Can't play the game as it's in wrong format!

[Orphis]

As long as you rip an UMD you own yourself, it's legal.

[serio]

i wouldn't say it's legal, since as far as i know hacking your psp and replacing the firmware with a "bootleg" cfw is illegal (something about sony owning all the rights to the hardware/software and only indefinitely "lending" them to you, effectively still making it their property. after all, people get banned for going online with certain systems if they're modded in any detectable way. i bet if the laws were any different, some of the companies wouldn't just stop at that and would intentionally brick the altered systems), and i don't think they feel any different about altering their games in any way, be it just umd dumping, patching or hacking.

it's more of a gray area in my opinion. it's definitely the better, preferred way than piracy is, it's just not a 100% legal one either.

that said, i use the emulators mostly for their screen resizing ability, as well as the ease of memory hacking and quick and easy memory dumping. in the future hopefully some filters too.

[danielzboy]

Hmmm... But if I'm not wrong, one of the posts from another thread states that even the ripping of UMDs is illegal in the US whereas some other countries are legal. This is so confusing...DX< Perhaps I'll not use the Emulator after all. It's too easily used illegally...-.-lll The sad thing is I'll really love playing PSP games on my com

[serio]

well, i guess that as long as you dump your umds for your own, personal use you're not commiting any major crime (definitely nothing like distributing illegal copies).

in the end, everyone in the emulation community does that, including the jpcsp devs, since otherwise the emulator wouldn't have anything to run other than homebrews nobody really cares about. as far as i know a pc can't read psp's umd discs.

it's mostly just a word game, nobody's going to arrest you for dumping your own games and keeping them to yourself as a "backup".

[Orphis]

Sony doesn't lend me the hardware at all. They only say that I can't do unauthorized things and go on the PSN, and thus ban me from the store if they detect anything. That's fair considering some people are using mods to cheat in online games.
And even if they say anything in a user license, it's not necessarily valid as a tribunal can revoke anything against the law (like reducing consumer rights).

Using the emulator is legal, dumping your own games too. Distributing copyrighted material like games or firmwares is illegal though. You're not doing any business with it anyway...

[serio]

well, i just thought it fell under the "unauthorized copying" part of the license which is basically what's happening when you dump (copy) the game from the umd onto your memory stick/hard drive. but eh, i'm no lawyer so i might just be wrong.

[Kai3213]

well, i just thought it fell under the "unauthorized copying" part of the license which is basically what's happening when you dump (copy) the game from the umd onto your memory stick/hard drive. but eh, i'm no lawyer so i might just be wrong.

It's kinda the sharing part that's illegal ( my opinion, not fact ). It's like buying a legal copy of Windows 7 from the store for a new computer your building then using it on your old computer to get rid of a virus that crashed your system. I mean, you paid for that disk with your hard earn money so it's basically your property in which you can do whatever you want with it (within legal limits) . It's not like your gonna spend another 100 bucks + on another copy when you just bought one. That's just unreasonable. Then again, I could be wrong.

[MaXiMu]

reverse engineering of both hardware and software is legal in many countries
Ripping a game you own, sometimes used to occupy less space, remove languages, add mods or cheats in the game for the example

[danielzboy]

This really looks like a forum for laws and not for emulators. I'm getting dizzy with all this legal and illegal talk... -.-lll In my opinion, however, I think that playing games you own on an emulator should be considered alright(just my opinion!) I mean you paid for the game right? So if you are just playing it on a different platform and not distributing or selling it, what's the harm? My guess is that once you manage to play it on the computer, you can easily distribute the game, which is what game companies would never allow. So to make sure that doesn't happen, game companies make ripping games or playing games on the emulator illegal.

Sigh... I wanna play Project Diva 2nd on com...

[Darth1701]

This really looks like a forum for laws and not for emulators. I'm getting dizzy with all this legal and illegal talk... -.-lll In my opinion, however, I think that playing games you own on an emulator should be considered alright(just my opinion!) I mean you paid for the game right? So if you are just playing it on a different platform and not distributing or selling it, what's the harm? My guess is that once you manage to play it on the computer, you can easily distribute the game, which is what game companies would never allow. So to make sure that doesn't happen, game companies make ripping games or playing games on the emulator illegal.

Sigh... I wanna play Project Diva 2nd on com...

It's not so difficult:

You buy a game
You rip it to your computer (with the help of your PSP)
You play it on your computer (with the help of JPCSP)

This is (in my opinion) not illegal.

And this way is the only one supported here in the forum. If you don't have the game and do not own a PSP then you're out of luck.