Emulation is legal...but companies are trying to stop you. It happened to me...let me help it NOT happen to you!

VGEsoterica

VGEsoterica

Member
Feels ridiculous to even have to make a video like this...but sometimes it has to get done!

Last Saturday I had a PSP on Steam Deck tutorial removed for four hours as it was claimed as "harmful-illegal" / "teaching hacking and obtaining stolen credentials"...which could not be FURTHER from the truth.

Luckily I have a pretty extensive background in IP / Copyright law and have taught it at the college level, putting me at a big advantage when I appealed the removal as incorrect. I managed to have the video reinstated in four hours and received an apology email shortly thereafter.

But I was still irritated as companies DONT want you to emulate, even if (in the United States) its a perfectly legal activity so long as you follow X/Y/Z rules. Companies are forcing content offline that shows allowable use of emulation / games...because they think if you don't know how to do it...you will just fork over more $$$ to them for the right to play what you already own.

So...know your rights! Especially if you make tutorials teaching people how to use these amazing emulators. It's important we don't just all roll over

Curious GAF...who here does these kinds of tutorials? and have you ever been hit with a takedown? If so...dm me. I am curious

And if anyone ever needs help with this lmk. Happy to help!

 
Unrelated, but it's sad to think of all those games that have been lost to time because Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo have mostly dropped backwards compatibility and/or just DGAF [until people try to play them on some other non-native system].

One thing that is absolutely retarded is stuff like the PS Vita version of Sly Trilogy, which they put the first two games on the cartridge... but the 3rd game is a download and guess what, the code expired so no way to legally play it despite me having paid for the whole package.
 
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I emulate both games that are virtually unabtainable and games i have bought but want to play them in an emulator for hacks, patches and graphical updates.

Am i a bad person for doing it? Maybe for point 1, cause with enough determination you can play any game, but it's not worth it from an economical standpoint. You know the type: vastly overpriced, super niche.
 
It's why I tell people to not think of emulation as a way to get free games. There's clearly a correct way to do it and people should do research before getting into emulation.
 
Skifi28 said:
So you're the reason PSP sales have plummeted these past couple of months. Disgusting.
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Allow me to pile on:
anakin skywalker hate GIF
How Dare You Greta GIF
Lose Willy Wonka GIF
 
It's YouTube though. It could have been any disgruntled user to report the video. It doesn't even have to be a big corporation.
 
I mentioned it when this happened to VGEsoterica the other week but I find the take down to be hilariously hypocritical considering YouTube constantly shows me ads for those weird China bootleg emulation consoles "loaded with 25k games!"
 
Kokoloko85 said:
:messenger_tears_of_joy: Good on you. Not everyone will do that including my younger self lol
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I was the same back then mind you.. (Using tape decks to copy C64 tapes, X-Copy on the Amiga etc) 👀

Saying that though, games were bloody expensive too, take Resident Evil 1 on the PS1, it was £40, me and a few mates were earning £2.75 an hour in some shitty factory.

Crazy times.
 
Kokoloko85 said:
Emulation isnt illegal but we all know people arent buying those games they are playing on the emulators…
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ill happily buy a copy of Pikmin on the Switch Eshop if nintendo would put it up. otherwise people will just resort to other methods to get the games they want
 
I don't have of this problems since I don't make contents on Youtube.
I know some company like Nintendo tries to stop basically everything with their IP on it, but this could be illegal since there is a "right to quote" in many countries, so you can use clip of their games, their characters and even talk about some illegal stuff.
So, when you have a copyright strike, just don't settle with youtube and keep running the dispute, 95% of the time nothing happen.
 
As an aside, I would be very interested in knowing what proportion of those who download a given rom own that game. That data probably doesn't exist though.
 
Doczu said:
I emulate both games that are virtually unabtainable and games i have bought but want to play them in an emulator for hacks, patches and graphical updates.

Am i a bad person for doing it? Maybe for point 1, cause with enough determination you can play any game, but it's not worth it from an economical standpoint. You know the type: vastly overpriced, super niche
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IMO if it's a game that is for sale on some digital storefront then you ought to buy it.

If it's some out of print game that you can only buy used? Hell no. That benefits nobody. There creator/publisher gets no benefit, and it makes it so that collectors who actually want to own a physical copy have a harder time getting one.
 
Some old games are absurdly hard to find or absurdly priced. They need to be preserved.
I do worry that companies will try to clamp down on places like archive.org.
 
