I have been playing Sly Cooper on a PlayStation emulator, I never owned a console in my youth and now I have a pretty solid PC. Getting my setup working took a bit but now I'm all ready jump back into a totally different era of game design (an era I think did more right than wrong). However in getting my emulator and USB controller setup I ran into a bunch of articles and things about how the companies are against emulators.

I don't understand it. They aren't making new copies of old games or hardware so it's not like they are losing money. They aren't making these old titles available on modern gear either. To me, emulators are like digital libraries and it's open-source. I mean to say if I checkout a book from the library (especially an older out of print one) the book publisher isn't making any money because they already made their money. Maybe a better analogy would be used goods stores in general, but again emulators are open-source and are more concerned about the sharing of this information for free. Real-ass hacker ethos.

Could someone explain why companies think emulators are bad? I don't even understand the "this is piracy" angle, as they aren't steal anything that's available. There a few companies like CAPCOM (as a random example) who release their classic catalog on digital storefronts so maybe I get that, but for the most part old games can't be played through "proper" channels so why the hell do MEGACORPS care about emulators? Is it an IP thing?