The problem is that the legal definition of what is or isn’t emulation doesn’t necessarily have to coincide with the technical one. Any EULA can include a statement to the effect of “for the purposes of this Agreement, emulation is defined as such and such”, but even if they don’t, all the company would have to do is convince a judge, practically all of whom are total laymen when it comes to computer technology, that using WINE or virtual machines or whatever other emulation-adjacent technology counts as emulation or, alternatively, that even though they aren’t technically emulation, since they accomplish a similar purpose, they are implied by the use of the word “emulation” in the EULA.
Legalese is largely characterized by vomiting every synonym you can think of to make absolutely sure that they are all included in the text, but that isn’t a requirement. It’s just to avoid having to debate whether something was included or not. Unless it is either explicitly included or explicitly excluded, its implicit inclusion is up for debate in a court of law, and the last word belongs to a judge who can’t tell a smartphone from a network switch.
That’s some bullshit.
Fortunately, virtual machines these days usually use hardware virtualization, instead of emulation.
The problem is that the legal definition of what is or isn’t emulation doesn’t necessarily have to coincide with the technical one. Any EULA can include a statement to the effect of “for the purposes of this Agreement, emulation is defined as such and such”, but even if they don’t, all the company would have to do is convince a judge, practically all of whom are total laymen when it comes to computer technology, that using WINE or virtual machines or whatever other emulation-adjacent technology counts as emulation or, alternatively, that even though they aren’t technically emulation, since they accomplish a similar purpose, they are implied by the use of the word “emulation” in the EULA.
Legalese is largely characterized by vomiting every synonym you can think of to make absolutely sure that they are all included in the text, but that isn’t a requirement. It’s just to avoid having to debate whether something was included or not. Unless it is either explicitly included or explicitly excluded, its implicit inclusion is up for debate in a court of law, and the last word belongs to a judge who can’t tell a smartphone from a network switch.