this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
839 points (98.8% liked)
Steam Deck
14917 readers
477 users here now
A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
To be fair, it's software specifically designed to run digital backups of what's supposed to be personally owned media. It just so happens that it's very easy to obtain a copy otherwise, but there's nothing inherently illegal about it or the games.
Strong arming independent projects, and individual developers especially, that are very careful to not endorse that, effectively holding them accountable for others, is morally questionable at best.
From a theoretical point of view, emulators of modern consoles may actually be illegal. Under the DMCA, emulation for preservation is protected as a periodically-renewed exemption list defined by the library of congress. But, (paraphrasing) "creating or distributing any hardware or software device—or component of such—designed to circumvent DRM technology" is still illegal irrespective of any exemptions. A reasonable (and bullshit) interpretation of that means that any emulator which is capable of bypassing any DRM features (such as decrypting ROM using user-provided keys) is a violation under the act.
I say theoretical because it hasn't ever actually been tested in a court. Nintendo v. Tropic Haze LLC nearly gave us the answer, but the latter chose to settle instead.