Actually, not trying to change the subject too much - but I've been seeing a lot of cool romhacks lately - mainly with QOL improvements and adding in cut material. Can anybody lead me to the best way to play some of these romhacks on original hardware? I'm also down for retro machines if necessary - just want to recreate that playing on TV experience.
 
DonkeyPunchJr said:
IMO if it's a game that is for sale on some digital storefront then you ought to buy it.

If it's some out of print game that you can only buy used? Hell no. That benefits nobody. There creator/publisher gets no benefit, and it makes it so that collectors who actually want to own a physical copy have a harder time getting one.
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I buy every game i can digitally, but it's the (old as fuck) games that are not digital that i emulate. C64, Amiga etc.

I was happy when Nintendo released a lot of their back catalogue for the Virtual Console. Remember VC? Great stuff... Untill you had to re buy it for each console and then they dropped it for Switch online ransom. Fuck Nintendo...

ChazAshley said:
Actually, not trying to change the subject too much - but I've been seeing a lot of cool romhacks lately - mainly with QOL improvements and adding in cut material. Can anybody lead me to the best way to play some of these romhacks on original hardware? I'm also down for retro machines if necessary - just want to recreate that playing on TV experience.
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Disc based consoles is easy: rip your disc, apply the patch, burn it. You just need a modded console.

Cartridge based will force you to buy some Everdrive or other device and these are pricy (especially Everdrive). Oh and ripping your own cart is a pain in the ass.
 
ChazAshley said:
Actually, not trying to change the subject too much - but I've been seeing a lot of cool romhacks lately - mainly with QOL improvements and adding in cut material. Can anybody lead me to the best way to play some of these romhacks on original hardware? I'm also down for retro machines if necessary - just want to recreate that playing on TV experience.
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If you don't care about playing on original hardware, you can get an Xbox Series S and then just move the roms onto the internal storage of the system. you can then emulate them via retroarch

If you do, consider getting flashcarts for the systems you own.
 
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MasterCornholio said:
It's why I tell people to not think of emulation as a way to get free games. There's clearly a correct way to do it and people should do research before getting into emulation.
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While I 100% agree, there are some games that are literally impossible to get from official methods like many old games that are not sold anymore, I used to download many old roms and isos because of that and the reason I almost never do so anymore is due to constant rereleases.
 
sachos said:
Do people genuinely feel bad downloading a pack of roms from 30 years ago?
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I wonder about this as well. The only way to legally buy them, is at the second hand market. For ridiculous prices that won't go to the original publisher but rather to some scalper that tries to get the jackpot for it.

Okay, you can buy a lot of them on digital storefronts, locking you to a single console. But not every game is on there.
 
sachos said:
Do people genuinely feel bad downloading a pack of roms from 30 years ago?
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Is the game available to buy digitally? Then you should consider buying it. Is it abandonware? Then you might consider hunting for a copy if you're a purist or collectioner.
 
Kataploom said:
While I 100% agree, there are some games that are literally impossible to get from official methods like many old games that are not sold anymore, I used to download many old roms and isos because of that and the reason I almost never do so anymore is due to constant rereleases.
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Abandonware is a whole thing for sure
 
In the end I think warez did more bad than good for me, everytime I modded my system I actually stopped playing games lol. I had fun when I bought PSX games, I couldn't get every single one of them. Then I got persuaded into modding, played a few and cast it aside and started to buy and enjoy games again.

With emulation it was sort of the same, the odd unreleased game was fun, but I would get 300 SNES games and play about 6. I don't see the point besides some novelty like games released only in arcades or unreleased games. During the 360 gen everyone around me stopped modding their system, they wanted to play online without risk of being banned.

With movies its sort of the same. I never used torrents anymore since I have HBO, Showtime, Disney+ et al. Its just a hassle. I think if its readily available, lots of consumers will settle.
 
I remember experimenting with emulation in college, Xbox original, hacked psp etc. you could see how it damages the market.
 
Kataploom said:
While I 100% agree, there are some games that are literally impossible to get from official methods like many old games that are not sold anymore, I used to download many old roms and isos because of that and the reason I almost never do so anymore is due to constant rereleases.
Click to expand...

I also understand that point of view. I wish publishers would put those games in their stores but most of them don't do that. In that case downloading the rom might be the only option. But then again it's probably not legal to do that.

Trying to buy an SNES plus some old games might be really difficult for some people. I know I can't get any of those things where I live. If I wanted to play those games ROMs are probably my only good option. It's a shame there isn't an actual store for them.
 
