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Explaining all of this requires an understanding of the fundamentals. Intellectual property is a mouthful, but it refers to the ownership of things (thoughts, ideas, etc.) by nature of originality. There are three Three big fields of intellectual property lawinclude; ''copyright'', ''patents'', and ''trademarks'', and are which all used for encompass different thingstypes of works.

;Copyright: Creative works. An author creates a work (sometimes called a work of art but that's misleading because it assumes everything that can be copyrighted is art), and then licenses this work to others for reproduction. Is designed to be granted as soon as the work is created, unlike the other two. ;Patents:System design and inventions. An author designs a system (an invention), and then describes it in detail for others to implement. This is usually something you register at an agency (such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office if you live in the United States). ;Trademarks:Names and brands. An author comes up with a name that identifies their products, and ensures that nobody else in the same industry can use it. This is usually something you register at an agency (such as the United States Patent and Trademark Office if you live in the United States).;Copyright:Creative works. An author creates a work (sometimes called a work of art but that's misleading because it assumes everything that can be copyrighted is art), and then licenses this work to others for reproduction. Is designed to be granted as soon as the work is created, unlike the other two.

Based on When copyright was originally implemented in law in the original design of copyrightcommonwealth, we know that the time that it was only supposed to protect a given work stays protected is supposed to be finite; for fourteen years. After that isterm, it should the copyright would expire. This is because and the protection originally lasted fourteen years from work would enter the date of a work's creation when it was originally conceived in the commonwealth, as a way ''public domain''' (to incentivize further creation of works). But because long-running companies want In the United States however, the copyright term has been extended numerous times to continue profiting off keep works under the control of old workthe rights holders, they set precedents in modern law that extend this time to as which are usually not the original creators since the term is now so long as '''one hundred (95 years''') they would have died. In many western countries, Entertainment companies have a love-hate relationship with the public domain, wilfully willfully using works that are in under it while preventing their transformations own creative works from being "misused".

As a result of two landmark cases in In the United States , the Ninth District Court ruled in favor of emulation several times. They originally established the early 2000slegality of competing software products in [https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/593285/sega-enterprises-ltd-a-japanese-corporation-v-accolade-inc-a/ Sega v. Accolade], which was about console-compatible cartridges having to make use of a trademark they were not licensed to use. In that case, they found Sega at fault for misusing their trademark to limit competition. The code to use it is was considered functional in nature and could not be considered legal to emulate any copyrighted if it granted Accolade's cartridges access and thus interoperability. Reproducing the functionality of a systemis a matter of ''patent'' law, not copyright. <blockquote>''"If disassembly of copyrighted object code is per se an unfair use, the owner of the copyright gains a de facto monopoly over the functional aspects of his work--aspects that were expressly denied copyright protection by Congress. More specifically'''In order to enjoy a lawful monopoly over the idea or functional principle underlying a work, the ruling was meant creator of the work must satisfy the more stringent standards imposed by the patent laws. Sega does not hold a patent on the Genesis console.'''"''</blockquote> A key distinction about competition as a matter of copyright law said: <blockquote>''"[An] attempt to monopolize the market by making it impossible for others to allow commercial emulators compete runs counter to profitthe statutory purpose of promoting creative expression and cannot constitute a strong equitable basis for resisting the invocation of the fair use doctrine."''</blockquote> These two factors were similarly upheld in [https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/767633/sony-computer-entertainment-inc-a-japanese-corporation-sony-computer/ Sony v. Connectix], something Sony which was about the researching of the PlayStation's BIOS to create an emulator that didn't like need one. <blockquote>''"[Because] the sound Virtual Game Station is transformative, and does not merely supplant the PlayStation console, the Virtual Game Station is a legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played. [...] Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly."''</blockquote> <blockquote>''"If Sony wishes to obtain a lawful monopoly on the functional concepts in its software, it must satisfy the more stringent standards of; itthe patent laws. This Sony has not done."''</blockquote> Shortly after this decision, the [https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/768996/sony-computer-entertainment-america-inc-a-delaware-corporation-v-bleem/ Sony v. Bleem] case evaluated whether using video game screenshots to market the emulator was considered copyright infringement. Bleem's possible that if use was considered fair, as the screenshots were beneficial in helping users understand the emulator being compatible with the games themselves. <blockquote>''"Although Bleem and Connectix hadnis most certainly copying Sony't developed s copyrighted material for the commercial emulatorspurposes of increasing its own sales, such comparative advertising redounds greatly to the purchasing public's benefit with very little corresponding loss to the integrity of Sony's copyrighted material."''</blockquote> Additionally, they wouldnthe perceived market impact that using the screenshots would have on Sony was considered a non-issue. <blockquote>''"Bleem't s use of a handful of screen shots in its advertising will have no noticeable effect on Sony's ability to do with its screen shots what it chooses. If sales of Sony consoles drop, it will be due to the Bleem emulator's technical superiority over the PlayStation console, not because Bleem used screen shots to illustrate that comparison."''</blockquote> The caveat was that, had it been suedpossible to avoid it, Bleem should've done so. <blockquote>''"We are persuaded by the need for Bleem to impose minimally upon Sony's copyright with respect to these screen shots because there is no other way to create a truly accurate comparison for the user."''</blockquote>

