Can someone who knows for sure correct me here if I'm wrong.. Downloading Roms.. Legal. Downloading Emu's.. Legal. Downloading both together, Illegal (like if a company creates a program like that.) A: Is that correct? B: How would it make sense.. o,o C: whats the correct stuff here.
Lets see. I'm no lawyer, but... An emulator is merely something that mimics the actions of something else. I wouldn't put too much illegality on emulators, unless someone was to argue the way their system works is patented and no one else is allowed to use/recreate/distribute it. A rom however is a recreation of a copyrighted work, and a non-parody. Without proper permission, it is illegal to distribute and sell a copyrighted work. Given that in most cases you can not sell mere recreations, I'd go for the conclusion a rom is in fact not legal. If you already own the software already in some legal fashion though, thus giving you the right to use it, then using a ROM version should be OK. But thats only if you own a legal version. Putting them together should make no difference on their legality. Hope that was helpful, mate.
Ok so basically.. It's ok and all just you yourself shouldnt really be giving Roms out... I might read some more tomorrow my eyes are too tired atm but thanks for everyones input on this.
Emulators are 100% legal. Roms are only legal if you have the original copy of the game. You can download them, but you can't give them away for profit
What if.. There's a program that has a bunch of emulators.. lets say 12 or so.. and they allow you to download right off the site.. No one profits from it there really.. however, they do have A: Ads and B: a premium service for faster downloads.
Right, the general opinion is that Emus are legal, and ROMS are legal if you own the game. However, a while ago (okay ages ago), Nintendo released a statement about ROMs, and that you could not download them even if you owned the game, as it is like stealing a second copy. You are allowed to rip ROMs from your own games, but not to use downloaded ones. However, as far as I know there is really no way to prove whether it's your own ROM or a downloaded version, and you're not going to be sued for downloading a few ROMs.
Roms are only allowed to be used for 24hours so you can test the game before you buy, after the 24hours it's illegal to have, as for emulator I doubt they're illegal... but it is steal a copyrighted idea...
Allright thanks - Wasnt worried about using them really just wanted to know if it was legal and all. Sparked because a topic about emu's/roms was locked and I was wondering if it was really considered warez or w.e
