# Is it legal to use emulators if you use/own the original game disc?



## Saiyan Lusitano (Jun 1, 2017)

Well, I suppose it's more a grey matter issue than really 100% legal. 

If it were legal then we'd see emulators on PC supported by Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft (the Original Xbox emulator plays Halo, at least.. I think)


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## Seliph (Jun 1, 2017)

Is it morally fine? Yeah. Is it legally okay? As far as my knowledge goes, no.
Back when emulators were still new and came on install-able disks there was a company that made a really good ps1 emulator that made it so you had to use the disk of your original game. Sony still got on their ass because they wanted people to buy their console.

I was wrong lol


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## fedehda (Jun 1, 2017)

I think it's legal. Even now that there are new laws over there. So, technically, yes


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## Seliph (Jun 1, 2017)

Uhhh lemme revise what I said because I was wrong.
Yes, it is legal. However, video game companies will do anything in their power to stop the production of emulators, even if the emulator requires an original game disk to play the game. A famous example of this was back when emulators came on disks and this company made a playstation emulator required you to use the original game disk to play it. Sony still got on their ass about it and not only ended up making them stop the production of the emulator but they also led the business's eventual bankruptcy.


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## WeedZ (Jun 1, 2017)

Idk about the rest of the world, but according to US copyright laws, you are entitled to make backups of any digital media that was properly purchased or licensed.


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## ut2k4master (Jun 1, 2017)

its obviously different in different countries, but just owning the original game doesnt allow you to play a rom of it. youd have to make a backup yourself (in some countries even that is illegal if you circumvent a copy protection in the process), downloading them is just as illegal as downloading a cracked pc game for example. the same goes for emulators that require a bios file, like ps2 emulators


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## the_randomizer (Jun 1, 2017)

In the court rulings of Sony V. Connectix Game Station, Sony V. Bleem! and Nintendo v. Acclaim, in all instances the supreme court ruled emulators as being labeled as fair use. The reasoning behind this is the fact emulators are reversed engineered, and so long as the don't contain any kind of copyrighted code, they are derivative works.  Top that off with the fact hardware under US copyright law, cannot be copyrighted, but the BIOS/firmware can, so if the emulator has no copyrighted BIOS or any of that, they're perfectly legal. 

Summary:  Emulators are fair use and are derivative works not in violation of copyright infringement
http://www.invispress.com/law/copyright/connectix.html
https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/Sony_v_Bleem.htm


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## 59672 (Jun 1, 2017)

The legality of distributed emulators has nothing to do with why we dont see official emulators on PC, it like always comes down to money. They dont make any from selling old disks so why would they bother.

Legality is always a bit of a gray area. Of course it varies by country before anything else. Reverse engineering, copyrighted code, defeating DRM are all things with varying legal matters. For example I've seen it in some places where the one reverse engineering it can't be the one programming the replacement solution, of course that's more of an issue in a closed source, commercial setting. Stuff like a completely open source emulator *can* be legal in places but if they're doing things like distributing files/bios/etc from a system that's a bit more questionable and in many places illegal.


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## Foxi4 (Jun 1, 2017)

It depends on the country. The rule of thumb is that it's legal to use emulators so long as you're not circumventing anti-copying protection while you're at it, so it's in a rather grey area as far as legality is concerned.


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## TVL (Jun 1, 2017)

Seliph said:


> Uhhh lemme revise what I said because I was wrong.
> Yes, it is legal. However, video game companies will do anything in their power to stop the production of emulators, even if the emulator requires an original game disk to play the game. A famous example of this was back when emulators came on disks and this company made a playstation emulator required you to use the original game disk to play it. Sony still got on their ass about it and not only ended up making them stop the production of the emulator but they also led the business's eventual bankruptcy.



Bleem (also Bleemcast). Sony lost in court but still managed to bleed them to death... I think it's the same story with Lik-sang.

Emulators are not illegal if they do not contain copyrighted material (like a BIOS). Games on the other hand I think are always illegal to download even if you own that game. But who cares?


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## the_randomizer (Jun 1, 2017)

I personally see nothing morally wrong with backing up your own games that you legally own, as long as you don't sell them or give your copies to other people.

Emulators = legal, derivative works/no copyrighted code
ROMs = Illegal if you don't back up the games yourself, but most people on here don't really care


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## Sliter (Jun 1, 2017)

It's illegal because the game was designed to run in that console, not another, the same goes for console piracy, for example


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## RaMon90 (Jun 1, 2017)

Well for android emulators doesn't get removed, I assume it's legal but of course every developer suggest to use legal copies of the game.
Famous one i have installed is ppsspp.


