Is emulation illegal if you own the game?

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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How illegal is game 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 it legal to download a game you already own?

After all, you already paid for it, and you still have the copy. While it's technically infringement to download it, in this case there was zero harm, as long as you keep it to yourself. Other examples of not piracy.
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Can you get sued for using an emulator?

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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Emulators and Roms are they LEGAL?

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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Has anyone been sued for emulating games?

Emulators aren't necessarily illegal, but pirating games to play on them is. But Nintendo said in its lawsuit that there's no way to legal way to use Yuzu. Nintendo argued that Yuzu executes codes that "defeat" Nintendo's security measures, including decryption using "an illegally-obtained copy of prod.keys."
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Are no CD cracks illegal?

No-CD cracks have legal uses, such as creating backups of legally owned software (a user right by law in many countries) or avoiding the inconvenience of placing a CD or DVD-ROM in the drive every time the software is being used, although they can also be used to circumvent laws in many countries by allowing the ...
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Are Pokemon ROMs legal?

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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Can I remake a game legally?

Copying a game directly would likely infringe on copyright, as games are typically protected under copyright law. However, you can take inspiration from a game's mechanics or concepts without necessarily infringing on copyright, as long as you approach it carefully and mindfully.
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Why emulators are not illegal?

Emulators are legal because they don't copy any of the original coding from the consoles they emulate. They're built from scratch to be able to read and play files from the original games.
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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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Are handheld game emulators legal?

According to all legal precedents, emulation is legal within the United States. However, unauthorized distribution of copyrighted code remains illegal, according to both country-specific copyright and international copyright law.
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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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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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How 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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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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Is it legal to emulate old Pokémon games?

Emulation itself is legal, as you're only simulating an older machine.
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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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Is cracking always illegal?

The distribution of cracked copies is illegal in most countries. There have been lawsuits over cracking software. It might be legal to use cracked software in certain circumstances. Educational resources for reverse engineering and software cracking are, however, legal and available in the form of Crackme programs.
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Can you recover a cracked CD?

Optical disc recovery involves the use of specialized software and hardware tools to read the data from damaged CDs and DVDs. These tools can bypass damaged areas on the disc surface and extract the data from the remaining readable sections.
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Can a cracked CD be repaired?

No, and for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the tracks on each side of the break must be perfectly aligned. Further, data is lost — the breaking of the disc tore the pits and lands at the edge of the break (or, if a recordable disc, tore the media layer).
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Is emulation legal Nintendo?

Therefore, the copyrights of games are valid even if the games are not found on store shelves, and using, copying and/or distributing those games is a copyright infringement. While we recognize the passion that players have for classic games, supporting emulation also supports the illegal piracy of our products.
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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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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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