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Google Yanks Several Emulators From App Store

Posted by timothy on from the quietly-humming-the-dragnet-theme dept.

PC Magazine reports that the "-oid" family of emulators from developer Yong Zhang (better known as yongzh) has been pulled from Google's Android Market. These include Nesoid, Snesoid, and Gameboid. From the article: "So what got Zhang the boot? Or, rather, who? Neither Zhang nor Google have commented on the primary source of the complaints against the developer's emulator apps. While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft–there's also speculation that Zhang allegedly violated the open source licenses for projects that parts of his programs were derived from." A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.

2 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Re:sleezeball by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to mention that I just checked, and the REAL SNES9x is still on the marketplace. This is clearly a license violation.

  2. Very interesting information by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

    Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies, 71 FR 68472-01"

    I realize this exception is being stated for video games and computer programs, but it rather reminds me of Disney's Dong of the South in laser disc format.