Game emulators

Don't think so:

"Copyright laws in the United States and many European countries protect reverse engineering,[citation needed] so the brunt of these attacks have been borne by websites that host ROM dumps and ISO images of copyrighted game content. Many such sites have been shut down under the threat of legal action. As of result, link rot has occurred on a number of these webpages without further updates."

Read More: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_console_emulator#In_the_United_States

To be honest, the emulator itself is not illegal. It's just software. The games you use on said emulator could be illegal.

"Ahh,I'm gonna point out once again that the legal matters depend on the laws your country has and since the laws generally differ at each country you can't be certain of what is legitimate and what not.That's mainly for the posession of roms.

Emulators are legal in most(if not all-I can't be certain of that) countries because they do not "use" any copyrighted material.Only the games ,names etc of a console are copyrighted ,the code of the emulator is irrelevant to them.So if you have any legal questions it would be better to ask a lawyer in your country and not here."

forums.emulator-zone.com/archive/index.php/t-1816.html

If you own the console and the game, then they are legal. But that is the only case.

The legality of the emulator depends on if it uses custom made code or a rom dump of the console. If it uses a rom dump from the console then it would be violating copyright law.

Usually it is only the early versions of an emulator that relies on a rom dump from a console. But as the emu develops they rely on a rom dump less and less.

As for game roms. They are all illegal even if you own the original game.

Hence them not arresting you for owning an iPod.