Thread 11969937

They literally enable you to play a console and its games without purchasing either the console or the games. This seems like a straight-forward case of piracy to me, how on Earth did a court of law ever rule otherwise?

>b-b-but you don't HAVE to pirate to use an emulator! you can play games you already own :)
I've never ever bought this excuse, the number of people who use an emulator without ever pirating has to be pathetically negligible, like 0.0001% of users at best. And even if you did, you're still "pirating" the console itself so to speak.

>emulating Virtual Console games
But why

>>11969937 (OP)
>I don't understand
And you never will.

>>11969937 (OP)
Look at it this way, if someone recreated Mario 64 100% from scratch that would be perfectly legal. Emulators work the same way with recreating consoles.

It's been officially legal since Sony lost its trial against Bleem.

In short it was ruled out that arguing against emulation was trying to establish a monopolistic practice. It shouldn't be forbidden for competition to create other means to play the games.
If you make a VHS viewer, you can't prevent other companies to also make VHS viewers nor can you force VHS makers to make it so that the VHS can only be played on your device.

That's the theory anyway. In practice video game companies still bully the competition if they try, when they can do it. Hence why Bleem still went out of business and why nobody makes "clones" of current gen consoles even though it's not illegal.

>>11969937 (OP)
You don't commit crime when you use an emulator. You commit a crime when you download video games from the Internet for free. Those two things are completely unrelated.

Brother, when I was a kid my friend just bought Sonic Battle, and I loved it. VBA already existed so when I went home I downloaded the game and played it for free. Shit was SO cash.

You're not committing a crime by playing a game you purchased on another system

>>11969951
>Look at it this way, if someone recreated Mario 64 100% from scratch that would be perfectly legal
I don't see how that is legal either. You're directly copying somebody else's intellectual property. You're stealing creators' hard work. It is literally just piracy with extra steps.

>>11969937 (OP)
>They literally enable you
Guns enable you to kill people, but you can use them for other things too

>>11969959
>purchased

>>11969951
Sheet music is kind of an interesting example of thus. The music, more often than not, is public domain, but the exact way it is written on paper is owned by the publisher. You can get around having to buy sheet music if you just write it out yourself. Since you're using different software it most likely will end up slightly different in appearance.

>>11969953
>In short it was ruled out that arguing against emulation was trying to establish a monopolistic practice. It shouldn't be forbidden for competition to create other means to play the games.
That is completely insane. By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?

>If you make a VHS viewer, you can't prevent other companies to also make VHS viewers nor can you force VHS makers to make it so that the VHS can only be played on your device.
Films are not video games though. They are not designed for specific hardware. You don't need a Sony DVD player to watch Sony films, for instance. You DO need a Sony video game console to play Sony games (as in, games intended to run on a Sony system, not games made by Sony).

>>11969954
I don't see how using an emulator isn't still a crime. You have effectively pirated the video game console itself. If you download Dolphin emulator, you have pretty much just stolen a GameCube.

>>11969937 (OP)
>play games without paying
I do this with consoles, too. And since they take on a loss on console sales, it's even sweeter.

I don’t know why videogame streams or lets plays are legal. And frankly I don’t think they should be.

>>11969970
Heh, reminds me of a historical anecdote when young Mozart pirated a piece of music played at a church and only available in sheet music form to local musicians, until he went back home and transcribed it from memory.

>>11969959
>You're not committing a crime by playing a game you purchased on another system
Nobody actually does that, though. Who goes out and buys a game before they emulate it? They just pirate it instead. Pointing to the 0.0001% of weirdos who insist on actually following the law is not an argument.

Also, technically speaking, you're wrong anyway. If you own a game on PS5 that doesn't give you the legal right to pirate the PC version.

>>11969967
There is quite literally no other purpose of an emulator than to use it to play games for a particular console without actually playing it on that console.

>>11969971
>That is completely insane. By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?

Yes

>Films are not video games though. They are not designed for specific hardware. You don't need a Sony DVD player to watch Sony films, for instance. You DO need a Sony video game console to play Sony games (as in, games intended to run on a Sony system, not games made by Sony).

