Is using online emulators ethical?

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justcatholic997

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So I’ve been debating over an issue recently, and came to the conclusion that playing Yugioh/Pokemon is permissible as long as it doesn’t keep you from your religious duties. The questions I have are:

-Is Devpro(yugioh emulation site) legal/permissible?

-Are emulators(Pokemon) and roms legal/permissible?

I’ve looked this up myself, and haven’t really found too much on this. Thoughts?
 
The only emulators I use are for old NES and SNES games that I have at one time legally purchased. I THINK in that situation it’s okay, as you’re allowed to make back-up copies of your games (back then). These games are all 20-30 years old.

I couldn’t say about what you mentioned.
 
Rhubarb said:
The only emulators I use are for old NES and SNES games that I have at one time legally purchased. I THINK in that situation it’s okay, as you’re allowed to make back-up copies of your games (back then). These games are all 20-30 years old.

I couldn’t say about what you mentioned.
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I am wrong. Nintendo says this is bad.
 
Apparently emulators aren’t illegal, but ROMs, on the other hand, are. I guess there are some emulators where you can use actual copies of the game with them, and that would be considered legal, but downloading a ROM for a game I guess is not legal. You see emulator let’s plays of games (like Pokémon) on YouTube quite often, incidentally.
 
What harm is done if someone uses an emulator to play games no longer supported or sold by companies? If I wanted to play an original Gameboy game, I would not find it new. I would have to buy it used, if anything, and Nintendo would get exactly as much money from that seller-to-seller transaction ($0) as they would from me finding an old ROM. If playing an old ROM re-ignites an interest in a series, Nintendo may find former customers return.

I wouldn’t support emulators for systems which are presently on the market, however.
 
OP here. I appreciate the above posts, but I still have questions.

Based on Devpro: No answers yet.

Based on emulators: This one has a few more. From what I’ve found as well, emulators are legal while roms aren’t. My main question about this is about HACKED roms, and if they would be ethical to run, as they aren’t the original game. I’ve seen a general consensus on the illegality of roms, but what about those that were modified to give the game a more interesting feel?

Thanks for the help!
 
I never found a definitive answer myself. I chose to err on the side of caution and give up on emulated games unless I already owned them. It was actually pretty liberating, no longer feeling the pull to play the thousands of games out there, and search for new hobbies. Though a lot more expensive of course…

p.s. no qualms with abandonware, like Battle Chess
 
I’ve read in a computer magazine that the emulators are legal only of you have a copy of the original game. So, using the games you have not purchased is perhaps a sin.

However, there is a section devoted to computer games on the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), when you can play lots of old games in the browser, these are probably legal since Internet Archive generally does not keep pirated content.
 
Based on the above 2 posts, can I assume that it is all right if I already own a game to have a emulator/rom of it? For example, if I buy Pokemon FireRed(or have it given to me as a present), would it then be all right to emulate it?

If yes to the above, then could I download a hacked version of FireRed?
 
I play any emulated game I already own, hacked or otherwise. For example, if I bought a Japanese import, if an english translated rom became available, I’d play that instead. gl 👍
 
I have a few emulated games myself, though I do plan to get the real games at some point.
 
I actually have been thinking about this and researching this and need a bit of a “moral compass” so to speak.

I do plan on using ROMs in a system called RetroPie. The only ROMs I plan on using are for games I have purchased through legal means, either for their original consoles or through game bundles on the Steam game platform. In those regards I have paid the original rights’ holders for their content, sometimes multiple times, in order to ensure that the rights’ holders get paid for their intellectual property.

Fair use laws would seem to come into play in regard to shifting formats from one system to another. However, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act states that if copy protection needs to be broken in order to complete that shift of content, it is illegal. (Makes very little sense because that means you can’t legally copy a DVD you bought to your computer but, that IS the law)

The bigger question is related to the following.

Many older game companies are now freely making their games playable on archive.org for free.
archive.org/details/consolelivingroom

This includes SEGA, Atari, Colecovision, and many other systems. (No Nintendo products though because they aggresively protect their IP).

There are even areas on Archive.org where game ROM images have been legally provided as well : archive.org/details/tosec

So, here is the question. If the original manufacturer has made the games and their ROMs freely available on Archive.org which is considered to contain the largest repository of public domain resources out there, would it be fair to say these games are now considered to be, at least loosely, in the public domain?

No, the manufacturers haven’t released their NEWER games. We are talking the 80’s and 90’s consoles/computer systems. The IP holders have clearly made a decision that these games should be made freely available even while selling emulated versions on Steam and other platforms. So again, why would there be an issue with downloading those games that the IP holder has provided free of charge to the entire world anyway?
 
Vim71 said:
A little searching shows that Archive apparently does offer Gamecube games for download.

I’ve been wondering for awhile now how Archive can offer this legally, along with their entire DOS and Win 3.1 game archive.
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From time to time, the company I work for gets a message from fans saying that our products are being copied illegally, often by a site we’ve never heard of. So we contact them and politely ask them to stop it since they don’t have our permission.

Ed
 
edwest2 said:
Why guess when you can go to the manufacturer’s site or contact them?

Here’s Nintendo’s Terms of Use: nintendo.com/terms-of-use

Ed
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I’m aware of Nintendo’s stance on their IP and ROMs. That still doesn’t answer the question regarding, IF the original game company has, in fact, put their ROMs and their games out online for free, what is the moral obligation there?

I know that any Nintendo games do NOT belong on Archive.org, which is why the two sources I posted do not have any Nintendo games. They comply with Nintendo’s terms and do not provide access to their properties. However, there are many other game companies who have apparently given permission and worked with Archive.org in that regard.
 
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