Is it legal to have video game emulators and roms on your computer?

emulation is a grey area in legality, at least as far as downloading and playing old gaming software is concerned (eg 8 to 16 bit- zx spectrum, c64 etc). its legal to download and use emulators- many games are even made only for emulators, and were never created at the time of the original system or on the high st. these are public domain (pd) roms- eg with people creating software for the c64 and zx spectrum that will run only on emulators that usually do not wish to sell for profit.

most websites that offer old games as roms stay operational as games companies know that if old software no longer available in any other way is offered (that is not being sold for profit), no real harm is being done, and being of a very retro nature most gamers would never consider buying anyway. its illegal when these websites are selling old games without the original authors permission for profit (eg many games on one dvd to play on your emulator), and the original owners wish the site to take down games (eg the owner may wish to sell them on new systems in the future as part of a retro collection), and the website refuses. with newer consoles (eg nintendo wii, which is now offering a 'virtual console' that lets you play old games on its system) this may lead to a crackdown on websites that even offer older games, for cash or not...

other websites offering brand new games as roms for free or selling (eg DS and GBA roms on cd) is a different matter, and these websites get taken down all the time as a result of lawsuits, but its probably the case of one dissapearing and ten popping up straight afterwards. depending on where these websites are hosted, their country may also have different lawsuits for old or even new software as roms.

most rom websites that do stay up try and get around the legal issues by having a message on the first page saying you cannot enter unless you own the original game, and/or stating that their website is private, etc, but even then games manufacturing companies can sometimes insist that even if you have the original game, you should not download the rom version.

with retro roms to play on emulators, its up to you to decide, not all old games are still protected by law or still have a copyright license by their creators. other games have simply not been sold for years and most consider it not to be a major issue to download them just to play if its the only way to do it (try searching for legal roms or abandonware roms for your emulators). not all software companies that do still have the copyright object to downloading their old games, but their lawers could always try and persuade them otherwise to change their minds in the future. its up to you to decide!

It is illegal to own any ROMs, even if you own the original game. That's Nintendo's stance anyway. The problem lies in what people do with the ROMs. When they use a SNES ROM to play on a PC, that's copyright infringements because the game is used on something that it wasn't meant for.

It's legal to own an emulator because an emulator by itself doesn't do anything.

Websites that have ROMs can stay in operation because the video game industry hasn't been cracking down on those sites. The watchdog for the video game industry hasn't been doing its job. You can't even email it to report sites that contains ROMs. The RIAA and MPAA have been cracking down on sites that offers pirated music and movies, but the ESA hasn't been doing anything.

First, no, you will never stop video game piracy. No matter HOW inexpensive or available they made the games, there would still be some who would do it just because they could, not because they needed to. Why allow the questions? Freedom of speech for one; although discussing how to hack a game could be viewed as conspiracy (also illegal) it would be very difficult to prove in a court of law. And Yahoo cannot monitor EVERY question for content; there are just too many. They use language filters to keep out the worst of the trash, but some always slips by. Do I support it? I have obtained hacked games/music/movies in the past, so I am as guilty as anyone. I don't personally DO the hacking, but knowing that it is a 'stolen' product makes me just as guilty. If it wasn't available, then I would purchase the item normally I guess.

Yes it is legal, but only if you actually own the games. The websites are allowed to stay operational because they normally have this disclaimer somewhere on their website stating this, and that they are not responsible for you and your actions, including downloading games to which you do not actually own.

Roms are not illegal but in some states the other is so watch out. if you get caught with illegal software or at least using it you can get find 100,000 $ it would suck. so stick to roms. i hope i helped u. plz vote me for best answer

it is iilegal if you dont have the actual game thats why its hard for emulation sites to stay open the ones that do probavly own the games or put them up for download iilegally