More game emulators pulled from Android Market
Remember two months ago when PSX4Droid suddenly disappeared from the Android Market? As many feared, that was only the beginning, and as of today a whole bunch of other emulators have been pulled and the respective developer’s developer license revoked. Game emulators are in a highly gray area legally speaking as pirating games is illegal but emulators are not. Meaning that in theory, it would be legal to use if you ripped your own games (at least in countries where national law supersedes any game publisher rules that say “no ripping”). This means that in pulling these emulators, Google hasn’t acted using any actual law, just their own “because we say so”. That also means that Google is once again working against its own reputation as being more open than iOS. What do you think is worse- being told up front that emulators are not allowed or suddenly being kicked out and having your developer’s license revoked at a random point down the line? Just as you can do whatever you want on a jailbroken iPad though you can release Android software without Market access, so in the end it’s likely to only hurt Google’s reputation and their own app store.
[Engadget via ZDnet]
