TI bans community calculator emulation

[critor]

It is commonly held, and explained on many sites distributing ROM images (for instance for gaming consoles), that downloading them for emulation purposes is legal if one has the hardware containing said ROM image.

Actually, the problem is much more complicated, and this "rule" is not legal, in the sense that it's not part of any piece of law.



At the end of the previous century, the TI calculators community spent significant effort on producing TI graphing calculator emulators, in which each user had to manually enter a ROM or OS image retrieved by his/her own means. That way, emulator authors passed legal problems (if any) on to their users.

Over the last few years, many changes have occurred in the emulation field:

• many community emulators of various quality and completeness have blossomed for smartphones and tablets
• the community now provides online emulators, which largely free users from compatibility headaches between computer types or installation procedures (let's mention TI8XEmu on TI-Planet or jsTIfied on Cemetech)

However, things also evolved on TI's side:

• TI started to take seriously the simulation (less advanced than emulation) of their machines, through the Nspire software (or TI-SmartView for pour TI-83+, TI-84, TI-73, TI-Collège Plus, TI-30X MultiView, TI-30X Pro MultiView, TI-34 MultiView, which are quality software)
• TI offers some sort of online Nspire simulator, through the TI-Nspire Document Player
• TI recently started to sell a Nspire simulator for the iPad

In this context, as mentioned on #cemetech, a "small" change has just been introduced in the TI-Software/App license, presented to users when downloading an OS from TI's site:

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS APP SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT   

By downloading the software and/or documentation you agree to abide by the following provisions.   

    Licence: Subject to your payment of any applicable license fee, Texas Instruments Incorporated ("TI") grants you a license to copy and use the software program(s) on a TI calculator and copy and use the documentation from the linked web page or CD ROM (both software programs and documentation being "Licensed Materials"). In addition to the copy resident on your calculator, you may keep a copy on your computer for backup / archive purposes only.

    Restrictions: [..]: You may not use the Licensed Materials on any emulator of a TI calculator unless the emulator is obtained from TI.

Yup, from now on, using TI's OS images with community TI calculator emulators is forbidden, which is in complete contradiction with the simplistic rule mentioned at the beginning of this post. :'(

Of course, we can think of the fact that no-fee virtual calculators that emulators provide conflict with calculator sales: why buy a physical calculator when one can have a virtual calculator on the computer for no fee ?
Several years ago, the "problem" didn't exist, but nowadays, smartphone or tablet are computers with a form factor not larger than calculators (and they're much more powerful !), so the situation changed...



Some persons will say that TI needs to evolve instead of taking part in downhill battles...
But however, let's try to look beyond the facts, as there might be even more important issues at stake. So, as we're now allowed to use ROM and OS images only with emulators provided by TI... would this mean that TI intends on investing even further in the area of simulation and emulation of their products?

We're impatiently and excitingly awaiting:

• an online TI-84+ emulator, in order to replace TI8XEmu (TI-Planet) and jsTIfied (Cemetech) which we seemingly no longer have the right to use
  
• a 89/92+/V200/89T emulator

But we can also wish that TI removes such clauses...

Situation to be watched...

Source:
#cemetech via http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=11296&p=135986


Edit: Indeed, TI is planning an online TI-84 emulator for the PARCC mathematics assessments for High School as you can read here (in french):
http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=10813

[harold]

Does this apply to the OS obtained when buying a calculator as well, or only to an OS downloaded from TI's site?

[Keoni29]

How are they gonna check if you use an emulator? I do not use an emulator on my pc when I want to test software before uploading it to my calculator to protect it. I have not dumped the rom to my computer because I knew it would become illegal in a few years.

[Lionel Debroux]

Attempting to criminalize users for doing anything that interacts with the greed for money of a select few, and the current situation in which they're milking customers through low-end products at persistently high price tags (a clear failure for the so-called "free market"), is despicable, corrupt business practice.
The music and movie majors are doing it, too, and it's not a good thing to be compared to majors wrt. greed and corrupt business practices...

[northern_snow]

See, HP has released various emulators (hp15c, hp39gII, hp35s and so on) freely and officially on its website, while TI is trying to restrict community calculator emulation and sell the official emulator???

CASIO fx-9860/CG series are much more powerful than TI-83/84: higher resolution, faster CPU and higher precision accuracy.

Once more TI stands at the opposite of the community

PS. If TI is going to ban the jsTIfied, I think we can set up a server in P.R.China

[Adriweb]

If TI is going to ban the jsTIfied, I think we can set up a server in P.R.China

If that's ever going to happen (I doubt it....), we can actually say that jsTIfied is 'just' a z80 emulator that happens to emulate TI z80 calculator quite well... After all, it's up to anybody useing it that TI can be angry at, not a service provinding legal emulation which doesn't host anything of TI.

[chickendude]

How long ago was this added? It's possible it's always been there but we haven't noticed it 'til now. Really it's just yet another sign that TI doesn't really care about us, which i suppose isn't any sort of surprise. Like any (successful) company the $$$ comes first. Even if they did try to enforce it, though, trying to wipe out their (free) competition to force users to use their (non-free) "simulators" (i don't know if they even have debugging support...? Certainly nothing comparable to community emulators) would just be laughable. I can't see it having any effect apart from increasing the number of places you can find TI ROMs online.

Maybe a decade ago it seemed like half the community ended up working for TI at some point or another, now TI seems to be trying to push itself as far away as it can from the community

[pimathbrainiac]

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU :'( :'(

Does this mean I can't use wabbit anymore?

[TIfanx1999]

Wow, I thought this was fake news. I literally had to go to TI's website and check it.

[Streetwalrus]

Just ignore this clause. I don't think they'll ever sue every emulator user, and there are some emus in circulation that have no author attached to it (no longer maintained), such as VTI.

[Stefan Bauwens]

I did and do not submit to this. Therefore I have right to use any emulator I like.
No emulator, or online emulator has to dissapear since there's no problem(apparently) providing the tool. The problem is submitting to this and using the tool.
Don't submit and be free.(I guess?)

[Xeda112358]

This part of the license wasn't in place before, so when I downloaded the OSes, I did not have this stipulation to agree to. If I need to, I just won't download anymore of their OSes If I want a new OS, I will use a community made one or make my own

[SpiroH]

I think that these Math/Science sellers are getting a bit scared that their profit margins will somehow be at risk with the advent of powerful community emulators that challenge theirs.

My guess is that, if anything, this will only contribute to foster the appearance of even better community emulators in order to get rid of this sort of ridiculous dictator-like behaviour.  After all, we all know that many (if not all) of the Maths's algorithms they include in their OSes belong to the Universe, to whom they don't pay a single dime.

They are are just a (small) TI company, doing the same thing for decades and decades, how do they dare to threaten the world in general? It's just pathetic, but OTOH somewhat typical too.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I doubt TI has a legal case with jsTIfied and any emulator that was written without using any code from TI. Granted, TI could very well force authors to no longer provide any skin of their calculators and instead replace them with custom skins, but that's as far as they can go, since the emulators themselves contains no code from the calculators.

If TI ever got able to take action, then we would end up being stuck with their shitty ass emulators with horrible grayscale.

That said, I think TI might have a legal case for emulators that includes the ROMs or if they let you select the ROM on the server on which it's hosted.

[Hayleia]

But lol, do they really think someone will pass all his/her life on an emu without buying the calc ? I mean, if you don't buy the calc, you are not interested in calc, so you don't emulate it. And if you use an emulator, it is to code things for your calc without fearing to crash it, or to try a calc that you will buy.
They are just preventing potential customers to try and buy their products, and customers to profit from their already bought device.