Nintendo To ROM Sites: Forget Cease-and-Desist, Now We're Suing (arstechnica.com) 296
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nintendo's attitude toward ROM releases -- either original games' files or fan-made edits -- has often erred on the side of litigiousness. But in most cases, the game producer has settled on cease-and-desist orders or DMCA claims to protect its IP. This week saw the company grow bolder with its legal action, as Nintendo of America filed a lawsuit (PDF) on Thursday seeking millions in damages over classic games' files being served via websites. The Arizona suit, as reported by TorrentFreak, alleges "brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo's intellectual property rights" by the sites LoveROMs and LoveRetro. These sites combine ROM downloads and in-browser emulators to deliver one-stop gaming access, and the lawsuit includes screenshots and interface explanations to demonstrate exactly how the sites' users can gain access to "thousands of [Nintendo] video games, related copyrighted works, and images." The biggest amount of money Nintendo is seeking comes from "$150,000 for the infringement of each Nintendo copyrighted work and up to $2,000,000 for the infringement of each Nintendo trademark." The company has also requested full disclosure of the operators' "receipts and disbursements, profit and loss statements, advertising revenue, donations and cryptocurrency revenue, and other financial materials."
LoveROMs has since removed all Nintendo-affiliated links, including ROMs and emulators, and the site announced on its social media channels that "all Nintendo titles have been removed from our site." Meanwhile, LoveRetro.co now redirects visitors to a page that reads: "Loveretro has effectively been shut down until further notice."
LoveROMs has since removed all Nintendo-affiliated links, including ROMs and emulators, and the site announced on its social media channels that "all Nintendo titles have been removed from our site." Meanwhile, LoveRetro.co now redirects visitors to a page that reads: "Loveretro has effectively been shut down until further notice."
Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Anger customers
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
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It is even worse then that.
Post a "Let's Play" of a current game on YouTube? Nintendo likes to pretend they own it.
Who knew that they would be against FREE ADVERTISING ???
*facepalm*
How about digitally SELLING these old games so people don't have to download them in the first place???
Piracy is NOT a distribution problem -- it is a marketing problem.
Fuck Nintendo's draconian, archaic, position.
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How about digitally SELLING these old games so people don't have to download them in the first place???
Depends on which of "these" games you're talking about. They do (at least as of the Wii and WiiU; I don't own a Switch yet) sell many old games as Virtual Console downloads.
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It is even worse then that.
Post a "Let's Play" of a current game on YouTube? Nintendo likes to pretend they own it.
Who knew that they would be against FREE ADVERTISING ???
*facepalm*
We do a monthly "Upcoming Games" segment - due to Nintendo's antics, have asked the hosts to NOT cover their games since it'll get us hit with (C) claims the moment we include any footage.
Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:4, Informative)
"Let's plays" actively harm sales and everyone knows it. citation required
Is that the same thing as the way that pirates never pay for music?
Oh, wait. They're actually good customers. [theguardian.com]
Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:5, Funny)
"Porn" isn't "free advertising", they're a video of how the entire game plays. Once you've watched it, there's no point in fucking a girl. They're also baltantly ammoral. The fact that god doesn't take them down entirely is god being nice to his creations. "Porn" actively harms real life sex and everyone knows it.
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Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:5, Informative)
You really didn't get that I was joking? Are you sure that I am the overly sensitive one. Dude, fuck as much as you want and watch porn as you want, just for chrissake, learn to read
Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
> "Let's plays" aren't "free advertising",
*facepalm*
> Once you've watched it, there's no point in buying the game.
You made four mistakes:
One, someone should that to all the Minecraft, Terraria, Fortnite, etc. streamers. Oh wait, maybe because you are _assuming_ that EVERY game can be completed in a few hours with ZERO replayability which is clearly false.
Second, how do you buy a F2P game??? You are assuming "Let's Play" are ONLY for non F2P games, again, which is false.
Third, if a game isn't compelling enough to buy after viewing a "Let's Play" then I have to question what value it provided in the first place.
