(11-27-2015, 04:16 AM)Anti-Ultimate Wrote: Yes it is

Quote:United States:
As computers and global computer networks continued to advance and emulator developers grew more skilled in their work, the length of time between the commercial release of a console and its successful emulation began to shrink. Fifth generation consoles such as the Nintendo 64, the Sony PlayStation and sixth generation handhelds, such as the Game Boy Advance, saw significant progress toward emulation during their production. This led to an effort by console manufacturers to stop unofficial emulation, but consistent failures such as Sega v. Accolade 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992), Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation 203 F.3d 596 (2000), and Sony Computer Entertainment America v. Bleem 214 F.3d 1022 (2000),[2] have had the opposite effect. According to all legal precedents, emulation is legal within the United States. However, unauthorized distribution of copyrighted code remains illegal, according to both country specific copyright and international copyright law under the Berne Convention.[3] Obtaining games through methods not authorized by the developer or publisher is illegal in the United States.

Under United States law, obtaining a dumped copy of the original machine's BIOS is legal under the ruling Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc., 964 F.2d 965 (9th Cir. 1992) as fair use as long as the user obtained a legally purchased copy of the machine. However, several emulators for platforms such as Game Boy Advance are capable of running without a BIOS file, using high-level emulation to simulate BIOS subroutines at a slight cost in emulation accuracy.

(11-27-2015, 04:40 AM)helios747 Wrote: No it isn't. We're all drug dealing terrorists that wake up every morning and look at a poster saying "Down with Nintendo!" as we get dressed, preparing to head out on the streets to deal kids flash drives with our terrible illegal software on it. Corrupting them into dirty illegal software users too who will spread the terrible, horrible drug that is the Dolphin Emulator that will eventually be the death of Nintendo and all gaming forever.

(11-27-2015, 05:42 AM)Shonumi Wrote: I think the OP gets the point, serious replies only from here on to avoid confusion please

As MaJoR said, U.S. law is pretty clear on the issue of emulation. Dolphin contains no copyrighted code from Nintendo as far as we are aware of, and everything has been reverse-engineered, so copyright infringement and patents are not an issue. The Dolphin Forums and the Dev Team specifically call out and discourage piracy, so we avoid "inducing or facilitating copyright infringement". IANAL, but these problems are so common in the emulation community that those of us who have been around for a while know the relevant court cases and rulings by heart now.

Again, I'm a U.S. citizen, so I can only speak for this country and its laws. If you live somewhere else, chances are yes, it's legal, but we read up on the laws if you want a clearer answer.