You only think that way because nobody makes a current gen console clone out of fear of getting bullied. With that said, no, you don't need a Sony console to play Sony games since you have emulators.

>>11969981
You can play homebrew on an emulator

>>11969960
From scratch means you did it without using reference material from the source. Stop being such an obtuse retard.

>>11969971
>could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?
A random company could sell their own machine that plays PS5 games and it would be legal, yes.

>>11969983
>Yes
That's completely ludicrous.

>>11969990
How are our laws this fucked up? All it would take is for some rogue company (probably from the third world) to start mass-manufacturing PS5/Switch/Xbox clones and selling them for cheap, and the hardware business would collapse.

>>11969992
Explain.

>>11969971
>You have effectively pirated the video game console itself.
You did, if emulator requires a dump of system firmware (bios) and you downloaded it as well. Otherwise, console hardware is protected by patents, not copyright, and those actually expire pretty fast. And very often patents can be circumvented by inventing an alternative design which achieves the same goal, which is how emulators are created in almost all cases.

>>11969986
Some homebrew even requires an emulator. This means emulators have exclusives.

Zoomers were a mistake

>>11969974
Well it's a good thing nothing you say matters. >>11969981
>Who goes out and buys a game before they emulate it?
Vintage game collectors usually have every game they play in their collection and if they find something they like they add it.

>>11969960
>You're stealing creators' hard work
The creator still has his hard work. No one took it from them since it's not even tangible. How is it stealing?

>>11969971
>Films are not video games though. They are not designed for specific hardware.
Imagine if they were, and you needed specific hardware to play specific movies. It's insane that people allowed the video game industry to get away with this while other media couldn't.

>>11969997
See: >>11969996

It just seems messed up to me that a company doesn't have full ownership of hardware that they themselves designed and manufactured.

>>11969996
That would be based, because we would get cheaper consoles.
Or more likely, those "clones" would suck and only poors would buy them, which would still be good, because that means that poors would be able to play games.

>>11969937 (OP)
This. Sony should be taken to court for allowing massive piracy on Sony's videogame console by developing the Sony Playstation. If they didn't do this, no one could have pirated anything. Sony lost Sony more sales than they actually sold things, the injustice is insane. #SonyGate

>>11969996
You're so fucking dumb it's absurd.
The firmware the PS5 and other shit uses is proprietary and absolutely is protected.
That's why most emulators that require firmware also require you to source it and add it your self. This isn't rocket science.

>>11969971
Zoom zoom alert. It was not unheard of to allow 3rd parties to make clones of computers (much more common) and consoles (less common but still happened). The PC as a concept itself is the result of IBM allowing competitors to clone its architecture with "IBM Compatible" parts. For consoles, think the Panasonic Gamecube, that one Genesis/PC hybrid, the master system clones sold in Brazil, bootleg consoles in general, etc

>>11969996
This is a serious issue! You should contact your local politician about this!

>>11970004
I'm a millennial.

>>11970006
>The creator still has his hard work. No one took it from them since it's not even tangible. How is it stealing?
Maybe it's not as morally repugnant if you do it with an old game like Mario 64 that is no longer sold, but if you were to do it with a game that's still on the market, you're undercutting the original creator and making it harder - if not impossible - to make money off their creation.

>Imagine if they were, and you needed specific hardware to play specific movies. It's insane that people allowed the video game industry to get away with this while other media couldn't.
But that's just how video games work. If it's designed for the N64, it can't run on the PS1, or vice versa. The only way you'd have "all games playable on (nearly) everything" is if you had just one single platform on which all games were released indefinitely.

Holy shit you people are fucking dumb. OP is the exact same kind of person who doesn't know the difference between RF and Composite connections and doesn't even know the difference from their connectors' appearance.

>>11969937 (OP)
No one actually plays games on emulators, they just open a random file from a full romset, take a screenshot and post here.

>>11969996
Have you never heard of NES clones?

>>11970019
>It was not unheard of to allow 3rd parties to make clones of computers (much more common) and consoles (less common but still happened).
I mean, it WAS unheard of if you didn't live in a 3rd world country.

