are emulators legal

im just wondering because i really like the nes but i don't have one anymore

Emulators are perfectly legal because an emulator is the console itself and not a game...

Roms and iso's are illegal if you download them without ownership, but no significant crackdown has ever taken place on those who download/play them for free, and probably never will...

Emulators are perfectly legal to own. As are ROM's and ISO's as long as you own the actual game. Even if you don't own it you can still download it as long as you delete it within 24 hours. But honestly nobody really cares if you download them. These games aren't particularly new and most of them aren't even being sold anymore

Why would emulators be illegal? They are perfectly legal.

hoguan : Because certain crazy people in the US government and multimedia companies have it in their heads that if it allows you to do something that might be considered to be illegal (like play roms) then the device that lets you do so isnt legal either.
Mind you, to them I say "dont drive your car, cars can be used to do illegal things, therefore cars should be illegal"

To answer the question, emulators are legal, all they are are homebrew software that happen to emulate processes of certain game consoles.

Emulators I believe are legal but the ROMS they play are not cause they are illegal copies of the actual game !

It depends of the creator and the ROMS. Sometimes they're legal. Other times, they are not.

Emulators themselves are legal, and even if they weren't I don't think anything would change, as I beleive ROMs are illegal, but you don't see videogamers all over the world getting arrested for playing an old mario game or anything, so there is no problems nor any consequences for using emulators.

Since this has been answered quite enough times I'm closing it.

-closed-