Are ROMs legal in the US?

Emulators are legal to download and use, however, sharing copyrighted ROMs online is illegal. There is no legal precedent for ripping and downloading ROMs for games you own, though an argument could be made for fair use.
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Has anyone gone to jail for downloading ROMs?

So, basically, under no circumstances is playing ROMs on an emulator legal. But no one has ever been prosecuted for it – not even once. Mind you, websites sourcing ROMs have often been asked to shut down.
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Are emulators legal in US?

The only illegal part of an emulator, is the ROM you are playing. If you take a ROM from a website, and play it. That is called piracy. Unless, you OWN the physical copy of the game, and use your own ROM you pulled from that cartridge/disc, it is illegal to play the ROMS.
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How do I legally get ROMs?

One way to acquire legal ROMs is backing up official copies of the games from owned physical medium using cart readers or modded consoles. As long as a physical copy is owned, it is considered to be legal to use a digital copy for personal use.
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Do ROMs count as piracy?

Pirate copies of game files are often referred to as “ROMs”. The uploading and downloading of pirate copies of Nintendo games is illegal.
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Game Theory: Are Your Mobile Games ILLEGAL?

What happens if you get caught with ROMs?

If you own a game physically, you are likely to emulate or own a ROM of the game. However, there's no legal precedent in the United States to say it's illegal. There is no trial on record of any company going to court over emulators or ROMs and their use.
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Is downloading ROMs illegal if you own the game?

No. Any unauthorized copy of a game is a copyright violation. Places try to make up laws to allow for it, but that does not make it true as actualy copyright laws already show such games and emulators to be a violation of said copyright laws.
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Will Nintendo sue me for downloading ROMs?

It is illegal to download a Nintendo ROM from the internet whether or not you own an authentic copy of that game.
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Can you be sued for downloading a ROM?

Emulators are legal to download and use, however, sharing copyrighted ROMs online is illegal. There is no legal precedent for ripping and downloading ROMs for games you own, though an argument could be made for fair use.
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Is it illegal to stream ROMs?

unless the game was classified as “abandonware” then your possession of the rom is illegal, unless you own a copy of the game itself in which case you may be able to claim your rom is just a backup copy you use to prevent damaging the original. broadcasting it for profit would be a seriously stupid thing to do.
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Has anyone been sued for emulation?

There have been a handful of emulator lawsuits; described below are three emulator-related legal incidents, one of which is highly significant in that it may finally be the case that sets the precedent for all such cases to follow.
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Are Nintendo ROMs legal?

It is 100% legal to create roms via cartridges you've purchased. The illegal part comes in when you try to give them to other people for free. That's piracy, and Nintendo has sued people for distributing their games for free.
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Are Dolphin ROMs legal?

Long answer: Downloading commercial games is illegal and thus strongly frowned upon by the Dolphin developers. To prevent legal issues, this includes gray areas like downloading games which you purchased earlier.
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Why is emulation legal?

While emulation software itself are legal, emulating games is only so when legitimately purchasing the game physically and ripping the contents. Freely downloading or uploading game ROMs across various internet sites is considered to be a form of piracy, and users may be sued for copyright infringement.
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Is it illegal to play emulated games?

Emulators are legal. images of system BIOS are usually copyrighted, and almost all games are copyrighted, but the emulators are legal.
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Is it legal to emulate Nintendo games?

Since the emulator itself doesn't include a copy of that crucial copyrighted BIOS software, it can generally be freely distributed without much legal risk.
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What files are illegal to download?

Illegal downloading (also known as piracy) is when a user downloads a copy of paid content for free without permission from the owner. This includes music, TV shows, movies, video games, audiobooks, ebooks and sports broadcasts.
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Is dumping games legal?

Are dumping games legal? In the USA, it is considered legal to make ROM backups of games you physically own for archival/preservation purposes. It is considered illegal to distribute copyrighted ROMs without a license to do so.
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What is considered illegal downloading?

Illegal downloading refers to the act of downloading or sharing copyrighted material, such as music, movies, TV shows, and software, without the permission of the copyright owner. This is often done through peer-to-peer file-sharing networks or other means of online distribution.
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Is it illegal to play Pokemon ROMs?

A backup or image you make of your own game is legal. Downloading a ROM or backup off the Internet is always illegal unless the copyright holder authorized it.
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How does Nintendo feel about ROMs?

Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same”. So, it seems that Nintendo thinks that emulation and ROMs hurts development and innovation.
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Can ROMs be malware?

The emulators themselves are more likely to give you viruses or otherwise compromise your system than the roms are. Of course if you download from the official sources rather than some random mirror site, you're usually pretty safe.
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Why is it illegal to download ROMs?

Game companies and copyright law don't care if they don't publish or make profit of their old games anymore, it's their copyright and they will consider this as a form of piracy.
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Are PS2 ROMs illegal?

Is Downloading PS2 ROMs Illegal? Yes, it is. However, at least in the USA, people won't get in trouble purely for downloading PS2 ISOs directly, because intent to pirate can't be proven.
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Is downloading discontinued games illegal?

In some cases, the games may be considered abandonware and the copyright holder may have given up their rights to the game. However, in other cases, the copyright holder may still own the rights to the game and downloading it could be considered piracy.
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