I know 4chan has a lot of Brazilians these days, but do you guys seriously not comprehend that the way things were growing up in your country were not the same in, say, the US or Western Europe?

>>11969937 (OP)

this might just be the faggiest thread ive seen here in a long time, and thats saying something.

>>11970026
>I'm a millennial.
Anyone born after '93 isn't a millennial the same as I am. Never has. Never will be. Young millennials are worse than zoomers have ever been.

>>11969971
>That is completely insane. By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?

Correct, this is quite literally what FPGA systems are.
Modretro have made a point of selling both an aftermarket Game Boy Color, and aftermarket games for the Game Boy Color or their alternative.
Analogue have made FPGA systems, but not games.

>Films are not video games though. They are not designed for specific hardware. You don't need a Sony DVD player to watch Sony films, for instance. You DO need a Sony video game console to play Sony games (as in, games intended to run on a Sony system, not games made by Sony).

Ah, but this is what formats are.
VHS, DVD, LaserDisc, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, Betamax, are video formats intended for playback on certain compatible devices.
The original formats are protected products and can't be reproduced without permission (unauthorised copies, often bootlegs), but if you somehow produce a machine that can utilise the original formats to access the data, that's fine.
That's exactly the same case with video games, there's no issue with a device like the GB Operator, a USB accessory for PCs that can read the ROM and save data of Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges, make back-ups, and launch them in MGBA to play them on your PC instead.

A majority of earlier emulators do not require any special data such as BIOS to run software, which is not limited to ROM dumps of commercial games.
Some emulators do require BIOS for accurate emulation, perhaps things like firmware and decryption keys or to even run at all. Dolphin Emulator was maybe in trouble for bundling and distributing the Wii's common key, but this emerged so late that seemingly no action was taken against them.

>>11970026
>But that's just how video games work.
That could also happen with movies:
>"this movie requires our innovative media player to display 7.1 stereo audio in the way the creators intended, and only this specific TV brand in conjunction with our player can reproduce the colors as the director envisioned"
But that kinda thing wouldn't fly. It does with video-games. There's nothing magical about video games that makes them work like that, as shown with emulators, or running windows games on linux and mac for example.

I hope the next thread is 'how are 3rd party controllers legal?!'

>>11969996
It's not. If someone were to crack open a PS5 and copy everything in it, that would be infringing on the patent and that would be violating the law. But if you manage to make a machine that's different internally but achieves the same result (playing PS5 games) then that is legal. You (generally) can't patent the end result, just the process/method. Letting someone patent the end result would lead to absurdities like only one company being able to make a machine that will toast a piece of bread when it's inserted into a slot, or only one company being able to make a lightbulb.

>>11969971
>I don't see how using an emulator isn't still a crime. You have effectively pirated the video game console itself
DOSbox is a good example of a emulator that sees widespread "legitimate use." PC games from that era that are being sold today are run through it.

>>11969937 (OP)
what an absolutely dogshit thread that will get 300 replies

>>11969971
>>11970036
This is just a long way of me explaining that emulators are legal because they don't bundle copyrighted data and can be operated without them.
The onus is on the user to provide legally sourced data to play emulated games, the game ROM / ISO files from dumps of their own media, and the BIOS / firmware files from their hardware.

More recent hardware like the 3DS and Switch have encrypted files and require decryption keys to run.
The Switch emulator Yuzu and 3DS emulator Citra got into shit because their software incorporated support for the decryption keys, making it possible to run encrypted games real-time.
Newer 3DS emulation efforts are refusing to do this and instead require that you provide it already decrypted 3DS games, which is a task you can perform on a soft-modded 3DS system using its own resources, or through other PC tools if you dump all your own shit.

Whilst 3DS and Switch are obviously not retro, the decryption angle bears mentioning in emulation legality discussions.
Thankfully everything 6th generation and earlier, this doesn't really apply.

