Illegal Programs, now legal?

[GAT-X303]

Now, you can actually download a legal emulator from what I've been hearing. On the PSP, you need an emulator to be put on there, and then you can play games straight from the PSP. It was also designed to be able to do this apparently, which is why I said this. Can anyone vouch for this? I don't want to walk around saying "download a PSP emulator" if it's illegal.

 

[holloway]

Emulators are, for the most part, legal. The games you download are not.

 

[Fallofthetyrant]

An emulator is legal if your own a copy of the game, like let's suppose, you own a copy of Final Fantasy III but it doesn't works anymore and you really wanna play it, then you could download an emulator and a rom.
But if you don't own a game, then that's illegal.

 

[holloway]

Actually you technically can't download the ROM even then, but you'd be the most unluck person in the world to get done over it.

 

[Fafnir]

Emulators are legal, however, games ran on them are illegal(if you have a copy of the game, you have to upload YOUR COPY). For Playstation emus, so are the Bios used to run them.

 

[candle]

There seems to be a lot of confusion on this. The facts are that emulators are in fact completely legal to own and use. ROMs (commercial cartridge games) and ISOs (commercial cd/dvd games) are completely illegal to download or distribute. Doing so is called piracy and considered stealing from the developers of a game. BIOS are also illegal to download as that is the operating system. If you download it and then delete it after 24 hours, YOU ARE STILL BREAKING THE LAW!! Its as simple as that.

"Well, what if I want to make a backup copy?" you may ask. That is well within your rights as long as you bought the first copy and do NOT distribute it. Not even among your friends.

If anyone doubts me, I used to be quite well known at gbXemu, which used to be one of the best rom sites in the world. We got into quite a debate there before the site went downhill over the legalities of what we were doing.

 

[LordEliwood0009]

So what this is about is whether or not ROMs are legal or not. I guess that almost all filesharing programs and certain sites should be shutdown because of it. I have seen in search results on filesharing programs a lot of ROMs for a variety of systems. Also certain sites have ROMs of actual games that are sold as well. Yet I have not seen them get busted yet. Care to explain? The one website i found lets you download roms using a filesharing program for FREE! yet this site and program were not shut off....Still care to explain?

 

[Sles]

Part of the reason that these website cannot be shut down is the fact that only the governments of where the server of the website is held, have jurisdiction over them. Meaning, since The Pirate Bay's server was in Holland, only the Dutch government could shut them down, which did happen for a couple weeks. Another problem with shutting down illegal filesharing sites is that they can have an audience where the copyright is not valid, since the internet reaches the whole world, just not a certain few countries. Yet another problem is, well hey it's just not illegal in some countries to do this stuff, so you can't just shut down a website because what it is doing is illegal in some countries. But, if you live in a country where it is illegal you can be punished under the laws of your country.

 

[XP Learner]

Yes but there's also the fact some games are not made anymore. For example many of the SNES games namely RPG's had releses only in Japan.

So this somehow started these translation projects. and the fact the only way to play em is finding the ROM.

(Which no one will be stupid enough to tell you were to find it.)

 

[Roman Candle]

Erm, if the government could just shut down sites, then there would be no legal material on the internet. And no torrent sites.

Emulators are very much legal. In fact, A while ago Nintendo launched a patent for an emulator, (which was NOT developed by them :grr:!), for the GBA, (Visual Boy Advance). This was in connection with a book being released instructing people on how to program the GBA. If the emulator was pattented, they wouldn't be able to distribute it with the book; in that case, it would be pointless getting the book. I don't know why they bothered - GBA programming is an actual nightmare At the moment, I am only able to display every other verticle row of pixels in sprites. Baffeling.

Anyway, the point is, Emulators are legal. However, all ROMS, ISOs etc are illegal.

 

[Cruelty]

Meaning, since The Pirate Bay's server was in Holland, only the Dutch government could shut them down, which did happen for a couple weeks.

Sweden. =D
that website is my first home when it comes to commandeering por-... fully re-distributable freeware utilities.


I never really quite 'got' why people pirate shit that you can just buy with pocket change at a used game store (NES games..), and pirating shit that JUST came out is just fucking wrong. As a member of RMXP, that probably means you use the program. That means that you have some idea of how/why people create video games, and it's totally not cool to steal something like that.

 

[candle]

the problem with getting an NES game at a used game game store is the fact that it can be really hard to find the one you are looking for, plus the fact that not every one has or can find an NES system.

