Note that the vendors (and even user groups) of some emulators have actually found and contacted the copyright holder for various games and game ROMs and then legally licensed their use. So please don't assume that the completely legal use of the ROM images within an emulator is not possible.
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MAME Emulator Shown Running Well on New Apple TV
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It was the automatic rejection of emulated games i thought was a shame and i think Apple are doing more to damage the monetisation of theses old games than hackers are doing. After all, these games can no longer be purchased in their original form (unless you go and buy and old cabinet which is second hand and unlikely to kick back any profits to the rights holders)... If Apple were to allow the legitimate sale of these old games through emulation then the copyright holders would actually have a chance to obtain profits from the sale of emulated titles.
Apple does. There are several emulators in the App store with licensed bundled games included.
Exactly right... not only arcade emulators from Atari, Namco, etc., but consider the amazing Pinball Arcade. They not only license real tables, but capture every audio/video and physics aspect possible. I saw a documentary about the painstaking efforts to emulate each nuance - quite the labor of love!
If the copyright holders don't give permission for the games to be sold or emulated, why is it Apple's fault??? By what logic is Apple causing damage? Go and storm the copyright holders of those games to get off their assess and make a tvOS app.
What I gathered from your post is that making an emulator, on its own, is legal. It is. My point is that along with the peanut butter comes the jelly. You can legally make an emulator, but when 99.99999% of all games it will run are copyrighted works, I'm simply saying that one doesn't exist without the other.
I'm for a use it or lose it when it comes to copyright, especially technology. If someone is sitting on some copyrighted game code form 1981 and never intends to do anything with it ever again, when new technology comes around that make the old new again, if they don't want to take advantage of it, that's fine, but they should lose any copy protection for new technology they simply want to ignore.
Now, as many have mentioned, Atari, NAMCO, etc. have been good at making this stuff available to next-gen. Imagine an "official NES emulator from NINTENDO. They could start with 1st party titles, then sign some licensing deals and get all the NES games on there. As long as they don't go greedy. I for one would pay $1.00 (for normal games, as and much as $5.00 for hit games on an official NES emulator. I'm just not going to drop $50/game like I did in the 80s (well like my father did).
I know they have that Wii Marketplace thing... but imagine the NES app for Apple TV? Talk about a killer game app. And, all the NES games will work with that rinky dink tv remote Apple demands games support. Talk about a no brainer. How many adults who go back and buy their childhood again? I know I would.
I was under the impression they were made to preserve the old arcade games as most of them would enter oblivion by the time the copyrights expired (boards break down, things go to junkyards, etc.) First and foremost, MAME is a preservation project. The fact they share the emulator with the public does not put the legal onerous on them to make sure that you run games you are legally entitled to run. It's like saying guns are made to kill and assuming everyone uses them to kill. It's the person who kills with a gun, not the gun itself nor is that how they have to be used.
And that is exactly why Apple should not be blocking them. By itself it does nothing illegal. I pointed out a site where you can get 20 real arcade roms legally free. If that's all you are entitled to run, it's your responsibility to only run those 20 games. If you own PCB boards or bought roms from Starroms when they were available to buy there or own the Hanaho roms, then you can legally run more games. If you live in a country that has no copyright agreements, I suppose you could "legally" do whatever you want. None of these things should matter as to the emulator status itself. Apple can choose to do whatever they want with their App Store, but legally there's nothing preventing them from allowing emulators.