Is this legal (NOT about ROMs)?

[Alakazam]

Most people are aware of emulators, programs that are written independantly (as opposed to being done by a company), and are released as freeware on the internet. They are perfectly legal programs.

Gens, which is the leading Sega Genesis emulator, also supports Sega CD emulation. Though most people use Gens for ROMs, Gens can run actual Sega CD games from your CD-ROM drive.

If I were to buy a Sega CD game, and use Gens to play it, would it be legal?

[Zenaku]

Most people are aware of emulators, programs that are written independantly (as opposed to being done by a company), and are released as freeware on the internet. They are perfectly legal programs.

Gens, which is the leading Sega Genesis emulator, also supports Sega CD emulation. Though most people use Gens for ROMs, Gens can run actual Sega CD games from your CD-ROM drive.

If I were to buy a Sega CD game, and use Gens to play it, would it be legal?
It depends. For example, several months ago I bought Final Fantasy 7. I have an old PS1, but no memory card, so I used a PSX emulator to play the game. From what I hear, it's only legal if I have an actual PS1, but this is only due to the fact that PSX emulators use files from the actual PS1s themselves.

So, as I said, it depends. It would only be classed as legal if you owned the original console, or (I believe) if there is no way for you to obtain the console itself.

Personally, shops that sell PS2s are hard to find, as the ones that do sell them are almost always sold out. If PS2s are hard to find then I'm sure that old consoles are almost extinct unless you find them in a pawn shop or the like. I'd have to say it's legal due to the simple fact that old generation consoles are rare.

[Alakazam]

Hmm...that doesn't sound right to me.

Why would it be legal if not played on the console? If I were to buy a PC game (intended to be played on a PC), and I built a machine for myself that was able to play the games, that would be legal. So how could that be? I'm just interested in it...I mean, they can't make you use their software on their hardware...can they?

[Zenaku]

Hmm...that doesn't sound right to me.

Why would it be legal if not played on the console? If I were to buy a PC game (intended to be played on a PC), and I built a machine for myself that was able to play the games, that would be legal. So how could that be? I'm just interested in it...I mean, they can't make you use their software on their hardware...can they?
Uh... The only reason the PSX emulators (And similar disc-based emulators) are illegal is because they need an actual PSX file to run. The file's copyrighted, so they don't normally come with PSX emulators. The only way you can download and use the file legally is by owning an actual PSX, much like how GBA ROMs are legal if you own the real cartridges.

As for the last Q, no... Nintendo can't make people play GBA games on the GBA, can they?

Either way, if the Sega Genesis is a virtually extinct console (i.e. Hard to get hold of by normal means) then using an emulator should not be illegal. It's not right to have to pay more cash just to play one game that you actually own.

[ELMO]

Okay, I'm gonna lay down what I know.

I myself am a huge fan of emulation. ROMs ARE legal if deleted within 24 hours (under United States Law)... but that's not what this thread is about. Jumping to the topic at hand (and with the ROM law in mind), we can look at emulators.

The PSX emulators you speak of aren't considered "legal" if you use the original Playstation BIOS file... but if you can manage to find one written by someone other than Sony, it will be perfectly legal as long as that written BIOS is freeware. Got it so far?

The Gens emulator should be legal as long as it does not require you to download a BIOS file for it. If it says in the readme file "Download blah blah blah bios and place in the \Bios directory, you can run the games" or something along those lines, odds are it is an illegal emulator. The Super Nintendo Emulators are totally legal. They use hand-written BIOS and startups, as do Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance emulators, NES emulators, Sega emulators, etc.

Other than that, it's not legal if you're using the original bios from the company, as that is [in essence] pirating their actual console.

Hope that helped.