You can try to make peace with it anyway you like, piracy is theft. Always has been, always will be.
Personally I buy retro games from Yahoo Japan and eBay, then dump the discs myself if I like it so I can play them on my PC or Shield. With carts I buy them, then download the ROMs so I can put them onto my Everdrive. I also have a SNES and NES Mini, and I may well buy a Polymega too if they turn out well.
I don't steal because stealing is both wrong, and a crime. Maybe I'm old fashioned, or maybe I just have morals. if you don't, then bully for you.
Now you're being naive.
You do know that what you just said can be considered even worse than "theft" according to Nintendo and several companies, right? If you don't think this is the case then I suggest you look into what happens when you ignore this thing here:
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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital restrictions management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.
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In their eyes even if you buy the original cartridge you can't create a backup (which is perfectly legal in some countries, a single copy for private use, not to be distributed) and download a ROM like you just did.
You would have to abstain from that or pay whatever they want for a technology or product they invent or want you to swallow later. Even if it doesn't meet your needs.
In other words if I buy an ebook from Amazon and decide I don't want to risk losing my purchase (exactly
what happened years ago in a famous case), removing the DRM, then I am a pirate in their eyes. Worse, if I distribute a software that can do this (with DVDs, Blu-rays, and why not, original cartridges/CDs) they will try to send me to JAIL (perhaps you never heard of Slysoft, DVDFab and similar companies...?).
I am not trying to tell you that you are right or wrong... I am simply letting you know that for many decades these companies have worked very hard to ban technologies, if that meant they would lose absolute control over the buyers. Don't believe me? Then look what they tried to do:
https://torrentfreak.com/the-copyright-industry-a-century-of-deceit-111127/
https://torrentfreak.com/thirty-years-since-betamax-and-movies-are-still-being-made-140118/ (this was the most blatant case):
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In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 that the Sony Betamax recorder was legal, due to its significant non-infringing uses. This led to the consumer entertainment revolution of the last 30 years.
Everything from DVRs to tablets to MP3 players were made possible. Even the camera in your cellphone owes its existence to that ruling, as otherwise the ability to produce a copy of a copyrighted work (even of degraded quality) would have been enough to scupper its production.
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Not to mention bittorrent. Are torrent apps allowed in the Apple Store? No? Why not? Because someone thinks this technology is only used for spreading piracy.
Does that make any sense to you? It's like banning knives because some lunatic would use them for killing.
The mere existence of such technology doesn't mean everyone using is a pirate, or that (which is your case) haven't paid for the original contents. The thing is: it doesn't matter how much money you give to them, they want to control everyone and everything and we simply don't own what we have invested money.
The more I see this megalomaniac reasoning the less interested I am in paying for the official stuff.
I can find court decisions that prevented Microsoft from exacting a lot of $$$$$$ from companies that paid for Window$$ and wanted to install additional copies, and I can find many more where the judges sided with the copyright industry. What do you think is fair in this case? Doesn't matter, they have the mean$$$$ to decide what is right or wrong. The very laws we are forced to obey were never created with any consent from the voters.
Bottom line: next time you ask why can't play with classic games in your Apple TV remember the real reasons. I am not going to elabore further what is wrong with copyright (and the copyright industry), If I would then I would be explaining this forever. I also recommend searching for articles that explain why public domain expiring after 100 years is a bad idea.
Also keep in mind this has nothing to do with downloading for free or paying for the official stuff. For me it's just a matter of taste: I don't want to BAN physical media, books or games for the same reason I don't wish to see roms or rips extracted from these discs to vanish.
I opted to not buy more consoles, cartridges and discs. I want to play with roms, despite all limitations and differences. Or to put it better, I want to opt for the thing in digital format. If tomorrow all roms disappear or if I am limited to using my PC, then I will either stop playing or find this boring and give up.
What all these companies don't understand is that I will not start buying whatever is available in the market after they managed to crush the opposition. That won't change my mind.
That's why all these arguments about piracy mean nothing, since they all fail to realize how we all changed. The more concerned Nintendo and others are about this, the less they care about improving our alternatives. And the more they alienate themselves from their fanbase.
If I were to make a suggestion, why not release a game like this:
For iOS/ATV? How hard can it be? I mean THE EXACT SAME GAME, with no changes. If it's technologically possible, then why not release all this library gradually? I know I would pay for some. For me this is a better option than buying a SNES Mini. Or using some emulator that doesn't work properly.
