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Game Emulators OK, Says U.S. Copyright Office

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mj147:
Not sure how new this information is but figured ill just link it :

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/747/747592p1.html

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5048

What I get from this is,  if the original equipment to run such software is no longer freely available, the its legal to use an emulator?

If this is old news pls link me to the correct threads as my initial search found nothing  ::)


mj147

shardian:
The emulator is ok, but the roms are still copyright protected. Doesn't do much legal good to have hardware emulation, but no legal roms to use it with (with a few exceptions, of course).

Still, it is a step in the right direction.

Kaytrim:
Here is a link to the original publication on the U.S. Copyright Office website.
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

This page has more discussion on the exempt classes.
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2006/71fr68472.html

The class that protects MAME is number 2.  I agree with shardian that the roms are not covered by this. 

ahofle:
I'm certainly no expert, but it sounds like they are referring to the games (roms) to me.  Why else would the copyright owners be objecting to this request only in the case of old/obsolete games that are being rereleased in some way (console emulators, etc)?

" 2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

The Internet Archive, along with some supporting commenters, proposed an exemption that is identical to the classes of works exempted in the 2003 Rulemaking proceeding. There was no direct opposition to this request, apart from a concern by copyright owners that many old video games and computer programs are being reintroduced into the market in new ways by their copyright owners, who wished to exclude from the exemption video games that have been re–released on a new gaming platform because circumvention of access controls would cause significant harm to copyright owners in their exploitation of these re–released works. "

Kaytrim:
That is why I pointed out the discussion on the exempt classes.  I wanted other opinions and views on the topic.  The exemption can be viewed from both sides and this could be a healthy discussion for this community.  If there is a lawyer in the community that could look this over and explain it better, it would be appreciated.

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