Forth, you are as assuming that watching someone else play a game is illegal. Gee, if only we had Fair Use. Oh wait, we do! Thank-God it isn't illegal to watch my brother play -- I might buy my own copy of the game. Who knew!
> "Let's plays" actively harm sales and everyone knows it.
[Citation]
Next, you are assuming that everyone who watches a "Let's Play" will never buy it.
Lastly, you are ignoring the fact that pirates buy MORE games [arstechnica.com] so cut the horseshit that free advertising harms sales.
-- /r/Minecraft
Hypocrisy, Cognitive dissonance and Censorship on
You can show a picture from a server but you can't name what server or what city it is from!
That Dragon, Cancer (Score:2)
Third, if a game isn't compelling enough to buy after viewing a "Let's Play" then I have to question what value it provided in the first place.
Walkthrough videos reportedly hurt sales of That Dragon, Cancer by Numinous Games.
Source: "That Dragon, Cancer dev calls out Let's Plays for why game hasn't turned a profit" by Allegra Frank [polygon.com]
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And as one of the comments points out:
Checking description in the Steam store it says:
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That Dragon, Cancer is not a game, it's a visual experience. The developer is supposed to provide a meaningful interaction that challenges players to want to play themselves and see how they do on their own. Games that fail to do this are literally better to watch than to play. Streaming and Lets Plays stopped me from buying many a crappy game, and encouraged me to buy many an awesome game.
Please try claiming streaming and Lets Plays harmed the sales of PUBG, or Fortnite, or DOTA. I'll wait.
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Indeed -- visual experience is exactly right.
Also the game itself is very depressing. I couldn't have said it better then Hathur:
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Yeah, I remember Affleck said the same thing about Gigli.
From what I've read, 'That Dragon, Cancer' isn't a 'game' in the traditional sense of the word. It's using a kind-of-game format to tell a story. A deeply personal, emotionally intense story. Which is awesome, and wonderful and going to get the sort of praise that arty, tough and interesting films get.
And about the same revenue, for many of the same reasons.
I've bought games on the strength of video of actual gameplay. Given the pressure on journalist
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For a lot of "AAA" titles the Let's Play makes it not worth owning the game, because they are little more than interactive movies. You play for the plot, the gaming bits where you pick off a few easily murdered enemies or walk from A to B are just filler.
Sure, doesn't apply to stuff like Minecraft or most of the ROMs on these sites, but a lot of modern gaming boils down to a linear sequence of set piece events and cut scenes.
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"Once you've watched it, there's no point in buying the game. They're also blatantly illegal."
Wrong you fucking moron. Unless the game is EXACTLY THE SAME EVERY TIME, then every actual playthrough is in fact a unique performance and the copyright of that performance can be assigned to the one playing the game in that specific manner.
Try again when you have the balls to actually identify yourself.
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Once you've watched it, there's no point in...
Yet millions of the current generation of skateboarders went out, bought skateboards, and busted out mad tricks after watching Tony Hawk. How pointless, I guess...
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> 2. Anger customers
Customers are people who buy things. People who are downloading roms for free off a 3rd party site are by definition not engaging in a business-customer relationship with Nintendo, they are doing literally the opposite.
That said, I do think that like Gabe Newell of Valve famously said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem, not a pricing problem". The same holds true here. As long as Nintendo doesn't service the ability to easily get that experience on equipment people have or
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Customers are people who buy things. People who are downloading roms for free off a 3rd party site are by definition not engaging in a business-customer relationship with Nintendo, they are doing literally the opposite.
The two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not to mention that the original copyright law mandated copying, it did not prohibit it. See: Alexandria.
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Well, if you're that upset, go and create your own content, than you can do whatever with it you like.
I actually do... Everything I do is Open Source MIT license :-)
It's up to the creators to decide how they want to provide/sell it, not up to you.
I actually agree wholeheartedly. However, most revolutionary works these days get sucked up by corporations and owned "indefinitely". Walt Disney died in 1966 and the Disney company is still sucking on his teet 52 years later... how is that "compensating the creator?"
