If you own a console game and play it on an emulator, is it still illegal?

[nipsen]

ps1 emulation - one huge legal issue over the first "legal" emulator. Ps2 emulation - clearly illegal. I know people who have had injunction letters from sharing ps2 and ps1 images.

Just understand that the reason why emulating neogeo roms is not "illegal", is because no one claims, or can claim legitimately, to have lost profits from it. It is also what often stops commercial variants from succeeding: "people" "believe" that emulation software made by hobby-programmers in their spare time is such a superior product, that competing with it is futile, without also having the law flogging users who play these games without paying.

Whether you or I think, or believe that emulation should be legal - and even encouraged, because otherwise these games will be lost forever - is irrelevant.

 

[lacktheknack]

Most people seem to think it's not technically legal, which seems odd to me. Is it illegal to run a Windows game in Linux or on a Mac? I don't think so. Then why is it illegal to run (for example) a Playstation game on a PC?

Because it isn't.

They want you to buy a console, the OSs just slip through the cracks.

Again, it's legal if you buy your own console and use your own bios. It's all about who bought what.

 

[likalaruku]

If it's an old game that is no longer for sale outside of used copies & has not been ported to newer consoles, no one would care if it was illegal.

If I were a developer and people were still playing a game that I made after 20 years when the company had stopped supporting it I would feel quite proud.

Me too. But there ARE some weirdos out there who want their old stuff to stay dead, kinda like how Bandai keeps making YouTube take down episodes of Samurai Pizza Cats, even though they refuse to release the series on DVD. It's like "We don't want anyone watching it for free, but we don't wanna make money off of it either, so if you like it, you're screwed."