Javascript gameboy, legal question.

[Isaac]

This is a gameboy, that runs in javascript. You choose what game you want to play by a drop-down menu of available games. The user doesn't download any roms or emus to run the system. All of that is handled by the website.
http://www.codebase.es/jsgb/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pretty cool, but am I breaking the law by playing this?

With normal emulators and roms you break the law when you download games you don't own...

So what about in this case? I only own a few of those games found in it's drop-down menu.

This kind of reminds me of the issue when listening to music on Youtube, where you can find lots of songs to listen to for free. However it's the posters who get in trouble, not the listeners. Is that the case here? Is the law only being broken by the host of the site and not the visitors?

[Krom]

Yeah, you wouldn't be in any trouble, but the people that run the website will probably have a DMCA takedown sent their way if it and Nintendo catches on...

[Avder]

Questionable ground for you, unquestionably illegal for the creator of the site.

[Isaac]

Krom, think about this.

Questionable ground for you, unquestionably illegal for the creator of the site.

If the game was streaming to my browser it's legal, I'm sure. But if the game is downloaded to my browser's cache then executed, how is that different than how a regular game emulator works? Of course the difference between regular emulators and this web version is the game is coming with the installer and emulator. Normally they are separate. But I'm sure in this case the whole game file is loaded into the browser in order to be executed. That's my assumption. I'm not a Javascript expert.

[Krom]

That is just splitting hairs, it is still a *web application* that was served up in a browser from a web server somewhere. Virtually every page you visit ends up in your browsers cache or a buffer somewhere on your computer, I doubt any competent judge would see things differently.

Naturally things could change, since the MPAA and RIAA are hard at work crafting legislation to make it so if you were to type "nintendo roms" into google and searched but didn't click any of the links they would still consider you guilty of copyright infringement.

Of course even further than that, the way copyright law is written in the US it is inherently impossible for the internet to function without causing copyright infringement. Granted it is also inherently impossible to communicate in any way in the US without violating copyright law as it is written, so I wouldn't take that one seriously.