Many people argue online that if a game isn’t currently available on the market, downloading a ROM is legal. What If a Game Isn’t Currently On the Market? “Then it is market harm, because Nintendo should be able to sell to those people.”īecause of this, it might be a good idea, even if you own a game, to avoid downloading ROMs from peer-to-peer networks, where you’re sharing a copy of the game as you download it. “Once you’re distributing a ROM, most of the people downloading it probably don’t have legal copies of the game,” said Bambauer. So is ripping a ROM you own any different than downloading one? Probably not, says Bambauer: “In both cases what you’re doing is creating an additional copy.” What If You Rip Your Own ROMs?Ī common argument online is that extracting a ROM from a cartridge you own is perfectly legal, but downloading ROMs from the web is a crime. Devices like the $60 Retrode let anyone extract a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis game over USB, and state their legality over downloads as a key selling point. After all, ripping a CD you own with iTunes or other software is broadly considered legal, at least in the United States. “This is by no means a slam dunk argument,” said Bambauer, “But it’s by no means a silly one.” After all, Nintendo could argue that by emulating the game on your phone, instead of buying their official port of a game, they’re losing money.īut, while there is no precedent specific to gaming, there is in other markets. “In the music industry, everyone accepts that space shifting is legal,” Bambauer notes. ![]() And Bambauer is quick to admit it’s not a perfect one. Now, this isn’t black and white just a potential legal argument. That’s fairly clear cut, right? And it more or less aligns with the language regarding ROMs on Nintendo’s website, where the company argues that downloading any ROM, whether you own the game or not, is illegal. It’s no different from downloading a movie or TV show that you don’t own. “Let’s assume I have an old Super Nintendo, and I love Super Mario World, so I download a ROM and play it,” said Bambauer. To begin: downloading a copy of a game you don’t own is not legal. The Possible Exception for ROMs: Fair Use In the United States, copyright protects works for 75 years, meaning no major console titles will be public domain for decades.īut even ROMs exist in a bit of a grey area, according to Bambauer. (There are exceptions, of course, such as the BIOS files that are required by certain emulators to play games.)īut emulators aren’t useful without game files-or ROMs-and ROMs are almost always an unauthorized copy of of a video game that’s protected by copyright. An emulator is just a piece of software meant to emulate a game system-but most don’t contain any proprietary code. ![]() ![]() Despite what you may have heard, there’s not a lot of question as to whether emulators themselves are legal.
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