Emulators For Video Games Are Illegal

This is just going to a be a straight up argument out of Copyright Law. Video games are protected by copyrights (both the specific code used to implement the game and the audiovisual elements of the game). [1] Copyrights last for the life of the person who created the copyrighted work plus 70 years after that person's death. The video game "Pong" and other early games weren't invented until the 1970's so they would still be protected by copyrights. Basically, all games are still copyrighted. My opponent claims that it is *not* illegal to download emulators and ROMs for "discontinued" systems, like the Sega Genesis, Nintendo, Super Nintendo ("SNES"), and the Nintendo 64 ("N64"). As an aside: an "emulator" is similar to the video game system itself. It is a program that allows you to play games for that specific system. Most emulators are exclusive to only one system, so you can download on PC or Android an emulator for SNES or Gameboy or Sega Genesis or N64. "ROMs" are the games that you download and can play by loading them into the emulator, similar to loading a cartridge into the old video game systems. Now that we are done with that "aside," the problem with my opponent's argument is that "discontinued" games are still under copyrights, so it is still illegal under copyright law to download them. My opponent claims two things make the downloading of ROMs legal: (1) the games are no longer manufactured and (2) *some* people own the video game whose ROM they are downloading. I will show how *neither* of these makes downloading ROMs legal. (1) "Discontinued" games As I'v said, discontinued games are still under copyright (for the life of the creator plus 70 years). It is not legal to download a "discontinued" game, *even if* the creator no longer intends to monetize it. Under copyright law, if you write or create anything it is copyrighted. Period. Whether or not you intend to profit off of it. If you write a letter to someone, your words are copyrighted. If you take a photograph of a building, it is copyrighted. Someone else cannot copy and sell your letter or photograph without your permission or else they are violating copyright law. It doesn't matter that you didn't intend to profit from the letter or photograph. Likewise, the fact that companies have discontinued the SNES or Sega Genesis is immaterial to whether it is legal to download ROMs. Furthermore, by "discontinued," my opponent means that these systems and games are no longer manufactured. However, the copyright holders *do* continue to profit from selling the copyright. Go to the Android store ("Google Play"). Search for "Sonic the Hedgehog." You will find Sega selling a port of this old "discontinued" Sega Genesis game for use on people's phones and tablets. Go to the Android store. Search "Crazy Taxi." You will find Sega selling a port of this old "discontinued" Dreamcast game for use on phones and tablets. Go to the Apple Store. Search "Final Fantasy." You will find Square Enix selling an iPhone version of this old "discontinued" Nintendo game. Go to the Apple Store. Search "Chrono Trigger." Another "discontinued" SNES game. Go to the Wii store and search for pretty much any old Mario game (e.g. Paper Mario) and you can *pay* to download an older port of the game to your Wii. Go on your PS3. Search for any popular PS1 or PS2 game (e.g. Final Fantasy VII), and you can pay to download a version of this game that can be played on your PS3 or your Playstation Portable. Most video game companies have *not* abandoned the copyright in their works. They continue to monetize these games. Now go to the Android Store and search "SNES emulator." You will find one for under $5. Now go online and search "Chrono Trigger ROM." You can pirate the ROM for free. In contrast, the official, legal version of Chrono Trigger costs $9.99 to purchase from the Android Store. Now go get a "Final Fantasy ROM" for SNES. You saved $14.99 by not buying it from Square Enix via Google Play. By downloading the SNES emulator and ROMs, you're basically stealing from the developers by not having to pay them for a "license" to use their copyrighted work. This is *illegal.* My opponent makes some statement about how no one is ever sued for downloading emulators and ROMs so clearly it's legal. However, just because someone does not get sued does not make it legal. The entire Cydia App store (for jailbroken iPhones) is of questionable legality, but there are problems suing those companies. Many of them locate in countries with more liberal copyright laws, so they cannot be sued internationally. Some of them don't make enough total money to be worth suing. It's hard to "catch" someone downloading something in a way that would stick (which is why most people sued for music piracy were on college campuses, which assign a clear static IP to each user). And honestly, even music and movie lawsuits have gone "out of mode." You won't see them very often anymore because they are not an effective deterrent and not worth the effort for the industries involved (because no one can pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties under copyright law (per violation), it's not worth paying lawyers to sue these people). Also, ISP's have not been very compliant with furnishing information on alleged infringers, which makes them hard to find. The bottom line is that the lack of lawsuits is due to many factors, not the *legality* of the conduct. (2) Owning the physical video game does not give you the right to download a ROM When you buy a physical game cartridge, CD, or DVD, copyright law gives you the right to re-sell the physical game under the "First Sale Doctrine" [which holds that once someone sells a physical object (a "first sale"), he or she cannot control what happens to the physical object after that]. However, someone who buys a CD does not acquire the right to make copies of the content on the CD. Just because you buy a DVD does not mean you can legally download an illegal version of the movie from PirateBay. The same applies to music. You may have to pay for the same content *twice* because you want it on different platforms (i.e. you pay once to have a song on Google Play, you pay again on iTunes, and you pay again to get access to the same song on Spotify). (3) Contributory infringement My opponent says the emulator itself isn't illegal without downloading ROMs. However, it is. There is a doctrine called "contributory infringement," which holds that you can be held liable for violating copyright law even if you don't download any copyrighted material if you're using something that can basically only be used to support copyright infringement. [2] An "SNES emulator" can only be used to play illegal, pirated SNES games, so downloading it is illegal because the emulator has no substantial non-infringing use. [1] http://www.wipo.int... [2] http://www.law.cornell.edu...