how legal are emulators and Roms

[Strawb]

I just read from nintendo they are illegal and we are not allowed to have them. So stuff like a super key and any emulators on computers are illegal. Here is an interesting fact all games are copyrighted under us law for 75 years.

[smac]

US Law doesn't cover us, as far as I know, however I believe that you cannot own a ROM for a game unless you have purchased the rights - usually by owning the original game on a console, or by buying an old arcade machine with the ROM included.

Happy to be proven wrong.

[Strawb]

according to nintendo even that isn't allow smac.
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#roms
provides all the information needed

[smac]

See - this is me happy after being proven wrong!

Interesting attitude that they have to piracy though, much more matter of fact than the movie/music crowd.

[smithy]

Are we talking MAME here ?

[smac]

Are we talking MAME here ?

That's the most widely known one smithy, but there are stacks of them. I can even get a SNES emulator for my mobile phone!

[Strawb]

I will not admit to how many I have i am a nerd

[zipzap]

Somewhere on a couple of CD-Rs I have every Sega Mega Drive / Genesis game ever made. Sounds like fun doesn't it...it isn't