 

[Roph]

I enjoy playing my playstation games on my PC in 1600x1200 with filtered textures, cheats and using my special gamepad. I like how I can use save states also, no need for save points in game.

And I enjoy virtually linking up and trading / battling pokemon with somebody on the other side of the planet =D

 

[Cruelty]

Well, NES, and other really early consoles that are pretty much obsolete, and can't generate any income at all for their creators aren't really bad to download. Like hm mentioned, them things are impossible to find anyway.

If you're emulating current gen systems, then that's just straight wrong, though.

 

[Rhazdel]

If you're emulating current gen systems, then that's just straight wrong, though.

Agreed. Like you said, no one will probably ever bust you for having an NES, SNES, Atari, etc. emulator, because you aren't causing them to lose any profits. The companies don't produce any more of them, so even if you were to go and buy a used console/game from your local store, the store keeps all the profits.

Besides, some of those games are just impossible to find, anyway! I still have my old NES and SNES, but the batteries in the internal memory cards (for the SNES titles) are now dying. I can't save the game anymore. I can ship the thing in to Nintendo and have them replace the battery, but shipping charges, etc. would run about $40 -50.

Since Cruelty brought it up, almost everyone in here is developing a video game, right? Think about the following:

15 years after you created a game and people are still going online to search for it and download it because it was that good. That would make you feel pretty proud, right? After all that time and people still want to play it.

1 month after you release your title for $10 (or whatever) and some people are willing to pay you for all the hard work and energy you put into that game, while some people just flat steal your work, fresh off your harddrive. Would make you pretty mad, huh?

 

[candle]

That's part of why a lot of old DOS games that used to cost money to get are now either freeware or shareware.

 

[Roph]

I release almost anything I design or produce for free to anybody who wants it. Not just because I know they'd "steal" it anyway, because I prefer that particular model. Open source and/or free =)

I think it's retarded to pay SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS for Adobe Photoshop. So unless I can find a pirated copy, I won't use it at all. This technically results in zero lost revenue for Adobe.

^ That's only an example, I hate Adobe, the most bloated overrated shit I have ever seen XD. This keeps me from using alot of things I would probably use otherwise, for instance vBulletin being one of them ($160 a year? smoke yourself, sir), though there are nulled copies out there that don't waste your server's CPU by making callbacks to Jelsoft.

In alot of cases it's even much simpler or advantageous to pirate something. The current situation with DRM / Software protection is hilarious, they're not stopping the pirates at all, though are doing a stellar job of pissing off and restricting legitimate users from using what they've bought. Bought a HDTV in the last few years, though not just very recently? LOL SORRY, you can't use it for all that HD content we never stopped advertising was coming because now we've made a new standard to combat pirates. What is this (loyal? seeing as he's got a HDTV early in anticipation) customer going to do now apart from being pissed? Either shell out for a HDCP compatible set or just get a non-restrictive pirated HD version that will work perfectly <3

I also find it a little funny when people compare filesharing to walking into your local store and stealing, say, a DVD. A DVD is a physical item; it can't be duplicated. As for a file on my computer, I can Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V, and oh look, I have two =o. Now I have three, four, five! I think you get the idea.

Nobody on this forum is going to admit that they used one of the very easily obtainable keygens for RMXP.

Of course everything I said in this thread on the subject of pirating is just an example and I of course have never pirated anything ever in my life, ever :p

 

[xmcdohlx]

yeah, it's hella retarded nowadays.

companies seriously suck at fighting piracy. (are they even trying?)
specially things like the PSP where you can play ISOs, ROMs, etc without even a modchip...

a month after wii was released modchips became available

ps3 ISO loader is on the works

x360 been on the pirate scene for a while

DS too, just need a flashcart

PC...lmfao, been cracked for years

PS3 is the only current gen console that has defended itself but they'll own it soon

 

[Mooshykris]

I release almost anything I design or produce for free to anybody who wants it. Not just because I know they'd "steal" it anyway, because I prefer that particular model. Open source and/or free =)

I think it's retarded to pay SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS for Adobe Photoshop. So unless I can find a pirated copy, I won't use it at all. This technically results in zero lost revenue for Adobe.[/SIZE]

he only thing I can say there, it that adobe photoshop is for BUSINESSES, not for individual people.

 

[candle]

but even then, they have to spend over $600 USD per key.