I have an emulator for the Commodore 64 on my computer, and it lets me play all those games I played in the '80s like Choplilfter, Jumpman, etc…
…but I got to wondering… is it legal?
I don’t think so.
The emulator may or may not be, but the roms (AFIK) are copyrighted. (There was a huge debate about a very similar issue when the owners of the Commodore Amiga Roms either (depending on your POV) A) Got pissy and acted like a dog-in-a-manger protecting the copyrights to something they had no intention of using OR B) Rightfully protected copyright on a piece of intellectual property that they held clear title to.
Fenris
If you own the original cartridges or files of those games but your C64 is dead, then yes. If not, no.
The emulator itself is perfectly legal. Sony tried to stop Connectix and Bleem from releasing PlayStation emulators, but they got smacked down in court (link).
Here’s the straight dope:
Emulators themselves are perfectly legal; however, when you use it to play a ROM (game), that’s when you enter illegal territory. Contrary to popular belief, if you own the game, that doesn’t make it legal for you to download it. Also, the myth about downloading and using a ROM for less than 24 hours being legal is also false.
skateboarder: I disagree with you in part: We’re in firm agreement about the “It’s ok to download a rom as long as you delete it within 24 hours” being a crock (It’s one of the weirder net-legends out there), but having a back-up of a product you own is currently legal in the USA. (There was a famous video tape decision about it in the '70s.)
Fenris
What Mr. Blue Sky said. If you own the original game, you are legally entitled under fair use policy to make a back up copy (I understand that some designers and lobbies are trying to get this revised, as they argue that people are using these legal back ups almost exclusively for piracy purposes [which is pretty much true]).
Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing illegal about having an emulator, as long as it doesn’t come with any software. This includes games and copyrighted operating systems (for example, the Sony Playstation BIOS required to run PS1 emulators). As a result, emulators are very easy to find on the internet.
ROMs (the software from a console cartridge or disc) are where the intellectual property theft is occurring. They can be difficult to find, as any site openly distributing them is hunted down viciously by game companies. No wonder, as some sites I knew were offering thousands and thousands of games from every console ever made (from Atari, C64, C128 to SNES, PSX1, N64). These sites shut down or emptied there servers after being hit with cease and desist orders.
I haven’t checked out the ROM scene for a few years, but I understand that, as with nearly all digital IP, people are turning towards the P2P networks.
So in short, yeah it’s illegal unless you have a license to the game (which you get by buying an original copy) or until it becomes public domain. However, these games are so old that no cares in the least.
That’s more than a popular belief – it’s been upheld in the courts.
The decision reached in RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, while specifically about licensed music, is likely to indicate how any case involving using emulation software to run a program that you already own on another platform. The idea is that of format-shifting - taking content you own in one format and putting it into another format, for personal, non-commercial use.
The IDSA opposes this interpretation, predictably, but the fact is people who only copy things they already own aren’t about to get into any trouble any time soon.
This may be something of a red herring, as I doubt that there are a lot of people out there using emulators exclusively with .roms for which they actually have corresponding cartridges gathering dust in the closet. (God knows I’d be hard pressed to produce an arcade Zaxxon or Donkey Kong cabinet, but I sure do like to kill a little time with those.)
I am not an expert, but I think I have a fair handle on the legal aspects of the situation.
In response to the point brought up by Fenris and skaterboarder87: Fenris is certainly correct that you are entitled to a back up copy if you have the original, however, keep in mind that there are laws concerning the distribution of IP. If the software is openly available on the internet, it is obvious that the intent is to distribute, and any involvement with such a transfer or source may be deemed as piracy.
Let’s just say that making your back ups by downloading files, which may or may not be the exact software you have license to, from pirates on the internet is of dubious legality.
Is it possible to even transfer the data from my old Commodore 5 1/4" floppy to my PC? If I could that would be cool… I have scads of old disks with games on them.
Do you still have your old disk-drive? (Or can you get one?) If so, you can hook it up to you PC and copy the disks no prob.
Do you still have your 1541? I’m no electrician but this page says it’s not to hard to rig a connection for a PC.
Of course, you’ll need an adapter cable, too. You can buy one, but it’s also pretty easy to make your own.
Sorry, **CarnalK.
Now Sweat, Larry. Quick with that first link. 
Hmm like I said IANAE, so is there any significance to the slight difference in the schematics on the two pages we posted? From my link -> "Don’t forget to connect the pins 2 and 15 of the parallel port plug. " But that doesn’t appear on the one on your page.
Yeesh, that’s supposed to be “No Sweat”! What must you think??
Yeah, it’s possible, it would take quite a bit of technical know how though. If I were you, I’d try taking a C64, C128 or some other computer with a working 5 1/4" floppy drive, and try to copy the game data on to a 3 1/2" floppy disk. Then put the 3 1/2" disk into a more modern computer.
Or you could skip all that and try and plug the 5 1/4" floppy directly into a modern computer. I don’t know how the ports would match up though (you might need to get some specialized USB stuff) and I don’t know where you would go about finding the proper drivers.
After you have the ROM dump, you have to make sure it is readable by the emulators. I’m not much of programmer myself, but I imagine the ROM would need just a bit of tweaking. You might want to get the source code for your emulator of choice, see how it handles headers and what not, and edit the game accordingly. Most errors I’ve had with ROMs come from having a screwed up header.
It’s probably easier to bear the guilt and download the games.
Would a USB-connected adapter with a ROM socket be legal? That way you could pull the exising ROM from your 64 and read it as need be for the emulator in the PC. If you designed the system of ROM reader and game emulator properly, you could prevent the ROM from being read other than in the context of playing a game (though an unrestricted ROM reader would always be easier to design). Let’s hope more companies wise up and grant access to their old ROMs that they’re no longer selling.
Demonspawn, a disk formatted for use on a Commodore 64 will not be readable by a PC floppy drive. Hookiing up a 1541 drive to a PC is a much simpler approach. One could avoid having to make the cable (which is the ‘hardest’ part, and perfectly simple for anyone with all of their fingers and working colour vision to accomplish,) by converting all the data on the c64-formatted floppy to a binary disk image using a modem to upload a binary file somewhere that it could be downloaded with a PC. That would still be much more difficult to pull off than simply getting the 1541 to work with a PC, though-- you’d have to hunt around for disk-management software for the C64.
CarnalK, I didn’t notice that discrepancy. Yet another page says:
Beats the hell out of me. (It’s been a long time since it was necessary for me to remember what the pinouts were for on a regular parallel port, even… I have no idea what this does or does not accomplish, but it doesn’t sound like it hurts anything.)
Yeah, in a rush to throw out suggestions I forgot about formatting… and I made another error when it comes to info about actually reading the games. I got carried away on my tangent about video games and console ROMs. I now realize it won’t be as hard as I thought, since many of the games were written in Basic and in other languages that can be easily translated.
(I originally said what I did because I’ve heard horror stories about people trying to get SNES games to read on the computer. Even after years and years of effort, hackers can’t get around the compression method used in Street Fighter Alpha. Anyway…)
Once you get a connection and the game on the computer, a good emulator will be able to take care of the rest.