EverydayBeast said:
I remember experimenting with emulation in college, Xbox original, hacked psp etc. you could see how it damages the market.
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Jailbreaking is a double edged swords thats a fact.

SkylineRKR said:
In the end I think warez did more bad than good for me, everytime I modded my system I actually stopped playing games lol. I had fun when I bought PSX games, I couldn't get every single one of them. Then I got persuaded into modding, played a few and cast it aside and started to buy and enjoy games again.

With emulation it was sort of the same, the odd unreleased game was fun, but I would get 300 SNES games and play about 6. I don't see the point besides some novelty like games released only in arcades or unreleased games. During the 360 gen everyone around me stopped modding their system, they wanted to play online without risk of being banned.

With movies its sort of the same. I never used torrents anymore since I have HBO, Showtime, Disney+ et al. Its just a hassle. I think if its readily available, lots of consumers will settle.
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Yup, it's the amount of games you can play that just overwhelm you. Had it on my PS1, since the PS2 i'm "clean" and just emulate/jailbreak/mod gens of days past.
 
well legality of it aside i do consider morally fine emulating a game like Need for speed carbon using RPCS3 a game i bought full price when it launched on PC and no longer works on modern operating systems ( partly due to EA shitty DRM )
 
While you are not wrong two small nitpicks. Emulation is legal if emulator made their own bios like dolphin or you ripped you own bios. You also need to rip your own games for it to be legally fine. Afaik the former is true for the psp emulation.
 
VGEsoterica said:
Feels ridiculous to even have to make a video like this...but sometimes it has to get done!

Last Saturday I had a PSP on Steam Deck tutorial removed for four hours as it was claimed as "harmful-illegal" / "teaching hacking and obtaining stolen credentials"...which could not be FURTHER from the truth.

Luckily I have a pretty extensive background in IP / Copyright law and have taught it at the college level, putting me at a big advantage when I appealed the removal as incorrect. I managed to have the video reinstated in four hours and received an apology email shortly thereafter.

But I was still irritated as companies DONT want you to emulate, even if (in the United States) its a perfectly legal activity so long as you follow X/Y/Z rules. Companies are forcing content offline that shows allowable use of emulation / games...because they think if you don't know how to do it...you will just fork over more $$$ to them for the right to play what you already own.

So...know your rights! Especially if you make tutorials teaching people how to use these amazing emulators. It's important we don't just all roll over

Curious GAF...who here does these kinds of tutorials? and have you ever been hit with a takedown? If so...dm me. I am curious

And if anyone ever needs help with this lmk. Happy to help!

Click to expand...

That's disgusting man! I like your youtube channel. Great to hear you went after it.
 
Good for you man.

I especially hate the rules when it comes down to games you can't buy off the shelf. Why is it illegal to pirate/emulate these when I can't buy it from the source? The fuck is that logic.
 
VGEsoterica said:
Luckily I have a pretty extensive background in IP / Copyright law and have taught it at the college level, putting me at a big advantage when I appealed the removal as incorrect. I managed to have the video reinstated in four hours and received an apology email shortly thereafter.
Click to expand...
thankful the lord of the rings GIF
 
adamosmaki said:
well legality of it aside i do consider morally fine emulating a game like Need for speed carbon using RPCS3 a game i bought full price when it launched on PC and no longer works on modern operating systems ( partly due to EA shitty DRM )
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You can use a cracked exe and get Carbon to work. You pretty much have to use cracked exes on games of that era since the DRM does not work in WIndows 10.
 
MasterCornholio said:
I also understand that point of view. I wish publishers would put those games in their stores but most of them don't do that. In that case downloading the rom might be the only option. But then again it's probably not legal to do that.

Trying to buy an SNES plus some old games might be really difficult for some people. I know I can't get any of those things where I live. If I wanted to play those games ROMs are probably my only good option. It's a shame there isn't an actual store for them.
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I'm sure the only argument the IP holders have against ROM and iso download sites is that they harm they're potential sales, but as long as they're not currently selling the games to consumers, they no longer have that argument on their part and it is not considered piracy by the law, that's why Nintendo use the "missuse of their characters and assets" argument against those sites, because if they say that someone downloading Fire Emblem Path of Radiance harm the game sales, the court will ask them to provide details about how they're being harmed... Which they can't because they're not selling that game anymore. They'd have a case If it was BOTW or any Switch game they're currently selling thou.

I'm sure I've seen cases like that making companies loose in the court but don't remember sources, it was deeply discussed here in GAF once upon a time and it was a mess of a thread that got closed iirc 😂
 
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