http://www.bumociatedcontent.com/article/249756/what_are_emulators_and_roms_and_are.html?cat=19

Over the last ten years programmers, hackers, and gamers have been using emulators, such as MAME to allow them to play their favorite old console and arcade games on their home computer. Emulators and roms (the games they play) are illegal in most cases. However, there has not been a significant crackdown on them by the video game and console companies in about five years.

The only way that playing an old game on your computer would truly be legal is if you owned a physical copy of the game. Otherwise, you are breaking the copyright laws that apply to the game.

Presumably the misinformation mentioned below by Nintendo

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom

Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a “second copy” rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

Here they agree with JB while at the same time saying that you can legally backup your own property. So I guess it’s legal so long as you make it yourself so ‘haha **** you’ if you don’t know technology well enough?

http://www.gameboy-advance.net/site/legal_info.htm

Is emulation really legal?

gba romsYes it is. The case of SONY V. CONNECTIX found that unauthorized emulation is perfectly legal. It was the decision of the court that CONNECTIX had the right to emulate the SONY Playstation and that reverse engineering of the Playstation BIOS for such a cause fell under fair usage. As a result of this case CONNECTIX was allowed to release it’s Virtual Gaming Station for the Mac OS.

Ok, so it’s legal, but is it right?

Emulation simply makes one hardware platform act like another. There is nothing wrong with making the hardware you own behave the way you want it to. That is exactly what software is for, it makes the hardware you own behave in a useful manner. Emulation is not used simply for playing console games on a PC. Emulators exist for all kinds of hardware and all types of platforms. Console emulation is only part of a very large emulation community.

Are ROM images legal?

Yes, under very specific cirgreat timesstances. Section 117 of the US Copyright Law gives the owner of a software package the right to make an additional copy under certain provisions. If you adhere to the provisions then making ROM images is perfectly legal. However, legislation has been pbumed to prevent software piracy that makes game copying devices illegal. Using such a device to create a ROM image makes the resulting image illegal as well. Also you have to remeber that there is a large amount of freeware / public domain roms that you can download from the internet, and only way to play them is to use emulator or a flash card!

Is distributing ROM images legal?

No, not clearly. Individuals and Companies have a right to back up their software. This does not give them the right to distribute that copy to others, even provided they also own a legal copy of the software. So, in short, it is perfectly legal for you to copy a software package you own, but not for you to give that copy away.

Do you distributing ROM images?

No.

Is Flash Advance Linker and Flash Cards legal?

That’s like asking if CD Recodes are legal. Yes they are 100% legal. Flash advance linker is a Gameboy Advance backup unit and as such it is perfectly legal as long as you use it for legal purposes! You could go on internet and download all gba commercial game roms and than play them on GBA using Flash Advance Linker and FA card – that would be illegal! But if you use it to play backups of games that you own or play FreeWare and Public Domain roms from the internet than you are not doing anything illegal!

Not as clearcut as some would have you believe, but I’ve yet to find anything that specifically states the emulators themselves as illegal, just that they are used for illegal purposes. The Roms themselves are the illegal portions but few are really concerned with links to the Emulators once you find a good one.