Emulation now legal in the US! Sorta.
For years now, fans of older consoles have created emulators that let them play old favorites without trying to buy a console that's been obsolete for 10 years, and then trying to get it to work. If you look hard enough, you can find emulators for every major, minor, and obscure console out there. If you want, you can even get emulators that run in your iPod. As large as this community has been, it has always been illegal - until now.
The US Copyright Office has issued a few Copyright Exemptions which are effective today. There's a lot of junk involving unlocking cellphones, and copying DVD's for educational uses, but there's one important section that will concern us gamers. In an attempt to deal with "Computer Obsolescence", and software that was built to run on a system that is now obsolete can have it's copy protection circumvented. That's right, you can hack it. Legally.
Well, maybe not. The current batch of console contain built in emulators that let you run games originally designed for another console. That darn Wii covers 5 consoles by itself. So how will these built in emulators effect this new law? I guess we'll find out the next time someone tries to shut down an emulator site.
2 comments:
Wii is so cool. I didn't realize it would be able to do these emulations. I can't wait! Thanks for posting this.
Best,
Bo Naidal
From what I gather The Nintendo WII's New Emulation Function, DOES NOT EMULATE the Original Released Format(s) !
"Dumb For Nintendo ! They would have actually Outlawed the Legal Emulation of many of the various "Obsolete" systems by emulating the original format(s) On the Wii,
Like what is traded as a copy of the original format version Known as A "ROM" Format today!"
What they have done is create a JAVA Engine that runs a JAVA VERSION REMAKE of the original game(s), Therefor the So called Emulation feature is just a Myth !
Nintendo's Wii allows you to connect to there special website to purchase & Download the Retro Games as they are recreated in the JAVA Code. "Maybe so Wii owners Can't just download roms from any emulation site! Although im sure it's only a matter of time before someone Creates a Java Emulator to download to the Wii's Hard disk & Run the "ORIGIONAL ROM" From a JAVA Emulator(s)anyway."
http://www.southcentralemulation.tk
Tidbits: It's possible to emulate a computer program for most older game consoles on a newer computer by first copying the game's data to your computer. But the EmuFAQ (http://www.void.jump.org/EmuFAQ/mod2_pt2.htm) cites several cases in United States case law that would in its theory make game copiers illegal to own under almost any circumstance, primarily citing Atari v. JS&A Group (1983) and Sega v. MAPHIA (1994) as evidence that copiers have no substantial non-infringing use. I claim that those decisions are based on legal theories that may not apply everywhere, and that possession and use of devices that copy Game Paks does not infringe copyright under Title 17, United States Code, section 117 (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/117.html), if you dump only Game Paks that you have purchased and do not distribute the backups.
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