Video games are a major part of my life, and their influence is very evident in many aspects of it.  I've been playing games since I was 4, when I got a PlayStation 2 for my birthday.  Even now, this article is being typed on my computer that I bought for gaming, while I listen to the soundtrack of Nier on my gaming headset.  With such commitment, I believe that I am at least relatively qualified to talk about games, and the outdated, restrictive laws that surround them.  Specifically, I want to talk about emulation.

For those not familiar with the term, emulation is the use of specialized programs that allow gamers to play games from any console on their computer.  Emulated games are often glitchy due to imperfections in the program and the difficulty associated with creating software that can successfully emulate hardware.  The creation of emulators is often taken on as a labor of love, however, and a desire to pass on the history of the console with both its good and bad games.  In the eyes of the law, though, such endeavors are not seen as anything nearly as noble as that.

Emulation is considered piracy, and piracy is illegal.  In my eyes, this should not be the case, at least when it comes to past generations.  Many of the companies of old no longer exist, and most of the most popularly emulated games are from past generations.  The only way to legally acquire such games as these at this time is to buy them secondhand, in which case the original creators see none of the revenue generated. 

The music industry has a law similar to what I think would best fit gaming, where a song becomes public domain after a certain amount of time.  Games that were developed recently and are still being produced should be the ones subject to the laws that currently apply to all games.  The main argument that I've seen people have against emulation essentially boils down to "it's illegal, you're bad for doing it, and now I'm a better person for not."  Quite obviously, this is not really much of an argument.  I can understand why people would be upset if they did pay however-much for a new game when it was released, only to have it enter into public domain shortly after, and how people taking advantage of this could have very bad implications, but the point is that not everyone would, and that the worst parts of a community should not be seen as representative of the whole of it.
This is to say nothing of the good that emulation can do for games.  Games like Mother 3, never released outside of Japan, could never have found an audience in the west if not for fan translations.  Entire series could be forgotten simply from being inaccessible.  I believe that now is an especially appropriate time to talk about the maturing game industry, with the recent death of Ralph Baer, father of the industry.  As such, this article is dedicated to his memory, and to the hopes that it can bring to light this bothersome issue.