>>11970026
>but if you were to do it with a game that's still on the market, you're undercutting the original creator and making it harder - if not impossible - to make money off their creation.
They choose to get into a line of work where we can copy the output of their labor for free and with no effort. If I buy a game at all it should be considered charity, like giving money to street performers who are also doing their work for free to any passerby who stops to listen. Or paying for a 4chan account. If that's not ok with them, they can try to get a real job.

>>11970063
What is a "real job" exactly?

>>11970070
Anything where we can't just get the output of their labor for free without stealing. Otherwise they can make their peace with the fact that many will do just that.

>>11970031
I just explained how the ubiquitous "PC" came about exactly by the same principle as console cloning

>>11969937 (OP)
don’t care, still emulating

>>11970008
Dude, consider 2 things.
1. The fact that "you can only play console games on a respective console" is itself a pretty shady practice. Anything "proprietary" is generally frowned upon for this reason.
You seem to be defending "ownership", but this rabbit hole goes deeper than you think. Take it too far, and you get modern gaming—you don't own anything you bought, including hardware (see Switch 2).
People like you generally flip their shit when told they can't buy used games.
2. "Reverse engineering" PS5 is a stupidly bad idea, it's gonna be extremely complicated to recreate everything, and Sony basically sells it at a loss already. At this point, just buy a PC. Reverse engineering generally only goes for retro consoles because they were relatively simple in design

Nothing copyrighted is being infringed. No trademark is being violated either.

When the emulators start being tailored to play new games on current console though, it can quickly become a legal issue since it's basically making the console purchase itself unnecessary.

>>11969937 (OP)
The console is basically an API which software interfaces with. APIs have been deemed not copyrightable. Emulators are potentially still subject to patents though.

You can't rely on courts or judges understanding emulation or what emulators do.
That's why the Nintendo lawyers play up how much "money is being stolen from them" when people download ROMs of games they refuse to even sell.

>>11970241
>That's why the Nintendo lawyers play up how much "money is being stolen from them" when people download ROMs of games they refuse to even sell.
They are losing money from it though. If ROMs didn't exist, a lot more people would be subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online to play those old games.

>>11970019
>The PC as a concept itself is the result of IBM allowing competitors to clone its architecture with "IBM Compatible" parts.
"allowing"
More like losing in court trying to stop them.

>>11970146
>Nothing copyrighted is being infringed. No trademark is being violated either.
In theory. But it's emulation's dirty little secret that emulators tend to achieve nothing more than displaying a few fucked up title screens for years and then all of a sudden out of nowhere we're in game. Why? It definitely wasn't because the SDK just leaked, oh no. Our rag tag bunch of international github submitters would NEVER use proprietary leaked code to learn how a system worked and then use that knowledge to go from a handful of stubbed out functions to a complete reimplementation of the SDK in a long weekend.
Proving it is tricky but far from impossible. Usually Sony/Nintendo doesn't have to go that far because these geniuses so often just commit copyrighted content straight to their personal githubs and then get their entire work fruit of the poison tree'd.

>>11969937 (OP)
Let me set you straight then, OP. Emulators are inherently legal and stay legal so long as new games are not emulated, the user already owns the games, the versions of the games are rare originals hidden by their publishers, or for preserving them for posterity. Furthermore, emulators are always legal when used in conjunction with ROMs of which payment has been received.
Now, see as how I've been playing arcade games since 1979-and got steadily ripped off of numerous quarters due to improper maintenance-all of my "pirating" (as if I'm using weapons against anyone or committing rape;et al) is wholly legal.

>inb4 what of home consoles

It's all fine so long as the companies aren't currently making money from them, but if they don't care, neither should you. Btw stealing is depriving someone of their property, which is wrong and is when someone breaks into a video game store and takes merchandise. That is wrong.
However downloading ancient games that aren't being sold and may never be sold again is a moral act of preserving history and culture, with the side benefit of having fun.

>>11970261
>If ROMs didn't exist, a lot more people would be subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online to play those old games.

Do you have any idea of what you just said? lol

>>11970527
Love military madness, music was nuts

>>11970637
Oh yeah, not many soundtracks are as appropriate. It makes you feel the tension; the final assault music on the last stage was a surprise too. You may want to check out the remake on the PS1. It's quite solid, even superior in some respects.

