Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corporation, 203 F.3d 596 (2000), commonly referred to as simply Sony v. Connectix, is a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled that the copying of a copyrighted BIOS software during the development of an emulator software does not constitute copyright infringement, but is covered by fair use.

The court also ruled that Sony's PlayStation trademark had not been tarnished by Connectix Corp.'s sale of its emulator software, the Virtual Game Station.

This would make it possible for VGS users to play games developed for the PlayStation on Macintosh hardware, with plans to release a Windows PC compatible version at a later date.

The Virtual Game Station development reached completion in December 1998, with the software being commercially released in the following month, January 1999.

Sony perceived the VGS as a threat to its video game business, and filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement as well as violations of intellectual property against Connectix on January 27, 1999.

The Ninth Circuit Court's 3-0 ruling [2] centered on deciding whether or not Connectix's copying of the PlayStation firmware while reverse engineering it had been protected by fair use.

The court relied heavily on the similar case between Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade Inc. in 1992, where the key finding relating to Connectix v. Sony was that copying for the purpose of reverse engineering was within fair use.

The components are the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, the purpose and character of the use and the effect of the use on the potential market.

While Connectix did disassemble and copy the Sony BIOS repeatedly over the course of reverse engineering, the final product of the Virtual Game Station contained no infringing material.