Still, being able to argue they're not for profit is what typically has protected emulators from being sued to oblivion (and with Nintendo, even that's risky)...

Yeah, the archival argument won’t fly here.

Has being non-profit been a legal defense used somewhere before? At least in the US the case law is based on commercial, profit-driven emulators being explicitly ruled as legal when Sony tried suing them. I see this said constantly and I think it's genuinely just the result of propaganda from Nintendo or something.

I'm not sure they can in this instance. The reason they could sue the Switch emulator team was because they were using a proprietary encryption key.

I don't think the NES had that, and as long as you own the game, emulation is legal.

Also, this might be considered transformative use since the devs have to create the 3D profile by hand.

Nintendo was able to sue palworld using a patent that didn't exist before palworlds release. It's not right, but they can do whatever they want regardless of what the law says.

That's not the lawsuit that's being discussed. It's the Yuzu Switch emulator lawsuit.

yeah, i know. Point is that Nintendo can do whatever they want with the flimsyest excuse.

as long as you own the game, emulation is legal.

People say this, but I believe it is mostly technically untrue. It'd be a relatively easy argument to say that a downloaded ROM that isn't exactly the digital copy YOU purchased with a license would be seen as not legal.

However some people talk about literally ripping the game off the physical device themselves, hence copying their own copy of it. Now you are in grey territory of making copies of copyrighted materials, and in the case of more modern games like the last decade, they almost assuredly have language that specifies you don't actually own the code and all that.

All I'm saying is be careful and probably refrain from repeating the fallacy that owning a game makes emulation of it legal, because that implies having the ROM is legal and that's doubtful.

Copying your own game and materials for backup purposes is no grey area, and neither is development or use of emulators, and panicky, uninformed spewing of gut feelings are how public knowledge of your actual rights gets muddled into people with zero knowledge waxing poetic about how they THINK it works because they like games and think that makes their ramblings valuable.

They were able to do that because Palworld is made by Japanese devs, and they used specifically Japanese patent law. Doesn't apply here.

It also works with romhacks if the code isn't changed too much. Ducktales 2 co-op works like a charm!

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

In the USA, it is illegal to make a backup copy of any of your media when the original contains any form of DRM.

On any media where DRM wasn’t used, you’re okay to create a backup copy.

The law is different everywhere though.

The emulation itself is legal, assuming you’re not using any copyrighted code, BIOS, etc. to make work.

The backup copy of your game that you need can be made legally as well, but in the USA, if the source contains a form of DRM, then you cannot legally make a copy.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201

After the DMCA passed there was a case of a judge finding it legal to bypass DRM to make backup copies, but illegal to distribute the software used to do so. I have no idea if there was ever further clarification or new law about this. That was like 20 years ago. It was part of a case going after the company who was making the software, but the name slips my mind. I'll try to look it up if anyone cares enough and wants to look for something more than hearsay on a forum.

I would be interested in that case if you find it. I spend a lot of time thinking about emulation and the surrounding stuff.

Didn’t know about this. This is amazing.

$9 on sale, but $15 normally.

Not to be a stickler, but this does not say making copies is illegal - it makes circumvention of drm methods illegal. You can make drm'd copies as you like as long as you don't circumvent the drm method. If your game isn't encrypted, and the emulator doesn't implement the drm, you haven't circumvented drm - you are playing your legal copy on a device that does not implement the drm. It's distinct from removing the drm from a device that implements it.

I do get that most consoles encrypt their software these days, but let's be clear - it's not as simple as "DRM means you have no rights."

Zelda 1 seems an odd omission from the supported games. I wonder if some games are harder to implement than others or something.

The law is all about those technicalities.

I don’t agree with any of that noise around the DMCA for the record. I feel like we effectively lost our right to archival copies.

On a PC, what you said about copying the DRM along with the data is largely true. It is possible sometimes to copy the DRM and reproduce the image with the DRM intact. It also might not be depending upon the copy protection mechanism. Commercial video DVDs used to employ tricks with the storage sector that made it almost impossible to properly copy by a standard computer disc drive. You could get around this with additional program like AnyDVD, but that was only available for sale outside the USA because of the fact that it allowed you to bypass DRM.

And like you said, the content can be encrypted. Decrypting it is, IIRC, considered bypassing DRM - at least in the USA.

Again, I don’t agree that this is how things should be, but the legality of emulation is complicated depending upon what we’re talking about emulating.