>>11969971
>That is completely insane. By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?
That is why console manufacturers have started using encryption. Which is how Nintendo was able to successfully shut down Yuzu and Ryujinx.

>>11969937 (OP)
>I don't understand how emulators are legal
you speak the english language and seem to be decent at typing it and comprehending it, what is it that you don't understand about someone sitting down and recreating every little component inside a device down to the way it interfaces with dumps of the cartridges? nintendo and sega don't own every little thing inside of their consoles, they didn't come up with everything either, they basically designed the product and what it does, they picked off the shelf parts in order to achieve their intended result. you should be less concerned with how it's legal and more concerned with how fucking based it is that we live in a world where people do these things. does it make sense now?? i'm capable of explaining more but i don't have all the time.. maybe this is the post that will send you off on a quest to read more and figure some shit out

>>11969937 (OP)
>They literally enable you to play a console and its games without purchasing either the console or the games.
By that logic, VCRs should have been made illegal because they let you copy movies.

Or cd burners.

Oh wait, the MPAA and RIAA DID try to get the above banned, and failed. You want to side with them?

Or copying machines and scanners because you can copy a book.

Or printers because you can print out copyrighted material.

Or pencils because you could still copy a book by hand with one.

Just because something CAN be used illegally does not make it illegal, since otherwise everything would be illegal since just about everything can be used in an illegal manner, such as a murder weapon. It's only illegal when something was created illegally (and even then that only falls on the creator, not the users) or it's only purpose is to do something illegal, emulators existed for legitimate compatibility reasons years before anyone ever made one that emulates a videogame console.

>>11969971
>By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?
Technically yes if someone else makes a device to play PS5 games, but only if it's a clean room implementation (in other words, they didn't dissect and reverse-engineer a PS5 to copy it) or include anything copyrighted such as the BIOS... though even that has exceptions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc.

Sony would sue out the ass though of course, even if it's actually legal, because the way courts work here is whoever has more money can just ignore the law and steamroll the smaller ones with even just the threat of a lawsuit to get them to stop doing anything they don't like. That's actually that happened with Bleem. Sony filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, losing almost all of them, but in the end Bleem was forced to shut down because all the legal fees bankrupted them. Course, thanks to that move they set precedent that emulators are legal so it was somewhat of a won the battle but lost the war scenario.

>>11969937 (OP)
>This seems like a straight-forward case of piracy to me, how on Earth did a court of law ever rule otherwise?
Judges aren't 12yo tards like you

>>11969971
>By that logic, could any random company manufacture their own copy of a PlayStation 5, sell it openly, and it would be "legal"?
Technically yes if someone else makes a device to play PS5 games, but only if it's a clean room implementation (in other words, they didn't dissect and reverse-engineer a PS5 to copy it) or include anything copyrighted such as the BIOS... though even that has exceptions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc.

Sony would sue out the ass though of course, even if it's actually legal, because the way courts work here is whoever has more money can just ignore the law and steamroll the smaller ones with even just the threat of a lawsuit to get them to stop doing anything they don't like. That's actually that happened with Bleem. Sony filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, losing almost all of them, but in the end Bleem was forced to shut down because all the legal fees bankrupted them. Course, thanks to that move they set precedent that emulators are legal so it was somewhat of a won the battle but lost the war scenario.

>If you download Dolphin emulator, you have pretty much just stolen a GameCube.
You've seen those "you wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy ads right? And how people mercilessly mocked them with "You wouldn't download a car" parodies? Yeah, same shit applies here. You have not "stolen" anything when you download something, stealing legally requires a physical object be taken. And no, "downloading a gamecube" does not count as physically taking one.

>>11969974
Fair use kicks in if a work is transformative, there is a gray area but at this point streaming is so big that good luck making it ruled illegal, most publishers have instead gotten on the bandwagon since it's basically free advertising.

