The Bleem v. Sony case is often brought up whenever legal action against emulators happens, and I got curious, so I dug a bit deeper. It's quite hard, as most of the actual source material is not publicly available for free, only the appeal decision by the ninth court. But from what I've gathered from secondary sources, this is what actually happened.

1. Sony sues Bleem on one count of unfair competition and one count of copyright violation for the use of Sony game screenshots in Bleem advertising.
2. A judge dismisses the unfair competition claim. Sony wins the copyright violation.
3. Bleem appeals, and the Ninth Court reverses the decision on copyright violation for advertisement material.
4. Sony sues again, this time for unfair competition and also patent infringement for using their BIOS.
5. Sony and Bleem settle for an undisclosed amount. Bleem declares bankruptcy.

As far as I can tell, the only precedent was on whether or not you can use a competitor's screenshots in your advertisement, and indeed that's all I've ever seen the case referred to in future cases. The first unfair competition claim was dismissed (so cannot be a precedent) and the second case was settled. I see a lot of people say that this case set a "precedent" that "emulation is legal", but I don't see how?

Is this just another case where through a game of telephone and rumors people just take it for assumed fact that somehow or another this case "set a precedent that emulation is legal"? For over 20 years?

On whether or not emulation is legal, generally things are legal unless they are made to be illegal; there is certainly no specific law that says that emulation is legal. The question, then, is whether or not emulation is inadvertently made illegal by an existing law.

In that respect, Bleem v. Sony is a useful indicator in that Sony's lawyers couldn't really find anything concrete to nail Bleem on. But not really more than that, unless you really care about whether or not an emulator can use screenshots in their advertisements.

https://www.polygon.com/23793493/bungie-destiny-2-harassment-lawsuit

Win empowers employers to protect employees from online harm

Bungie has won almost $500,000 in damages from a Destiny 2 player who harassed one of its community managers and his wife with abusive, racist, and distressing calls and messages, and sent an unsolicited pizza order to their home in a manner designed to intimidate and frighten the couple.

According to members of Bungie’s legal team, the judgment from a Washington state court sets important precedents that will empower employers to go after anyone who harasses their employees online, and strengthen the enforcement of laws against online trolling and harassment. “This one is special,” Bungie’s attorney Dylan Schmeyer tweeted.

As laid out in the court’s judgment, the defendant, Jesse James Comer, was “incensed” when the community manager — whom both Bungie and the court declined to name, to protect them from further harassment — spotlighted some fan art by a Black community member. Using anonymous phone numbers, Comer left a string of “hideous, bigoted” voicemails on the community manager’s personal phone, some asking that Bungie create options in Destiny 2 “in which only persons of color would be killed,” before proceeding to threaten the community manager’s wife with more racist voicemails and texts. Then he ordered a pizza to be delivered to their home, leaving instructions for the driver to knock at least five times, loudly, to make the intrusion as frightening as possible.

The court ruled that Comer was liable to pay over $489,000 in damages, fees, and expenses it had accrued in protecting and supporting its employees, investigating Comer, and prosecuting the case against him.

As laid out in a Twitter thread by Kathryn Tewson, a crusading paralegal who worked on the case, the judgment is significant because it recognizes that patterns of harassment escalate from online trolling to real-world violence; establishes that harassment of an employee for doing their job damages the employer as well, which can then use its resources to go after the culprit; and recognized a new tort — a legal term for a form of injury or harm for which courts can impose liability — around cyber and telephone harassment.

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