A few set of simple questions for you people. Is emulation piracy? If so, should I care? If not, what's the difference?
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Emulation vs Piracy
- Thread starter AtheistGuy
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"Emulation" is just a blanket term for running code in a system it was not designed for using additional tools. Running Nintendo 64 games on your laptop is emulation, as is MS-DOS programs (unless you're actually masochistic enough to still have MS-DOS installed).AtheistGuy said:
That said, "emulation" in the common parlance is typically better regarded specifically because it's associated with things like Nintendo 64 games that stores don't sell anymore. "Pirating" is typically held to involve something the publisher would have otherwise profited off of, like newer games.
That's like asking "Is eating fruit stealing?"
They're completely separate entities. Sure, you may have one because of the other, but you typically have one without the other. If I wanted, I could invest in a bit of side-equipment, grab all my games and my PS1 and dump it into an emulator, and that would be completely legal and ethically sound. However, if I realized that I didn't have Resident Evil for PS1 and wanted to play it on my emulator, I could pirate it. Or, if I want to emulate an Xbox (that I don't have), I CAN steal a BIOS from somewhere, which is also pirating.
But as is, I have a PS1, Spyro, Gran Turismo 2 and a few others, so if I emulated those manually, then no. Piracy wasn't involved.
Also, Hal10k makes a good point.
DosBox is a much easier to access emulator. It's not piracy, it's available from an official website for free from the creator. And I can find tons of legally abandoned DOS games from the likes of dosgames.com and abandonia.org (I think that's it). These aren't piracy either. dosgames.com just uploads old DOS games in whatever form they're available in (freeware, shareware, demo, etc) and Abandonia specifically makes sure that whatever games they put up are officially public domain. At no point has copyright law being violated with a rusty spoon.
They're completely separate entities. Sure, you may have one because of the other, but you typically have one without the other. If I wanted, I could invest in a bit of side-equipment, grab all my games and my PS1 and dump it into an emulator, and that would be completely legal and ethically sound. However, if I realized that I didn't have Resident Evil for PS1 and wanted to play it on my emulator, I could pirate it. Or, if I want to emulate an Xbox (that I don't have), I CAN steal a BIOS from somewhere, which is also pirating.
But as is, I have a PS1, Spyro, Gran Turismo 2 and a few others, so if I emulated those manually, then no. Piracy wasn't involved.
Also, Hal10k makes a good point.
DosBox is a much easier to access emulator. It's not piracy, it's available from an official website for free from the creator. And I can find tons of legally abandoned DOS games from the likes of dosgames.com and abandonia.org (I think that's it). These aren't piracy either. dosgames.com just uploads old DOS games in whatever form they're available in (freeware, shareware, demo, etc) and Abandonia specifically makes sure that whatever games they put up are officially public domain. At no point has copyright law being violated with a rusty spoon.
Well that's not entire the case exactly, I mean, especially with the emulators for Wii and last generation of consoles.zama174 said:
But yeah, as far as PS2 emulation goes, you'll need a bios, and the actual game or an ISO of that game, to run the emulator, so you're technically supposed to have both the console and the physical disc already. If you follow those rules then emulation is just a matter of running the game you own on a PC so there's nothing illegal about it.
Downloading and playing an old game that's been re-released on the wii market/xbox live/psonline is piracy (Super Metroid), but I wouldn't consider downloading a game that I could only buy used online to be piracy. Legally, I think it's still piracy unless the copyright has expired.
Emulation itself isn't illegal, never has been. Downloading ROM's technically is if you don't already own the game(but I have heard that is bullshit too). The only reason companies don't crack down on it for older consoles like anything before PSX is because there is 0 money being lost by the developers and publishers of these games(for the most part this whole PSN network and WII store shit is pretty new). But even still this method allows for translation of games that us English speakers would never have ever been able to play because they were never translated. So it falls into the gray area that is piracy.
