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If you don't care whether it is illegal or not, you shouldn't be handing out advice willy-nilly that could get people into trouble. It is within your rights to do what you please, based on your own opinion. But it is also within my rights to correct what I believe to be false or blatantly stupid information when I see it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarioGeek
In the future, why not just give this link to people asking questions.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/help/entry.html?cat=24
The answer that I provided is so common that I believed it to be true. I've only been into emulation for a few months, give me a break.
- and giving amiture legal advice is not different ? The validity in both of you is only attributed to your opinion. Neither of you can give legal advice nor should be.Quote:
If you don't care whether it is illegal or not, you shouldn't be handing out advice willy-nilly that could get people into trouble.
MarioGeek has a more open minded laid back opinion. Zack has a more careful conservative opinion. The OP needs to make his own opinion. Opinions are like, well you know, every one has one.
If you have a legal question you have no business asking it here period. I dont care how convening someone or some link may sound, they dont practices law, thus they are not creditable. Read at your own risk.
Furthermore, non of this is any longer on topic. He is asking about emulators not roms!
The key point here is my opinion is based upon verifiable facts written into copyright-law itself. Nintendo themselves even reference the legal right the make a backup copy in their own ridiculously stupid anti-piracy web page. re: downloading ROMS for a game you own. I am no less qualified to state what I have so far, than any actual lawyer is, because a certain amount of speculation is involved. Even a lawyer cannot say for sure without a hardcore established case-history of lawsuits to reference one way or the other. My assertions are far more reasonable in any case, and just as sound as a lawyer who would say "well, based on current law there is nothing that says this activity is explicitly illegal/legal".
But back on topic. It is pretty safe to assume Emulators are legal based on existing lawsuit results, and the lack of lawsuits against popular emulators in general. It is important to note that Emulation is not a new concept by any means, just that game console emulation is a relatively newer branch of the field.
Sony never actually won against Bleem! for instance, when they took the company to court, although Bleem! went out of business soon after saying that the lawsuits had damaged their finances irreparably. The only Emulators I would stay away from are those that absolutely require a BIOS to run games, and actually provide that BIOS file with the emulator.
In general it is assumed BIOS ROMS/files/whatever you want to call them, will be obtained by the user just like a game ROM would; from the users own console, using generic / non-illicit dumping hardware.
There is nothing wrong with believing something is true. What matters is how you handle things once you have realized it is not the case. You could say, "wow I didn't know that, thanks for informing me" but instead you shrugged your shoulders and said "meh... so what? who cares." and that is what I took issue with.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarioGeek
I don't have anything against you personally, if that's what you're worried about. I just don't like seeing misinformation repeated, and my correction being casually flaked off like the issue being discussed has no real consequences for the person acting on the information.
I just want people who discover emulation to have fun with it and not have to worry, so I'm pretty nonchalant when it comes to topics like this. But, I guess you do have to worry in some cases. You clearly know more about all of this than I do. I didn't mean to disregard your post like that.
Anyone that reads a forum to be 100% true and concise, needs their head examined.
Anyone that only reads one reference to a question, needs their head examined.
Anyone taking legal advice form a gaming site, needs their head examined.
Point being, MaroiGeek is responding in a more appropriate fashion. Yes, he is wrong, yes Zach is right. but its a gaming site for crying out loud. being nonchalant is much more appropriate the being all straitlaced about it. As Zach said earlier he really should have quoted or linked to the info, rather then sounding like it was his legislation. This would have dismissed his ownership to it and alleviate such controversy. I also agree with Zach that a "wow I did know that" was warranted though it would have helped to establish the source of the info initially.
Really, I mean come-on what is this a court hearing. Smoke a J and loosen up a bit.Quote:
The key point here is my opinion is based upon verifiable facts written into copyright-law itself.
So have we come to a conclusion? I think that emulators are perfectly legal as long as it isn't packaged with files like the system bios of a console. The like of this topic can be found on several websites and I don't think that there is much new to be found out if emulators are truly legal or not.
The emulators themselves are legal in my view but in reality it also depends on what the local laws in your country say regarding reverse engineering hardware. Some countries even don't care about software distribution (roms, PC software etc) which is why warez sites focus on getting hosting from companies in very specific countries (to avoid DMCA requests).
As for us here at the forum, we go by the generally accepted concept and respect the game developer by not distributing their property (the roms).
