Unlike our competitors, VirtualNES.com is able to provide you classic NES games legally. We can only provide you with classic NES games that we have an original cartridge of, which have either been bought out of pocket or donated by Players Like You™. If we don't have the games in our possession, we can't have them online.
So if you have a game, you have to get better legal rights for your friends to play?
They need to get better legal advice. Having a cartridge does not give one the right to let other people access the game though Emulators. Just like having a copy of a movie doesn't give you the right to stream it on the net.
In March 2008, we received a series of letters from the ESA. The ESA is contending that the operation of vNES is illegal, despite our (painstaking) compliance with the law.In an effort to avoid further legal issues, instead of simply shutting down the website, we no longer provide access to games we don't have a physical cartridge of, effectively making vNES operate like a virtual equivilant of a rental store, or, more accurately, library.
It IS legal.
Remember kids, pirating is legal because the person who uploaded the file owns the game/music/video!
All of the games on the site belong to him in cartridge form, allowing him to do whatever he wants with them. While creating an emulator in Flash for free seems like he is breaking a million and one lawsuits, the way he is doing things is 100% legal.
In this case, yes it is. He owns a physical copy.
I don't see why putting 20+ year old video games on the internet is even something to be concerned with anymore.