>>11969953
> In practice video game companies still bully the competition if they try, when they can do it.
So video game companies are criminals abusing force, thus promoting emulators is fight against crime, very good thing. Criminals e.g. game companies must be punished by law, or by people if law is on criminal's side. And if they not repent and reform they must be destroyed, wiped from the face of humanity as criminal scum they are.

>>11969937 (OP)
The underlying argument is ethical. Nintendo and Sony must be punished, in fact destroyed. Piracy via emulation is a means of doing this. Thus, emulation is not only admissible but mandatory, morally speaking.

>>11970008
>It just seems messed up to me that a company doesn't have full ownership of hardware that they themselves designed and manufactured.
They do, they just don't have veto power to deny anyone from playing a game made for their console in any way other than ones they personally approve. That would be a laughable abuse of power.

>>11970019
>The PC as a concept itself is the result of IBM allowing competitors to clone its architecture with "IBM Compatible" parts.
IBM didn't "allow" it, they were clean room clones, which were legal (though done in a shady way), if you were alive back during that era you would see software with system specs that said something like "For IBM Compatible" or "For IBM Clones". Any computer today that runs on X86 architecture is basically a descendent of those clones, it's the reason that design became the dominant standard for any PC that does not have an Apple logo on it.

>>11970030
Technically, those are super common nowadays because the patents have expired. Also because the CPU it used was based on a standard one at the time.

>>11970241
>That's why the Nintendo lawyers play up how much "money is being stolen from them" when people download ROMs of games they refuse to even sell.
Also the suspiciously specific wording of "emulators designed to play illegally obtained games". NO emulator is specifically designed to ONLY work with games that were acquired illegally, but by wording it like that they make it sound like emulators themselves are illegal when instead they are presenting the absurd scenario of emulators that were specifically designed to ONLY play a game obtained illegally.

>>11970689
>Which is how Nintendo was able to successfully shut down Yuzu and Ryujinx.
Nintendo shut down Yuzu by proving they were secretly sharing ROMs on their Discord, including of at the time unreleased games and basically gave them a way to get out without being assraped like Doug Bowser was by walking away and letting Nintendo take their code. As for Ryujinx is very obvious the dev was paid off. He was in freaking Brazil, the courts there honor Nintendo's copyrights about as much as China would honor Japanese or US copyrights. They likely offered him a sack of cash to drop it, what would you do if you was in a poor country, stick to your "morals" about continuing to work on a emulator for game system that will be obsolete soon and likely the emulator itself get replaced someday and itself become obsolete, or drop it and walk away with a lot of your money problems solved in a poor country?

>>11969970
I remember being required to purchase original sheet music for solo and ensemble contests back when I was in public school band. I assume it was for legal reasons, and the organizing body didn't want to be held liable for encouraging illegally copied sheet music to be used in a sanctioned competition.

>>11969937 (OP)
Nice try, Nintendo.

>>11970843
I don't know about the legal side, but practically speaking, its probably more that the "organizing body" didn't have money to pay for the sheet music for you, and they didn't want you to be reading from some bootleg shit. Its like in college all the students need to have the same edition of the book so the prof can say "turn to page 172" and you're all seeing the same thing.

>>11969953
“VHS viewer”

Surely this is bait? Do people call vcrs vhs viewers now???

>>11971168
If you are going to be anal about it, you can play a VHS in machines that are not strictly VCRs

>>11971220
... such as?

>>11970817
t. 12yo armchair lawyer

>>11971303
A VTR
Which is just an old name for what is essentially a VCR

>>11971168
The correct term is VCPs, video cassette players

>>11970824
>Nintendo and Sony must be punished, in fact destroyed.
No mention of Microsoft, eh? Hmmm, I wonder who's behind this post?

>>11969937 (OP)
Lmao cry about it.

>>11971884
Fuck I forgot the torrent rom set link
https://rentry.co/1g1r

>>11970002
>Zsnes_win_screenshot.png

I don't understand how clothes hangers are legal. With a pair of pliers and few minutes you can fashion it into a device that can turn a semi-automatic gun into a fully automatic. FUCKING SAVE ME NIGGERMANNNNNN. AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>11969937 (OP)
shill elsewhere nintendo