Is emulating acceptable?

[Pemalite]

SvennoJ said:

I wouldn't say perfectly legal. Nintendo doesn't allow it for one

According to any Nintendo game manual:
Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international intellectual property laws. "Back-up" or "archival" copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software. Violators will be prosecuted.

This can be overidden by local law, for the US

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

It is an essential step to make a copy before being able to run Botw in the emulator, so therefore it should be allowed. That is IF a court of law rules that usage of the program in an emulator falls under "utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine" which is very broad language and emulators were likely never included in the intent of the law. Nintendo will definitely argue it is not essential to make a copy before utilization of the computer program with a machine, since there is the WiiU in which it works fine. "A machine" does not mean any or all machines.

So no perfectly legal it's not. Legal gray area until tested in court.

Copying a game is illegal.
Emulating a game is legal.

That's been tested in court. Aka. Bleem vs Sony.

Some countries like Australia (And a large chunk of Europe) have made it legal to make backup copy's of media you already own.

Some like the UK allowed for the creation of backup copies of Media provided you do not circumvent any Copy Protection schemes... Sadly. Even that has been made illegal now.


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You are right though, in the case of Emulating Breath of the Wild currently you do need to rip the game for CEMU to play nice with it... And the legalities of which will vary from region to region. (I.E. Legal for me. But maybe not for you as Canada tends to follow the US on these issues.)
Eventually though, CEMU will likely support running directly from Optical Disks, but it's early days yet.

Nintendo can say whatever it wants, it's EULA/ToS/Policy does not override your consumer rights or the legal system. That's a fact.