The fundamental concept of free and open source software is an inversion of the regular practice of software developers selling binary code to consumers and businesses. The [[source code]] that goes into developing commercial software isn't open to the public because releasing it would give others a competitive advantage and allow unauthorized ports. This is what is known as proprietary software, named such because it often has a proprietor (i.e. an owner). With free and open source software however, the source is open (hence the term open source) and available to others to use, study, modify, and share, to ensure that a user always has access to these tools. The Linux kernel is at the forefront of the movement, as it is the most active open-source project. (It's not the most widely-recognized, however; that would probably be Android and VLC Media Player.)

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or just GPL) is one of the most popular open-source licenses in the free software community, and for good reason; it's has remained one of the strongest copyleft licenses, requiring users to share their contributions (some might say to an insane degree). To use GPL code, the safest and easiest way to avoid a license violation is to keep the repository for it out in the open. The lack of any release demonstrates ill will among the many business users of open source software who usually have "playing fair with the community" on the lower end of their priorities. The benefit of having just the repo in the open is that software itself usually has a mechanism to display the software version, and even slight knowledge of repository traversal and compiler tools should allow users to reproduce their own version. As it is the chief representative of the strong copyleft licenses, the GPL carries misconceptions about the expectations around its use.

* The GPL license says nothing about having to make the process of compiling builds easy, only that it has two widespread versions; version 2, written in 1991, and version 3, written in 2007to be ''possible''. No one talks about version 1 * The license also says nothing against commercial distribution of any kind (1989as is explained later for non-commercial licenses). The GPL3 was meant If you had to reconcile license compatibilitymake the source code available, address software patents, license violations, nullifying DRM by calling you could charge some arbitrary amount for it an ineffective technological measure, and the big one; [[wikipedia:Tivoization|Tivoization]], which was a severe flaw they completely missed when drafting the first two versions . Doing that allowed Tivo would still be leaps above having nothing to make use of GPL2 software by sharing its code while preventing unsigned firmware from being loaded on the hardware. The GPL3 prohibits thisshow, which proved to have major problems when Hyperkin tried to incorporate the GPL3-licensed [[RetroArch]] in the [[Retron5]] (among other violations)is usually what happens.

====LGPL The GPL has two widespread versions; version 2 (written in 1991) and AGPL====version 3 (written in 2007). The GPL is not the GPL3 was only license written to reconcile issues that had come up with the GPL2 in the years after it was written, as the Free Software Foundation created; because the GPL2 ended up being overly restrictive had a considerable amount of foresight, but not enough to imagine what would happen if a company used GPL software in how software a product where users could work not flash their own firmware. This has become the central point of contention with it[[Emulation Boxes]], many open-source libraries needed a less strict license where hardware designers are constantly at odds with hobbyists who want to allow interoperability with commercial softwareincrease the functionality of their systems.

This ended up being solved in two ways; ====LGPL====The GPL2 was an adequate license for software projects that compiled all of their code into a single binary. However, if the linking exception found license is used for a <abbr title="Collections of specific routines or functions in GNU Classpath's GPL2 license allowed it a single file to not affect the be used by other software it would be bundled ininstead of being run directly. You may know them on Windows as Dynamic-Link Libraries, or DLLs.">code library</abbr> that requires some intermediary application, and said app becomes bound to the terms of the Lesser GPL, which . This is an entire license that was made to make this aspect clearer rather than be an exceptiona consequence of its broad reach.

