You incorrectly assume that they still have their OWN copies of the software dump for these games. In many cases, they don't. Of course they could just, you know, download it.
Click to expand...

If Nintendo (or whoever), sold the ROM's themselves, then you wouldn't need the actual game. I think people would pay to download ROM's, especially if it was all legal.
Click to expand...

Then noone would buy the hardware. And there's a site that sells "credits" to play Atari Roms.
 
Originally posted by: EyeMWing
You incorrectly assume that they still have their OWN copies of the software dump for these games. In many cases, they don't. Of course they could just, you know, download it.
Click to expand...

How do you know this?

Originally posted by: adambooth
For the most part, emulators themselves are legal. It's the game images (commonly known as ROMs) that are illegal. This includes old NES games, even Atari 2600 games, and even farther back. They're not free and I don't expect them to be.
Click to expand...

Not when they're still making money off them!
 
Nintendo, in all their cynicism, have managed to keep their old games protected by releasing ports for the GBA. Frankly, I'm sick of having old SNES and NES games being sold on the GBA for £20-£30 but it saves them time from developing new ideas. I have a lot of respect for Nintendo, but they do treat the GBA like trash.

In my mind I've justified downloading old ROMS. Many 16bit and earlier generation games are very hard to find now, so I'm quite happy to download old games. Downloading new games I feel is wrong, but I do download a few GBA games - if they hold my interest I buy them.

I hate the idea of ringtone peddling - it's one of the laziest and irritating (crazy frog adverts) services there is. Most of them are made from public domain MIDIs that musicians (barely, some of them) kindly put on the net for free.
 
Emulators themselves are legal... they've stood up in court a couple times. The ROMS, however, are very questionable, particularly if you don't own the original. Many companies keep up their copyright on older, out-of-print games (Nintendo comes to mind) in case they decide they want to resurrect an older game idea in the interest of making money, should they ever decide there's a market for it. My advice: eBay. 🙂
 
Trouble with eBay though if you want a "rare" game you'll end up paying through the nose for it. Prices are very artificial for "collectors" games, like RPGs. Having said that, I have Final Fantasy III, Ys III, Terranigma and Lagoon going for insanely high prices if you're interested 😛 lol
 
Originally posted by: MadEye2
Trouble with eBay though if you want a "rare" game you'll end up paying through the nose for it. Prices are very artificial for "collectors" games, like RPGs. Having said that, I have Final Fantasy III, Ys III, Terranigma and Lagoon going for insanely high prices if you're interested 😛 lol
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's true 🙁 But you can pick up a whole slew of other Atari, 8-bit NES games, and SNES games if you're patient.
 
Originally posted by: MadEye2
Trouble with eBay though if you want a "rare" game you'll end up paying through the nose for it. Prices are very artificial for "collectors" games, like RPGs. Having said that, I have Final Fantasy III, Ys III, Terranigma and Lagoon going for insanely high prices if you're interested 😛 lol
Click to expand...

FF III Japanese or American (which I think was FF VI in Japan?)?
 
American III. The Japanese version would be nice to own, just for the perdy packaging, but it's ridiculously overpriced.
 
I got my GBA media player today. I'm dead chuffed with it 😀 I wonder if I can get SMS games to work on it though.
 
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