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Exhibit B: Emulators

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Thursday, March 21, 2013, 09:26 (4047 days ago) @ kapowaz

Emulators have long been an ethical and legal grey area.


This is a myth. Emulators are 100% legal. Distribution of BIOS files is 100% illegal. Distribution of game ROMS is 100% illegal. It's pretty simple and clear cut.


Yes, emulators are 100% legal, but they're also 100% useless without BIOS ROMs and games, so even when talking about the (tiny minority of) folks who are using them to run homebrew games there is still lawbreaking involved. Is it wrong to do this? There are arguments for and against, not least of which is historical preservation (when the companies involved clearly only care about this if there's money to be made). Ergo, it's an ethical grey area.

It is extremely easy to legally use most modern emulators. Many can emulate the BIOS, and most can simply accept a real game disc in your optical drive.

Case in point: Virtual Game Station, PCSX, Dolphin, etc


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