If it was SUCH as huge problem a ROM site I know have would have been shut down in the 12 or so years it have been operating.
If it was SUCH as huge problem a ROM site I know have would have been shut down in the 12 or so years it have been operating.
Yeah i mean if your just popping it into your comp thats fine, hell thats how I play a lot of my PS1 games.. But getting a game for the DS or Wii or anything else and playing it is pretty much piracy.. I was talking more about SNES era and older games, that will either not be there, or cost you 400 bucks to get.. But for PS2 and newer you can find just about anything on Amazon for less then a new retail game.Gatx said:
Oh come on, playing console games on Windows is not piracy. Playing Nintendo Wii games in 1080p is not piracy.
Emulation is being able to have a palmtop that plays your Steam library, just like you owned another handheld system, and not just that, but almost every single console system that it can handle(and that number is constantly growing, PlayStation 2 emulation is getter better, PlayStation 1 emulation is being worked on again, and hopefully someday much better emulators than ePSXe will exist, and Dolphin emulation is getting better everyday, and computer power is growing everyday. It won't be long before itty bitty palmtops will be able to play Wii U games). Emulation is being able to play Nintendo Wii games on a laptop in 1080p. On more than 15 inches instead of a tiny handheld screen, while still being portable. Emulation is being able to record gameplay on something other than a capture card.
Emulation is one of the few things that makes PC gaming in any way objectively superior to console gaming.
Not that I am against piracy. I'm no more against piracy than I am anti-used sales or emulation. I am anti-scarcity. On the other hand, emulation is not piracy.
Emulation is being able to have a palmtop that plays your Steam library, just like you owned another handheld system, and not just that, but almost every single console system that it can handle(and that number is constantly growing, PlayStation 2 emulation is getter better, PlayStation 1 emulation is being worked on again, and hopefully someday much better emulators than ePSXe will exist, and Dolphin emulation is getting better everyday, and computer power is growing everyday. It won't be long before itty bitty palmtops will be able to play Wii U games). Emulation is being able to play Nintendo Wii games on a laptop in 1080p. On more than 15 inches instead of a tiny handheld screen, while still being portable. Emulation is being able to record gameplay on something other than a capture card.
Emulation is one of the few things that makes PC gaming in any way objectively superior to console gaming.
Not that I am against piracy. I'm no more against piracy than I am anti-used sales or emulation. I am anti-scarcity. On the other hand, emulation is not piracy.
I had an opportunity one time and asked a representative of the Electronic Software Association about this sort of thing. The whole 24 hour time limit on ROMs came up and I came up with another question. I was away from home at the time, so I told the representative that I wanted to play one of my games that was left at home. She explained that it would be illegal to download a copy of said game(s) from a torrent or other means, but legal to use a back-up copy I had made myself.
I can't remember where exactly it is, but somewhere in U.S. Copyright law, there's also a clause granting people the option to contract someone to make back-ups of digital media for them, but I think that whole scenario would translate pretty accurately to emulation.
Judging by the way it has been explained to me, there's nothing definitively illegal about emulators, but if you want to keep the playing of emulated games strictly legal, you need to get the BIOS of the console and make the ROMs yourself from your own copies (that are legally owned) or contract someone else to do it for you.
I can't remember where exactly it is, but somewhere in U.S. Copyright law, there's also a clause granting people the option to contract someone to make back-ups of digital media for them, but I think that whole scenario would translate pretty accurately to emulation.
