Legal Information (Copyrights, Emulators, ROMs, etc.)

[cibomatto2002]

Thank you for your interest in Nintendo and our products. This section of our website is designed to answer questions you may have about our Intellectual Property ("IP" for short) rights. Here you will find information on such things as copyrights, use of game emulators, and counterfeit products. Please keep in mind that infringement of Nintendo's IP rights hurts not only Nintendo, but our players and the legitimate businesses connected with Nintendo. Counterfeiting is a serious problem not only for Nintendo but also the entire video game industry. Nintendo will continue to aggressively protect its intellectual property rights.

Read More Here

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp

[onewecallgod]

They're just fear mongering. Fuck them.

[Zach]

That page is so old. lol

And so full of shit..

Game copiers are not illegal everywhere and furthermore even in the USA, as far as I know, if you build your own CART reader by yourself, you are legally entitled to copies of any games you physically own, made by that generic copier.

And Nintendo can suck our nuts, trying to lump in Emulators with ROM piracy, as if they are programmed solely to play illegal copies of games. Nintendo has no way of proving that and never will. Furthermore Nintendo itself uses Emulation technology, so if that ain't the pot calling the kettle black I dunno what is.

Some kid playing Donkey Kong on an NES/SNES emulator isn't hurting Nintendos future sales if they put DK into a game for the Wii.. lol

[Xtreme2damax]

It's fear and scare tactics to scare uneducated consumers from using these devices and software. Emulation has been deemeds legal or in a grey area by the courts, a lawsuit regarding an emulator would never hold up in court unless coprighted code was contained in the emulator itself.

Reverse engineering is completely legal, and this is what most developers do to code their emulator, using original code.

If the emulator requires a bios or firmware dump, that kind of stuff is not distributed with emulators and requires users to dump it off of their own hardware.

Sony was not even able to win against bleem or connectix which were commercial emulators, however Sony ran Connectix/Bleem into the ground with neverending lawsuits and lawyer fees despite Sony not being able to win.

Everything you need to know which sums everything up quite nicely:

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/journals/njtip/v2/n2/3/

[Dude111]

They're just fear mongering. Fuck them.Hehe well if ya feel that way,why do you guys keep all links to sites running emulators off this site?? (Just curious)


My first post here i posted a link to an innocent MS. PACMAN game (Using an emulator so you could play it online) and it was deleted...... Just interesting seeing someone on staff say that..

[FatTrucker]

Hehe well if ya feel that way,why do you guys keep all links to sites running emulators off this site?? (Just curious)


My first post here i posted a link to an innocent MS. PACMAN game (Using an emulator so you could play it online) and it was deleted...... Just interesting seeing someone on staff say that..

I'm not staff but I've been around for a while and its because the software (not the emulator) is subject to copyright. The IP belongs to someone and that person, company or corporation can happily litigate if you help to infringe their copyright. Its a legal angle not a moral one.

For the record Nintendo have always been scorched earth about their IP so there's nothing new there, however so long as a piece of hardware or software like an emulator doesn't use any proprietary technology or code (it has to be reverse engineered and created from scratch) then its legally ok.....right up to the point you use it to illegally play, copy, or redestribute commercial games.

So there is no hypocrisy, the site does what it does to support the emulation community and help provide support to people interested in emulation, its not now and never will be a site about how or where to rip off software. Personally I wouldn't even offer support on-site for the hordes of people using emulation to play DS, PS2 and Wii games, not from any moral high ground (after all we do what we do) but because it is genuinely a bit sh*t for people to rip off games that are still being sold and making money (biting the hand that feeds somewhat), and if anyone did decide to get a bit precious about EZ in future there are scores of posts with users swapping information on playing Wii and PS2 ISO's, and DS Roms. Not in itself an issue as no-one is stating specifically that those roms or ISO's have come from anywhere but a legitimate source, but its still a stick they could try to beat the site with.

[onewecallgod]

You know, I was thinking about this earlier and according to US and EU laws, emulators emulating current generation hardware is completely illegal due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (US) and Copyright Directive (EU). The main issue is that programmers must reverse engineer, which is illegal under these statutes.

I don't know about the EU one, but for the US one there's an exception that states:

# Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. (A renewed exemption, first approved in 2003.)

So what's old enough to fall under this exception? NES, SNES, N64? Fuck politicians.

[FatTrucker]

Its probably fairly healthy for the industry though. I fully support emulation of obsolete systems, but emulating a system that's still making money commercially does taint the hobby somewhat, and makes it difficult to argue for the movement as a whole when corps like Nintendo start throwing their toys about.

MameDev (anal though they sometimes seem) have the right idea, going out of their way not to emulate anything making anyone any money and so keeping largely under the radar and receiving quite a degree of unofficial support from a lot of people in the commercial development community.

I think for emulation in general to have a future in the longer term and if its going to retain any legitimacy as a benign medium for keeping old games and systems alive, then emulation of commercially available systems should probably stop (or at least be deliberately broken for anything but homebrew).


A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

Strictly speaking this covers everything up to and including the PS1, Dreamcast and N64, with everything else still making new money at retail.

[Dude111]

Its probably fairly healthy for the industry though. I fully support emulation of obsolete systems, but emulating a system that's still making money commercially does taint the hobby somewhat, and makes it difficult to argue for the movement as a whole when corps like Nintendo start throwing their toys about. Exactly which is why i posted the MS. pacman game.. (Its all over the place on other sites and i figured we could have some fun here also :))

Ah well.........

[FatTrucker]

If its running an unlicenced rom that someone owns the copyright to, then it shouldn't be linked from here. There's no grey area there. What we think or do privately doesn't come into the equation. I doubt any users here would stump up the legal costs for EZ if an IP owner decided to go after the site to make an example.

[Dude111]

Ah i see buddy...

That game was running an 80s rom (Ms. pacman) -- Would they care?? (They dont even offer that game anymore (They offer garbage now))

[FatTrucker]

Ah i see buddy...

That game was running an 80s rom (Ms. pacman) -- Would they care?? (They dont even offer that game anymore (They offer garbage now))

Yep. Unfortunately the law doesn't discriminate between whether a game is new, old or any good for that matter. The site has to have a clear policy on copyright material and apply it across the board, not let the users pick and choose whether we think something is an acceptable risk or not. thats what the mods and admin are there for.

[legalrights]

A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console (cross-console emulation) to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated into other languages or modify (or hack) existing games. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrewed demos and new games for older systems.

[TchuBacha]

Thanks legalrights. 'cos none of us knew that already....

[Dude111]

A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console (cross-console emulation) to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated into other languages or modify (or hack) existing games. Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrewed demos and new games for older systems.Heh thank you for the info and welcome to the site :)