Emulators are legal to download and use however sharing copyrighted ROMs online is illegal.
Are game roms illegal. ROMs are illegal in just about every case since they are the game files emulators use to allow people to play games. If the game is sold the archival version must be given to the buyer or destroyed. Is Dolphin emulator illegal.
If yes then youre probably all right. Using such a device to create a ROM image makes the resulting image illegal as well. There is no legal precedent for ripping and downloading ROMs for games you own though an argument could be made for fair use.
Downloading ROMs is illegal but ambiguously so Unlike emulators ROMs are proprietary content owned by game developers and are usually protected by copyright. Downloading unauthorized ROMs is a form of copyright infringement and is illegal much like. Are Pokemon ROMs legal.
Yes Downloading Nintendo ROMs Is Illegal Even if You Own the Game If youre hosting the site you potentially could be liable for direct infringement of a copyright in the game as well as the emulator may have software of some of the code from the console or platform that the game runs on. Nintendo explains it pretty well on their legal page. They do however have a detailed document on their site explaining that ROMs are illegal and that emulators facilitate their use and damage the company though crucially stopped short of calling emulators illegal.
Video game ROMs are illegal even if you own a physical copy of the titles. Any ownage distribution of a video game ROM is illegal unless. However it is possible to play Pokémon games on a computer legally.
This is one aspect where ROMs can be legal and even if the actual copies of the games are no longer functioning. Downloading ROMS is outright illegal even if you own the real game or not. While those sites were sharing Nintendo ROMs the act of downloading them is also likely illegal even if you already own those games on an old cartridge or disc.