Emulation - legal or illegal?

[MonkeyBread73]

I always thought that emulators were legal, I guess because I have heard about them so much over the years. I've never heard of them being compared to bootlegging, either, but I guess if the game creator is being robbed of money because you're playing the game for free, then it is the same.

 

[Claptrap]

I've always wondered if this is true. I used an emulator to plat the first Fire Emblem for the GBA because it was only released it in Japan. Would it be legal if I imported the cartridge? Based on what you say, it would be. I'm not honestly sure though. Would love to see a formal explanation of this.

As far as I know, it's legal as long as you buy the game AND dump it yourself. No downloading ROMs online. Same for the BIOS of whatever you're emulating, you're supossed to have the console/handheld you're going to emulate and you're supossed to dump the BIOS yourself, too.

Regardless, I doubt you're ever gonna get in trouble one way or another unless you're distributing the files, if anything. That's what companies go for when it comes to piracy most of the time, anyway: the distributor.