Emulation- is it software piracy?

I pirate Kirby Super Star. I have the actual copy of the remake, tho.

Emulation is piracy as much as playing Windows games on Wine is piracy.

Not.

And whatever the case, whether it's illegal or not, it's the Copyright laws themselves that are immoral. Not the act of violating them and enjoying a game. Import gaming is technically copyright infringement. But you bought a copy of the game, so to call that immoral is ridiculous.

edited 3rd Mar '11 3:38:26 AM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

Emulation in itself isn't. But ROMs are.

People aren't as awful as the internet makes them out to be.

It's piracy, sure, but when the consoles and games being emulated are no longer in production I support it. Nothing worse than losing out on something forever because you were late for the party. And it's not like buying the game second-hand (if that's still possible) is going to make a difference because used games are made of pure piratey evil, so sayeth the industry.

Aww, did I hurt your widdle fee-fees?

You're... gonna have to explain that.

Importing games is not copyright infringement by any argument I've ever heard.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

If there are no shit about games available in other less open nations, would their citizens be able to get the games legally without tossing a lot of cash? No

Emulation itself isn't any form of piracy as far as I can see. I won't say stuff about ROM s. Emulation means putting a PS 1 disc into the tray, and have it work much like an actual PS 1. The process all around isn't privacy as far as I can view it. Why would game makers care if emulation is on the large if they don't first fix the distribution problems first?

I'd rather get games at intended price ranges from so-called pirates, rather than from appealing sources where the price is hyper inflated by currency rates, and the money itself is risked not making it back to the game makers

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:52:31 AM by Cassie

What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...

Sorry, but that doesn't work. Is it immoral to play a ROM of a game you already own? Probably not by common morality. But is it immoral to illegally download and play a recently released game you haven't paid for? Yes, by the same common morality.

Copyright law is neither immoral nor moral. It is a law proscribing behavior. That behavior can be moral or immoral, but the law is neither.

edited 3rd Mar '11 6:55:14 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Emulators may or may not violate copyright law depending on if they actually copy any code from the console or not. If they completely reverse-engineer it then it should be alright, but if they haven't, then it's a copyright violation because they copied code without a liscence.

edited 3rd Mar '11 7:14:21 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Emulation by itself isn't piracy, because the code only simulates the machine, not the programs (in this case, games) which have been written for it. This is a pretty subtle, but still - a difference. Emulation would be piracy if the code was written specifically for making a program work, but then it is, in its essence, a wrapper, not an emulator. This sounds pretty counter-intuitive, but bear with me a moment.

Emulators are created to simulate the whole machine, with every chip on it included. A perfect emulator is one that responds to every processor command issued to its simulated core in the exact same way. This means that an emulator is, in essence, an INTERPRETER of a different set of commands, the same way the Java Runtime interprets the code written for it. Pirated RO Ms are just a subset of programs that are ran on them. I promised myself no to push the Demo Scene so much, but they're the guys who use them to their fullest, like, for instance, the demo Starstruck by The Black Lotus (video here), which was written entirely in WinUAE and works perfectly on a real Amiga. To use a simpler analogy, an emulator is just a tool. If emulators themselves were pirate stuff, you could make an argument that Windows is pirate stuff too.

Now, the RO Ms. Are they illegal by themselves? That depends on whether they've been ripped in accordance to Fair Use laws or any other law that grants limited copyright infringement rights to the owner of a game/console. However, their distribution, in any way you slice it, is illegal. End of story. Yes, even downloading Jet Set Willy for the ZX-Spectrum is considered copyright infringement in the eyes of the law. This is where Abandonware comes in. This is when the original creators, the rights holders and anyone else involved just plain stop caring about their IP and just ignore the pirates. Some even give their go-ahead to the pirates, but that's a very rare occurence.

The matter gets muddled when current generation stuff is involved. Playing a game you ripped yourself on an emulator should still fall under fair use rights mentioned above, but some companies aren't entirely convinced about that, citing bullshit arguments that the emulator "stores an illegal copy of the ROM in its memory", AKA "The Blizzard Defense". Time will tell what will come out of it, right now, it should be considered a gray zone, at best.

edited 3rd Mar '11 8:01:29 AM by Xtense

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." —Arthur O'Shaughnessy

I need some advice on this. I've heard many great things about Mother 3, and I would like to play it, but I have some concerns:

1. I have been struggling with depression for a while and sad/depressing things tend to overwhelm me. I've heard that Mother 3 is a great, but sad/depressing game. The last thing I need in my life right now is more sadness. Those of you who have played this game, is it a game that will likely depress me? I have read the tv tropes page about this game, so I know what happens in the end, but is it in general a sad/depressing game?

2. My dad (this one is long and tough to explain). The only way for me to play this game in english is to emulate it. My dad is very against emulators not just because they are illegal. The problem is that he works in the legal department of the U.S. Government. My brother ran into a problem because of this when he downloaded roms for all of the NES, SNES, and Genesis libraries. My dad told him that if word ever got out about my brother doing this, it could cost my dad his job. He then made my brother delete all the roms he downloaded. I have previously asked my dad if I could download a rom for a rare and expensive game (Lufia II), and he said that downloading it is not an option I could take. My question is this: Should I still do it anyway? I'd be putting it on my own laptop and I'm college now, so my dad wouldn't know unless I told him. But I really don't want to risk him possibly losing his job because of me.

3. The emulating process. I've never emulated anything before, so I have no idea how this works. I have macbook and I would like to know if the Mother 3 emulator only works on Windows computers, or if I'm fine.

If anyone can give me some advice on this, that would be great.

You're necroing a thread to ask for moral and legal advice and then asking for information on something you yourself did say was illegal. Not gonna lie, doubt the mods are going to be pumped about that. They'll probably lock this.

That said, the first question could probably be answered in the EarthBound thread (actually, the emulation questions would probably be better asked there, anyway).

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From the Video Game forum rules.

edited 29th Sep '15 1:43:35 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Wait, I thought emulators and RO Mhacks were legal if they're based on old, out-of-print games?

Answer no master, never the slave Carry your dreams down into the grave Every heart, like every soul, equal to break

Not unless the game is old enough to fall into the public domain.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

And even then its difficult to define 'public domain'

New theme music also a box

3 'Out-of-print' has essentially no legal value so long as the copyright hasn't actually expired yet. It's considered up to the publisher whether they want to publish the game at all, and if they decide it's not worth the effort, then tough luck.

Join my forum game!

Gonna close this. We don't need to tread on the line of what is and is not illegal, sad personal stories or no.

edited 30th Sep '15 6:57:00 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"