ROMs and Emulators. Legal?

[HUg0005]

I know I'm opening up a can of worms here. But I'm just wondering if ROMs and Emulators are legal or not.

[SidSilver]

Emulators are legal, Roms are not (except if you own the genuine game)
That's why, you should never sell a GBZ with roms

[HUg0005]

From the Nintendo legal page:

Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

How Does Nintendo Feel About the Emergence of Video Game Emulators?

The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers. As is the case with any business or industry, when its products become available for free, the revenue stream supporting that industry is threatened. Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs.

EDIT: Heres the link: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#roms

[Ganreizu]

From the Nintendo legal page:

The bias is real.

[Camble]

Pretty black and white voting options for such a controversial topic.

[Mad_Duke]

It falls under the law of your country and not any EULA or web page on the internet.

IMO
If you own a game you can have a copy of it so you don't have to subject your original to wear and tear. It's not like you will get it replaced for free if it dies. Especially for EOL products.

[chaosratt]

It varies from country to country, but usually emulators are perfectly legal (so long as the emulator is EMULATING and does not contain copyrighted code). ROMs are a grey area. It's legal to be in possession of ROM for which you own the original legal form of, but the act of making or acquiring that ROM is often disputed. In the US, you're legally allowed to make a backup copy of anything you have (music, movie, game, etc), however it is illegal to distribute the tools and/or knowledge of how to do so (via DMCA). Other (usually European) countries are often more open with this.

The first rule of ROM Club is; Do not talk about ROM Club.

[CaptainDurden]

The first rule of ROM Club is; Do not talk about ROM Club.

I could not have said it much better meself, arrr!

seriously though, that ninty paragraph was a load of biased rubbish. as is the pricing policy for most retro games available through legit means. I would pay good money for a legal Nintendo Rom set, instead we get offered stuff like the mini NES (a hunk of plastic, a pair of tiny wired gamepads and 30 Roms for 80€) and they wonder why people turn to piracy instead? so yeah, my 10.000 Rom collection is very much illegal and I know it, but as long as I don't get offered a better alternative (a NES Rom is not worth 2€ imho) I will stay on my pirate ship.

[Ganreizu]

seriously though, that ninty paragraph was a load of biased rubbish. as is the pricing policy for most retro games available through legit means. I would pay good money for a legal Nintendo Rom set, instead we get offered stuff like the mini NES (a hunk of plastic, a pair of tiny wired gamepads and 30 Roms for 80€) and they wonder why people turn to piracy instead? so yeah, my 10.000 Rom collection is very much illegal and I know it, but as long as I don't get offered a better alternative (a NES Rom is not worth 2€ imho) I will stay on my pirate ship.

There was a discussion on the switch recently and one of the guys floated the idea of a netflix style service where you pay like $5 a month to play all NES, SNES, n64 etc games. Would totally invalidate ROMs and the illegal market and would be amazingly advantageous since they would immediately have the best library of games for the system meanwhile the data costs would be miniscule since it's like 60 mb for every NES/SNES game ever made per subscriber.

[alemnf]

It is legal only if you download and play homebrew, public domain or freeware games. For example such as at this nintendo ds romset I found online . These are original homebrew games which are created by amateur developers. Avoid downloading and playing any other kind of copyrighted ROMs since most of them are illegal for sure.