You’ve probably seen the raging debate among gaming enthusiasts: emulation “right or wrong?” This video essay aims to explore, in detail, the morality of emu…
We’re not in danger of losing anything. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. How is passing new laws going to magically detect and erase all the PSX, SNES, MAME, etc ROMs that I play offline from my computer? How is it going to prevent people from torrenting these files through VPNs in countries that don’t give a rat’s ass or sharing encrypted ROMpacks? Jesus, even archive.org is chock full of retro games. Trying to get rid of ROM sharing at this point is like trying to dry up the ocean with a fistfull of cotton swabs.
Plus, emulation itself is not and cannot be illegal, barring a complete redesign of intellectual property law from its very foundation. Games themselves, BIOSes and encryption keys are protected, but an emulator is, in rough terms, “something that achieves the same result through different means”, and if that could be made illegal, then someone could patent the hammer and you’d have to pay a fine for nailing two things together with a rock.
We are in danger of losing things though. Sure, we arent going to lose super mario all stars, or any of the Tony Hawk series, but thats not the point behind providing legal protections.
Policy vacuums cause issues. There needs to be legal frameworks in place to properly protect media, as we have already addressed for other types of media. Having them accessible via piracy doesnt achieve the same goals, let alone protect rare/niche/alternate versions/prototypes/otherwise currently unwanted stuff
I agree with you, we need legal protections - but for the future. Even the E.T. game for Atari has ROMs easily available. It was just too easy up until recently (and still is with Nintendo hardware) to dump ROMs and write very functional emulators. I’d say nothing up to the PS3 era is in danger, but that’s a very partially educated guess.
barring a complete redesign of intellectual property law from its very foundation.
lets just hope theres no media empire with a legion of mouse-eared lawyers champing at the bit to do such a thing.
similarly i’d be a bit worried that any new legislation would be more strongly influenced by those rights-holding interest groups rather than consumers.
Imagine someone in 50 years who wants a rom from the 80s. will they be able to get it easily?
It’d be nice if it was as easy as getting hold of a brothers grimm story.
You’re forgetting that patent law applies to industrial property across every sector of the economy. This is a technology issue that goes far beyond entertainment media.
oh right. i thought it was about copyright
How is passing new laws going to magically detect and erase all the PSX, SNES, MAME, etc ROMs that I play offline from my computer?
By making laws that say it is ok to arrest/jail/fine you for having them. What we need are laws that say “this activity is ok, because these products are no longer worth anything to companies”
Plus, emulation itself is not and cannot be illegal, barring a complete redesign of intellectual property law from its very foundation. Games themselves, BIOSes and encryption keys are protected, but an emulator is, in rough terms, “something that achieves the same result through different means”, and if that could be made illegal, then someone could patent the hammer and you’d have to pay a fine for nailing two things together with a rock.
Ancient Luddite politicians will say it’s ridiculous to compare software to hammers, then they will call the internet a series of tubes, throw snow on the US House floor, and pay the Pentagon $40k for a hammer.
Sorry but that just isn’t realistic, no matter how effective it is at pushing your anger buttons.
The Video Game History Foundation conducted a study that showed that 87% of video games are commercially unavailable and therefore in danger from a preservationist point of view. To summarize, they want allowances built into copyright law to provide the same level of preservation and accessibility that other media, like books and movies, enjoy. The Completionist recently did a video on it with members of the foundation that talk about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyhsZE6QIJ4
Nerrel also has a good video that touches on how emulation is a gray area with court case rulings that contradict on another: https://youtu.be/yj9Gk84jRiE
There is absolutely no legitimate reason why emulation should be morally wrong, as it has been proven many times not to significantly impact sales. However, it makes some rich people and their working-class simps very mad, so I guess our hands are tied.
@Metaright It’s not the emulation that’s the problem, but distributing the games and firmware has copyright issues. And that is why its in danger for the future. Many games are not available to purchase and the only way to play them is through piracy. Many people are not willing to do piracy.
This right here is why copyright term needs to be shortened. Drastically. Maybe 15 years.
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I don’t think emulation is going anywhere. Well, it may become more illegal than it already is, but that’s not going to stop many people from continuing. We are already too good at file/software sharing and preservation.
The ‘legal’ part of emulation (with precedent) is the development of emulator software through reverse engineering a console system. The angle Nintendo+co is most likely to attack is that emulator software allows users to circumvent first-party security restrictions that are meant to make games run only on authorized hardware, thus violating the DMCA.
@ganoo_slash_linux The problem with emulation isn’t the emulator part, but the games itself. My main concern are games and systems that will be streaming only in the future. This would make it impossible to preserve the interactive games.
There is a whole lot of mobile games that as far as I know already have been lost to the shutdown of servers and can’t be brought back at all. It’s just tragic.
Not just mobile games. There are tons of console and PC games lost the same way.
@ampersandrew … and Arcade games.
Arcade games that stop running without an internet connection?
@ampersandrew My bad. I should have checked who you reply to. Was thinking of a different thread.
My main concern are games and systems that will be streaming only in the future.
I doubt that it will ever become the main way to consume games for several reasons.
- It cuts out far too many customers with bad internet
- It doesn’t offer any advantages over a console, which offers ease of use and a standard hardware configuration. It’s equivalent at best.
- People are underestimating how difficult or expensive setting up and maintaining the infrastructure for streaming games is.
@moon_matter It does not need to be the main way. I’m just concerned about those specific titles that are streaming only, or some publisher who only publish games this way.
