But the emulation sites are profiting off of property that doesn’t belong to them. The site that was shut down by Nintendo was making (allegedly) millions and doing a wink/nudge piracy workaround.
I mean, if I stole 5 billion from Boeing and shared it with every retro gamer it’d benefit all of us too, but it’s still illegal.
As I’ve mentioned on this site before, I’ve had people pirate my music and make way more off it then I ever did. Same with my writing. And whenever I’d confront them I’d get the whole “exposure!” or “art should be free” arguments, so I have a fairly blinkered view of the “unauthorized preservation” scene.
Im not siding with anyone, I just don’t think that saying “X company has billions” is a valid legal argument for theft.