SvennoJ said:
CladInShadows said:
What are the legalities and ethics around emulation?
I'll be honest and say legally I don't know. Emulation seems to exist in a legally grey area. It's legal to use an emulator. It's legal to dump your own BIOS, but illegal to download a BIOS. It's "legal" to back up your Wii games, but "illegal" to download a Wii game you already own. Ethically, emulation is A-OK in my book. For me it all comes down to whether the creators are paid for their efforts when I play a game. I'll take the Wii example. I own a Wii. I also own a Wii U. So I own two systems capable of playing Wii games. Nintendo has my money. Two games I have emulated the most on Dolphin were Xenoblade and Skyward Sword. I can look to my right and see both of those games sitting on my shelf. I paid for them. Does it then matter that I had to acquire a Wii BIOS through shady means? Does it matter that I had to download the Skyward Sword ISO file to play it? Legally, I have broken the law. But ethically, I have done nothing wrong. I am playing a game that I have purchased, for a system that I have purchased. I just happen to be playing it on another piece of hardware because the results are more pleasing to the eye. I have since gotten a DVD drive that is capable of ripping Wii ISO files, so Xenoblade was ripped legally. So, if I were to delete my downloaded Zelda ISO and then rip it using this new drive, does that make everything better? Legally, I suppose it does. Ethically, there's no fucking difference. Not one bit. If I were to gain the means to dump my own BIOS and replace my current one with THE EXACT SAME FILE, I'd be OK in the eyes of the law, but otherwise nothing changes. Nintendo has long since gotten my money. That amount of money will never have changed no matter how I was able to go about playing these games on my PC. They are unaffected by my actions. If anybody here can tell me a legitimate reason why there is a difference, then maybe I'll change my tune. Otherwise, we're just arguing semantics. I pay my money to the creators. I play their game. End of transaction.
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I applaud your efforts to do the right thing. The only reason I can give you, is that you support piracy by downloading roms. You add to the popularity of them, adding another download to the tally, justifying others to do the same. Others that might not own a legal copy.
To give an analogy. Over the years I have found that the best way to keep a publicly accessible space clean is not by putting up signs or bins etc, but by making sure it is clean in the first place. When people see other people do something, they'll more inclined to do it themselves. When they find it neat and tidy, they tend to want to keep it that way. If I clean it straigh way in spring I maybe take out a small plastic bag of trash and it stays nice. Wait a few weeks and there's a garbage bag full of crap around. It multiplies!
By downloading the Rom you legitimize downloading said roms in the eyes of others. So yes, ethically there is a small difference. Which is also why using emulators for brand new games shouldn't be advertised. Monkey see, monkey does. That's the human race.
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Yeah, that was the only reason I could think of as well. But honestly that argument doesn't hold much weight with me. I just did a quick search for the Skyward Sword ISO, since I don't remember where I got it from. None of the sites showed a download tally of any kind. I'll admit I didn't spend much time looking, though. So if we're talking about a download tally only visible to the owner of the site, then I suppose the owner would see an additional download from me. So in some miniscule way, I have validated the pirate's existence. Though I doubt I was the "make or break" statistic for any of the Wii or Gamecube games I have downloaded. PS1/PS2 games I always ripped on my own. And I suppose you could also make the argument that I am indirectly supporting piracy by giving one more download for Rawdump, which is the program I use to rip my Wii games today. But people are going to rip and pirate whether or not I download or rip games I have already paid for. I'm a small non-existent drop in the bucket of the piracy world.
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