I personally think that emulation betters the community, if done right. What is done right, you ask? Well, there is no direct, completely correct answer to that question. I believe "done right" means within limits. For example, Game A released for the Sega Genesis, created, devved, published, etc by Company A, is no longer in circulation. Also, Company A was dissolved without transferring its rights to any existing company. As far as I know of copyright laws and the like, no other company can take that game as its own IP without taking necessary steps as far as buying out the company. With off hand emulation, Game A could be revived. Maybe even Company A could arise from the dust of no workers!
There are obvious limitations to this idea. I admit that.
There are many reasons why people use emulation. Lack of money to obtain said game is one. Greediness is another. And simply testing out your computer is yet another. I personally use emulations for walkthroughs, and I know many big YouTubers use emulation for walkthroughs rather than the actual game under the invigorating idea of "it is more convenient for me to use emulation rather than track down the game that probably costs XXX amount of money".
Emulation, in a sense, does eat at the money the companies make. Don't ever listen to those who say that they emulate only to try out the game before buying; more often than not someone who can get a game for free will
not be seeking to legitimately obtain the game. For one, there is no reason to, seeing as how you already "own" it.
-----------------------------
Many people use emulation to get access to games that they no longer can play. Examples being Ocarina of Time v1.0, which is incidentally the best version to do glitch runs on. Anyway, I've actually read that emulation, emulators and what not, can possibly go against some game companies' terms of use.
This is the closest I can get to emulators, not ROMs, being illegal:
Nintendo - Corporate Information said:
Yes. Personal Websites and/or Internet Content Providers sites That link to Nintendo ROMs, Nintendo emulators and/or illegal copying devices can be held liable for copyright and trademark violations, regardless of whether the illegal software and/or devices are on their site or whether they are linking to the sites where the illegal items are found.
Obviously, Nintendo in one way or another sees emulators as illegal. However, I found this to be contradicting:
Nintendo - Corporate Information said:
How Come Nintendo Does Not Take Steps Towards Legitimizing Nintendo Emulators?
Emulators developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software promote piracy. That's like asking why doesn't Nintendo legitimize piracy. It doesn't make any business sense. It's that simple and not open to debate.
Nintendo uses emulators, as does Sony and any other major company that somehow allows playing of a port. For example, the Nintendo Gamecube collect "Zelda:Collector's Edition" is actually just a bunch of ports, ran on the GC's ability to emulate. The Wii's Virtual Console is also just software emulation as well. That is partially why some games haven't been released, and why others have fatal errors that weren't present in the original release; emulation isn't perfect and it is doubtful it ever will be.
Here is Nintendo's stance on Emulators and ROMs:
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emulator