Morals, ethics, and economics of emulators. Are they legal?

Many people are heavily divided on this issue. Are emulators morally okay? Are they legal?

Emulator as in game. For example, there are literally hundreds of emulators out of the super nintendo platform

An emulator is a program (or system) that makes it look like you are doing something else. Running a city, flying a plane, building a restaurant, whatever.

Are they legal? Yes. Protected under the 1st Amendment in the US. Unless they reveal classified information, or contain obscenity, or are harmful to minors -- standard exceptions.

Morality and ethics are based on culture and belief systems. What's ethical and moral (or not) to a group of Southern Baptists or Quakers is going to be very different from what is ethical or moral to a group of agnostic Engineering Graduate students at MIT. Each culture has its own set of rules for ethics and morals.

It sounds like you're trying to ask whether emulators should be legal if they allow bad people to practice doing bad things, regardless of whether the emulators can also be used as games by other people.

As far as laws, that's a simple question. They are legal, unless they fall within one of the narrow exceptions above, because of the 1st Amendment. As far as morality, that's a personal opinion and you are free to express that opinion to anyone who will listen, also guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.

What kind of emulator? Life? Personality? Business model? Not sure where you're headed.

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