The GPL also doesnFSF't account for software used exclusively for consumer-facing servers, so the Affero GPL s original response was made to require web app developers create a "linking exception" in GNU Classpath's GPL2 license that allowed it to be used in proprietary software without having to share the whole program's source (the lack of said exception would've made it unfeasible to use in Java software). Later on, they created a much clearer variation of this exception as a separate license called the Lesser GPL (LGPL). This means code of their app that bundles and uses an LGPL library only needs to users over keep ''the networklibrary itself'' open, not the code that interfaces with it.

The conditions in the BSD license are easy to modify, which makes it an attractive target for those wanting to include the prohibition of commercial use(see [[#Non-commercial software]] below). [https://github.com/mamedev/historic-mame/blob/master/docs/license.txt The old MAME license] (and by extension [https://github.com/barry65536/FBAlpha/blob/master/src/license.txt FinalBurn Alpha] and [https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/blob/master/src/license.txt FinalBurn Neo]) is based off of (or was heavily influenced by) this license, which ended up causing a ton of problems in recent times, notably when a libretro port of MAME tried to backport GPL code into old-licensed code, and when the Capcom Home Arcade [[Emulation Boxes|emulation box]] was said to use FinalBurn Alpha ahead of its release (despite its creators not getting permission from all of FBA's developers).

* It's not as strict as the GPL because it doesn't grant trademark use. ==Source-available software==This is a term typically used to refer to software which doesn't strictly count as FLOSS, even though the source code is readily available to the public. Two of the most common subcategories are: ===Non-commercial software===Some ostensibly "free and open-source" software licenses include, or can be modified to include, an extra provision designed to prevent the software from being used for commercial purposes of a specific nature or of any kind, e.g. the sale of software and/or hardware to turn a profit. Since this is a fairly explicit example of restricting who can use a piece of software and for what purpose, '''it disqualifies the software in question from being considered FLOSS''': <blockquote>''&ldquo;"Free software" does not mean "noncommercial". On the contrary, a free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. This policy is of fundamental importance&mdash;without this, free software could not achieve its aims. [...] We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software.&rdquo;''<br/>&ndash;[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#selling The Free Software Foundation]</blockquote> <blockquote>''&ldquo;The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.&rdquo;''<br/>&ndash;[https://opensource.org/osd Open Source Initiative]</blockquote> Despite this, non-commercial licenses have long been seen as a desirable or even essential option by some emulator developers, either to specifically pre-empt others from bundling their code into a proprietary payware package (even though this would also prohibits trademark be a flagrant violation of copyleft licenses like the GPLv3) or using it in a pre-built [[Emulation Boxes|emulation box]] without their explicit permission, or because they simply haven't considered the possibility of any more legitimate commercial use cases for their projects. Or sometimes they do it out of caution that the original hardware manufacturer could take them to court, despite the fact that [[#Legality of emulation|the manufacturer's only grounds to stand on is whether the underlying technology behind a console is patented]]. Whatever reason the dev gives for a non-commercial clause in the software license, it ''should'' be of no consequence to the average end user who's just running a free emulator on their PC for their own use. Some specific circumstances, such as a developer who's making a brand new commercial game for an old system and using an emulator to test it in lieu of real hardware, ''might'' be exceptions to this, but that's where it gets pretty murky from a legal standpoint. However, ''developers'' of emulators must take extra precaution when working with code from a non-commercial emulator. As it is by definition not free software, the code is incompatible with the GPL, and the developer must take care not to mix GPL and non-commercial code. One example where this becomes relevant is with forks of old versions of MAME prior to its re-licensing to open-source. These forks can incorporate BSD code from the newest MAME versions, but are forbidden from including GPL MAME code. It has also been argued by some that RetroArch's ability to auto-download non-commercial cores is a license violation, as RetroArch is GPL-licensed and makes profit via Patreon. ===Open-core software===Sometimes developers choose not to release the entire source code for their projects, and instead only allow the source code to partially be made public. Usually, the core functionality of the program is what gets released under compatible licensing terms (at best, a non-copyleft FLOSS license) while certain bells and whistles remain closed-source, hence the term "open core". While there's some debate as to whether the stripped-down, fully source-available versions of these programs could count as FLOSS, the model as a whole is undoubtedly not fully in keeping with the ideals of the open-source movement, and it's often considered a compromise model that allows outside contributions and/or code reuse while still making it viable to sell the software for profit. This model is pretty rare for emulation software, and not actually that common in the broader software world either; one of the most notable examples is [https://about.gitlab.com/ GitLab], whose developers offer a paid Enterprise Edition with some additional business-focused features compared to the freely available core code in the Community Edition.