I skirt a fine line with emulators, I only download games I cannot play normally (I.E. Mother 3) or games I/friends of mine own/used to own (NHL 95, chrono trigger). My cousin uses emulators to preview sega games and decided whether or not to buy them from our local pawn shop. I disagree with them and their games being illegal, as the only emulators I mainly use are ones that don't make money for their respective companies anymore, but I'm not going to whip up a brouhaha over the legality of distributing digital copies of games that've been around since Tutankhamen invented the first pong table.