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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Can emulators get sued?

The emulator was sued for 'facilitating piracy at a colossal scale.' By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys.
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Can you get in trouble for emulation?

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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Is Nintendo switch emulation illegal?

“Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers,” a spokesperson for Nintendo told Kotaku last May. “This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo's protection measures and runs illegal copies of games.
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Is emulating a console illegal?

Yes, emulators are legal. But we all know that the overwhelming use of them is in illegal situations. What percentage of emulators are only used to play homebrewed games or commercial games that an individual has personally backed up? Almost all other uses are illegal.
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Has anyone been sued for emulation?

Is Dolphin EMU legal?

Projects like Dolphin are seemingly not illegal, given they can be used to run homebrew games and applications, developed by fans of an abandoned console. And the emulators themselves most often contain no pirated material or illegal software.
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Is it legal to rip your own ROMs?

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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Can I get in trouble for emulating switch games?

People making Nintendo emulators and Nintendo ROMs are helping publishers by making old games available that are no longer being sold by the copyright owner. This does not hurt anyone and allows gamers to play old favourites. What's the problem? The problem is that it's illegal.
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Why is Nintendo so anti emulation?

The federal lawsuit—filed Monday in the District Court of Rhode Island and first reported by Stephen Totilo—is the company's most expansive and significant argument yet against emulation technology that it alleges "turns general computing devices into tools for massive intellectual property infringement of Nintendo and ...
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Why did Nintendo sue Yuzu?

Nintendo argued in its lawsuit that "the vast majority of Yuzu users are using Yuzu to play downloaded pirated games in Yuzu," a fact that could have played against the emulator maker at trial even if non-infringing uses for the emulator do exist.
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Why isn t emulation illegal?

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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Why is emulation not piracy?

Technically, emulation is completely legal. GOG, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo all do it to uphold backward compatibility on newer platforms.
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How are handheld emulators legal?

Emulators typically do not include the BIOS or the firmware used to perform hardware initialization, runtime services and programs needed to emulate the given game. Therefore, emulators themselves are typically legal. If a specific emulator contained the BIOS image within the archive, this could be challenged.
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Why is emulating games 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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Are steam emulators legal?

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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Why did Apple ban emulators?

Apple isn't very clear on its reasoning, but the community believes Apple doesn't allow emulators on its app store because of the likelihood people are using them to play illegally distributed games.
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Does Nintendo go after emulators?

The coverage and development of the emulators has attracted notable attention from the industry, including Nintendo, as well as Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH which, at the request of publishing companies partnered with them concerned about piracy, has developed a digital rights management measure intended to prevent ...
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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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Is emulating on Xbox illegal?

A few months ago, the Xbox team announced that emulators running in "retail mode" would no longer be legal, and banned all emulators from the Microsoft Store.
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Is it legal to emulate Tears of the Kingdom?

It's worth noting that emulators aren't actually illegal, but piracy very much is. There's nothing illegal about creating and distributing an emulator, which is likely why Nintendo is using Tears of the Kingdom piracy as justification for the lawsuit.
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Is it illegal to emulate old Nintendo games?

For example the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) patents have expired. It is legal to emulate the hardware. However, most of the games for the system are still protected by copyright and you must own the original game.
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Has Nintendo sued anyone for downloading ROMs?

The company also won a lawsuit against RomUniverse and ordered the site to both destroy its pirated games and pay $2 million in damages. Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news.
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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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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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Why did Nintendo sue Dolphin?

This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo's protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.
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