Have you had fun playing backups of games you legally own on physical media lately? Dumped any BIOS files from the old consoles you own?

I'm sure you have- after all, we're all about doing things legally and being above board here, aren't we? :wink:

spoiler

In all honesty, I get why the official forums, subreddits, discords and what have you for different emulator projects have the anti-piracy stances they do- they don't want years of work being cease and desisted by Sony or Nintendo because of people linking to roms. I still think the pretense is funny

  • gremlin [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    is dumping bios even legal? you could just say that violates dmca anti-circumventation anyways

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think dumping ROM (BIOS is just ROM stored on the motherboard) is in the same category as software end user license agreements. Big IP will tell you it is illegal to reverse engineer your own property and threaten to litigate, but they are afraid of what might happen if they actually take it to court. On the other hand, they will absolutely sue if you are distributing their IP (the dumped ROM).

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think they're mainly trying to avoid people sharing links to bios files and roms on channels related to the emulators to avoid console manufacturers throwing their entire legal weight at them. What you do with your own hardware inside your own home is none of the devs' business.