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## the_randomizer (Jun 1, 2017)

Sliter said:


> It's illegal because the game was designed to run in that console, not another, the same goes for console piracy, for example



Under US copyright laws, emulators aren't illegal at all (no copyrighted/BIOS code, reverse engineering is fair use), but the games, yeah. But then again, most people don't care about illegalities of playing ROMs on systems for which they were never
intended.


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## WeedZ (Jun 1, 2017)

Sliter said:


> It's illegal because the game was designed to run in that console, not another, the same goes for console piracy, for example


That's not true


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## Sliter (Jun 1, 2017)

the_randomizer said:


> Under US copyright laws, emulators aren't illegal at all (no copyrighted/BIOS code, reverse engineering is fair use), but the games, yeah. But then again, most people don't care about illegalities of playing ROMs on systems for which they were never
> intended.





WeedZ said:


> That's not true




well I heard that if you have an vinyl music disc and rip de music someway to play on your new device, it's considered piracy, I think with games aren't that different... unless the emulator are developed and distribute by the console brand (I think CDi had it? lol

Don't reverse engineering include messing with the actual bios to learn how it work and stuff? why this is considered fair? ô-o


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## TotalInsanity4 (Jun 1, 2017)

Sliter said:


> well I heard that if you have an vinyl music disc and rip de music someway to play on your new device, it's considered piracy, I think with games aren't that different... unless the emulator are developed and distribute by the console brand (I think CDi had it? lol
> 
> Don't reverse engineering include messing with the actual bios to learn how it work and stuff? why this is considered fair? ô-o


That's not the case, that's like saying the option to rip DVDs in Windows is illegal because it's changing the format from physical to digital. It only becomes illegal if you choose to distribute any copies you make


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## FAST6191 (Jun 1, 2017)

Seliph said:


> Uhhh lemme revise what I said because I was wrong.
> Yes, it is legal. However, video game companies will do anything in their power to stop the production of emulators, even if the emulator requires an original game disk to play the game. A famous example of this was back when emulators came on disks and this company made a playstation emulator required you to use the original game disk to play it. Sony still got on their ass about it and not only ended up making them stop the production of the emulator but they also led the business's eventual bankruptcy.


I have not seen any big lawsuits, or throwaway suits, in recent times and "substantial non infringing uses" would seem to cover the rest. Emulators are up on big sites, discussion is very much public, said companies persuaded ebay, amazon, paypal and co to suspend payments to all sorts of things like flash cart development but any number of them have donate buttons, or things like patreon running.

Likewise that is a bit of a glossing over of Sony vs Bleem and the others around that time
maybe watch it at 1.5 speed, not the biggest fan of the video but covers many of the points involved


As for the matter at hand it is unclear. On the face of it if you are not using the ROM and the cart at the same time; can't pop say a megadrive game in your megadrive and use a dump of said same at the same time such that you are playing two copies of the game, this is more established with rules on how backups should work than emulation but I would look there were I in court and arguing. However then if we are imagining we are in the US for this then the DMCA rears its head and an exemption for bypassing technological protections has not been established so much for game consoles yet (almost everything else like it -- tvs, phones, cars, routers... but game consoles seem to be rather absent) so I don't know what goes there.

On the question of the OP if I take a more literal reading then emulators are just code and I can use VBA all day long to play my homebrews, even right outside Nintendo's offices. The intent was clear though so I will leave that one.

Regarding downloading vs making a copy yourself then nobody really ever established harm done. If you are caught torrenting, or using a similar p2p protocol, it then you might be guilty of distribution by virtue of uploading it as part of it all -- there is a reason every torrent case you see will tend to have uploading as the main charge.

In the end I still don't know but if you own a copy of the game at the time of playing, and the copy of the game is not being used elsewhere, then it is about as close to the line as you can get. I doubt a police officer would arrest you (if it is even a non civil affair) and I doubt a company would risk a court case if it came to pass that the previously mentioned stuff is what you are doing, if for no other reason than it could risk some precedents being set that they are quite happy to have a bit unclear at present (mainly as all logic says it is not likely to end in their favour).


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## sarkwalvein (Jun 1, 2017)

Look for Sony vs Bleem and Sony vs Connectix cases, they set precedence in the USA.

Spoiler alert: It is legal.


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## DinohScene (Jun 1, 2017)

If you dump the games yourself, then yes, it's legal.


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## RaMon90 (Jun 1, 2017)

Btw why does it even matter much as long as you own orignal game and don't share with others? Did  someone get busted for using emulators?


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