Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Is it legal for me to borrow a friend's game and copy it myself? (As opposed to buying a game and using a friend's console to copy it, which is legal by what the FAQ said).

Depends on your country's copyright laws (hint: this is the answer for almost any emulation-related legal query).

If you live in the US, no. It has to be your own game for it to fall under Fair Use. Other people's games aren't applicable. The same notion means you can't rent DVDs from RedBox and rip them (although, good luck getting caught, no would know unless you shouted about it from your roof).

Other countries (Mexico and some European nations) have more permissive laws, and copying of that nature is allowed as long as it's non-commercial and personal use only (regardless of whether you own the original or not).

There's no blanket answer since local laws vary.

AFAIK this is legal as long as you have the originial disc. Once you've returned the disc, you have to delete the dump as well (or return it together with the disc, which matches the FAQ).

gonna drop a hot "We don't give a fuck about what you do with your friend's game dump as long as it's not talked about here" right here in this thread

In the US first sale doctrine applies

Quote:[C]onsider a person who walks into a bookstore in the United States and purchases a brand new paperback book. Suppose that after she has finished reading the book, she decides to loan it to a friend who lives nearby. Thanks to the first sale doctrine, she is able do this without obtaining permission from the copyright holder. In the language of the doctrine, as the “owner of a particular copy” of the book, she is “entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner,” “to dispose of the possession of that copy”—in this example by loaning it to a friend.

No new copies are created when she loans the book, donates it to a library, or sells it at a garage sale. In each of these transactions, the single copy purchased at the bookstore simply gains a new custodian. As a result, the copyright holder’s reproduction right is not implicated. In addition, while loans, donations, and resales are distributions, the first sale doctrine frees the purchaser of the book to engage in these transactions without obtaining the authorization of the copyright holder. Stated another way, the copyright holder’s exclusive distribution right with respect to that particular copy of the book was exhausted after the “first sale.”

Now that the rights holder passed on possession of that copy (it has to be a physical copy, explained in a moment) you can, as the new "owner", play that copy in a manner that you wish including making a digital version to play in an alternate way. You can not keep that digital copy or distribute it if you are no longer in possession of the physical media.


If your friend had purchased a game digitally, like through the wii shop channel, then you are SOL and any attempt to let someone else use it is against the law due to how broken copyright laws are. So if you value your rights never purchase digitally and always insist on a physical good.

I'm not sure if that even applies to all physical goods any more - the thing you buy could be a physical copy of the work without the right to read/play/run it bundled with a nontransferable licence to read/play/run it. I think this is a big chunk of the (lack of) right-to-repair snafu - you're buying a device containing a physical copy of the firmware, but not a licence to do anything with it.

Currently the Redbox V Disney case and the right to repair are going towards saying that licenses that restrict "first sale" are unenforceable. Interestingly a lot of ELUAs have parts that are unenforceable, but companies trust that they can "enforce" it by making the process to fight it so prohibitively expensive that even if you won you would lose.

Now if your "physical copy" is a download code in an oversized box, thank you Bethesda, then you again are SOL because that is really a digital good and not a physical one. Also a really anti-consumer practice too.

TKSilver Wrote:In the US first sale doctrine applies

Not sure how it does in this scenario. The part you're quoting is about distribution rather than copying. On a smaller scale, copyrights are supposed to be restrictions on reproduction, which is in a larger sense a restriction on distribution. The first sale doctrine basically prohibits the rights holder from barring distribution after a physical item has been sold. Here with the OP, the first sale doctrine just means their friend can loan, sell, or give the game away to them without the rights holder interfering. However, that doesn't deal with making "new" copies, which is still a restriction depending on the usage. That's what Fair Use deals with, where rights holders can't interfere in the reproduction of a work. Generally, for electronic media, Fair Use has been characterized by "personal-use" copies. One could argue that since the game is not the OP's, they're not entitled to a "personal-use" copy, but I don't think anything of that nature has been set as precedent or as a ruling from SCOTUS.

Honestly, nobody but seedy lawyers would care that much. It'd be like going after people who copy DVD rentals, or anyone in your family/friends that copies any of your CDs. Reminds me of when I used to work at a print/copy shop, and we almost never stopped customers from scanning and printing from books. We just refused to do it for them with our machines behind the counter (and they in turn just used self-service machines out on the floor when we weren't looking/caring). We were told it was a Really Big Deal during training and even had forms people were supposed to fill out proving they had permission to copy stuff (cute), but those were never used.

Anyway WiiLikeTerraria, to back up what Helios said, you won't get banned on the Dolphin Forums for copying your friend's game disk. Downloading on the other hand is clear violation many (but not all) countries' copyright laws, and breaks the Forum Rules. But this situation you wrote about is something we're not going to care all that much about.

What I was stating is that his friend upon loaning him the game makes him the "owner" of the game disk for the length of time he borrows it. Which allows for the "fair-use" "personal-use" copy to be made (and retained) as long as the OP is in possession of the physical media. Though like you said this is all more a discussion of the law, then really anything anyone is going to bother with in normal every day life. (unless Metallica is involved in some way....)

Generally, lending something doesn't make you the owner as far as copyright (and most other laws) is concerned. The "owner" is still implicitly the friend. If you became the "owner" of anything borrowed, that would be very problematic for all sorts of situations (e.g. not just borrowing a friend's CD, but perhaps their car too).

I believe in cases where one friend loans a physical object, and the other returns it, the concept of "right of possession" applies. During the period where the game is loaned, the borrowing friend has possession (physical control of the object in question), but the right of possession and right of property belong to the lending friend, effectively making them "owner" even while someone else is using their item.

Now, trying to prove all that in court just to nail someone for copyright violation, lol, it'll never happen. But theoretically, the friend remains the owner at all times unless something else happens (they abandon the game with the OP, they die, or they just say keep it).