Judging by the way it has been explained to me, there's nothing definitively illegal about emulators, but if you want to keep the playing of emulated games strictly legal, you need to get the BIOS of the console and make the ROMs yourself from your own copies (that are legally owned) or contract someone else to do it for you.
hm, i guess i figured downloading 20 year old roms was illegal.
in any case, who cares? if you bought the game by legitimate means it's not like the actual developer's would have seen any of the 60 bucks you bought it for on Ebay. i think most companies would just be glad more people can experience the games of the past.
way i see it, anything two generations (something some guy on wikipedia probably made up but convenient nonetheless) old is fair game. last generation, look for it first, and feel really guilty if you do end up downloading it. this generation, that's fucking stealing buy the game you asshat.
in any case, who cares? if you bought the game by legitimate means it's not like the actual developer's would have seen any of the 60 bucks you bought it for on Ebay. i think most companies would just be glad more people can experience the games of the past.
way i see it, anything two generations (something some guy on wikipedia probably made up but convenient nonetheless) old is fair game. last generation, look for it first, and feel really guilty if you do end up downloading it. this generation, that's fucking stealing buy the game you asshat.
Emulation == Piracy. Its just pirating the game, then playing it on a different format.
I tend to consider it ok to emulate a game i've already bought. I mean i own a copy of it, but its inconvinient for me to cart around those consoles.
Also yes you should care. All forms of piracy harm the games industry.
I tend to consider it ok to emulate a game i've already bought. I mean i own a copy of it, but its inconvinient for me to cart around those consoles.
Also yes you should care. All forms of piracy harm the games industry.
Sorry. Emulation =/= piracy. Emulation is the technical ability to get one kind of computing equipment or operating system to pretend it's another.Sion_Barzahd said:
Rom images of games are illegal in the same way that pirated copies are. But a ROM image =/= emulation...
You're making a statement that confuses a technical procedure with something that does not.
You know what's also emulation? The Wii Virtual console. (And Sony & Microsoft's equivalents.)
The PS3 and Xbox 360's ability to play their predecessors games is also courtesy of emulation.
For that matter, 'compatibility mode' in windows XP, Vista, and 7... Is... A form of emulation.
There is no confusion or grey area. Emulation is emulation. Piracy is piracy. The two only meet because a common use for emulators is to play pirated games from older game consoles using a PC.
But using that as an argument is like saying the internet = piracy. Or A cup = liquid.
It's a totally nonsensical statement.
Here's how I judge it:
If there is any way at all you can get the game without purchasing discontinued hardware, it's piracy.
Want FF4? Go buy a DS or a PSP or get it on the Wii. Lord knows that game isn't that hard to find...
Want the original Smash Bros? It's on the Virtual Console. So go get a Wii.
Want to get Earthbound? Well considering that there's no means to get it apart from buying an SNES, you don't really have a choice but to get it from an emulator.
If there is any way at all you can get the game without purchasing discontinued hardware, it's piracy.
Want FF4? Go buy a DS or a PSP or get it on the Wii. Lord knows that game isn't that hard to find...
Want the original Smash Bros? It's on the Virtual Console. So go get a Wii.
Want to get Earthbound? Well considering that there's no means to get it apart from buying an SNES, you don't really have a choice but to get it from an emulator.
Emulation is where you make one machine act like another in order to run software not originally designed for it. So, for example, if I make my computer run NES games that's emulation. Piracy is a possible method for obtaining those NES games, and it's generally the one used since it's damn difficult to get a computer to read a NES cartridge.
It's probably illegal, but I don't see anything wrong with it in a moral sense, it certainly doesn't harm anyone. Then again, the same could be argued for any kind of piracy, so... yeah. In order to emulate games people do usually pirate those games, but I don't think you should really care.
It's probably illegal, but I don't see anything wrong with it in a moral sense, it certainly doesn't harm anyone. Then again, the same could be argued for any kind of piracy, so... yeah. In order to emulate games people do usually pirate those games, but I don't think you should really care.
.. i just realised i posted off topic, zzzzz ug, emulation seems fine to me, im sure theres some sort of legal minefield, but I think in the general spirit of things companies wouldn't mind, I think problem is that companies have to cover that loophole legally just in case they catch someone and they say that they wheren't pirating they where just running emulation software or whatever. I know im being vague but my blood sugar is low atm, i NEED A SANDWHICH.