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Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
> The original copyright terms covered the author long enough to gain a decent living for his lifetime
Copyright was invented by --> Publishers <-- to maintain control by preventing other publishers from making a profit:
and
and
and
History of Copyright Law [wikipedia.org]
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And before that, copyright laws didn't exist at all! Doesn't that blow your mind?
I assume you mean aside from the US Constitution Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. Because that's the copyright and patent clause.
1788
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I think he is talking about prior to 1788. Try going back to 1500 and looking for copyright laws.
Before copyright was the Stationers' Company (Score:3)
Prior to modern copyright, which began in the early 18th century with the Copyright Act 1710 aka the Statute of Anne [wikipedia.org], a monopoly called the Stationers' Company owned rights comparable to copyright in the form of the exclusive right to operate a printing press [wikipedia.org].
Re:Before copyright was the Stationers' Company (Score:4, Insightful)
Then I guess we disagree on definitions. The Statute of Anne was the first copyright granted to authors, not to a printing company.
Re:Nintendo's current business strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
Some geek thinks he should get license to copy another persons work. Just because.
Some greedy shit thinks some geek should need a licence to copy something that's existed for decades and already earned its creator quite enough money.
Nothing produced in my lifetime will ever enter the public domain before I die. Fuck getting a licence, it's becoming a civic obligation to disregard today's insane copyright laws.
Nintendo: misunderstanding the internet since 1999 (Score:2)
If anyone thinks this has to do with any thing other than cashing in on selling people the same games that they have already paid for multiple times as a virtual console cash grab, they are morons.
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There's clearly still a demand. And the used games market has dried up because piracy is much simpler.
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The demand is obvious, given the Nintendo NES Classic re-release (after that disasterous launch in 2006). Sure you can probably build a cheaper one, but again, Nintendo's version has all the ROMs licensed properly.
(And Nintendo didn't see Sega and Atari screwed themselves when they sold their stuff to AT Games, which is why those retro consoles never sold well - they may say 1000 games on the box, but it's
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Another Case for Semi-Public Domain (Score:4, Interesting)
While I fully acknowledge and support an owner's copyrights, I also believe that in absence of clear, genuine use or capitalization upon a particular copyright, certain IP should enter the a "semi-public" domain wherein limited duration licensing to those copyrights may be sold on behalf of the holder.
Example: If Nintendo is still making money on "Pokemon" in general, good for them. However, if they don't find it financially viable to re-make the original GameBoy Pokemon games and thus choose not to make them available on modern platforms, people should be able to pay a fair value semi-public domain license to replicate or acquire those games for use on any platform. The license could be limited (1 year) and affordable ($2/year) with at least 50% of that licensing going to Nintendo with the remaining going to support this semi-public domain licensing system.
This would be better for everyone. Nintendo doesn't have to ramp up their lawyer pool to squeeze blood from stones (users and distributors of emulators and games) and those "stones" could pay their share in small amounts. Nintendo continues get to get paid and retain control while users get their games and don't get dragged to court.
The same could be done for books no longer in print (I have a couple I'd like to replace but cannot find anywhere) and movies that haven't made the transition to digital media. Hell, I'd happily pay a flat $0.50/DVD to be able to rip them and store them for my own convenient watching while being 100% certain that I can never be sued for having done so (instead of having to argue fair use in court).
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Copyright that is 95 years from the first publication in the case of a corporation that contracts that work. I think that should have a requirement that it's still being published or if it's not published for a certain amount of time then it should fall into the public domain.
Nintendo does have the SNES & NES Classic Edition so I'm not surprised they are trying to protect their copyrights.
I think them releasing those are a direct response to retro pi and the raspberry pi cases and usb controller that lo
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Whether or not the titles were under copyright, people would still buy the retro consoles from Nintendo.
Re:Another Case for Semi-Public Domain (Score:4)
Copyright should go back to 14 years plus an additional optional 14 year extension. Let's use the original Legend of Zelda as a reference. It was originally released in 1986, so the first copyright period would have elapsed in 2000. Nintendo would have obviously renewed it so it would then have been copyrighted until 2014. This doesn't mean that all future Zelda games would be fair game, but it would mean that people could distribute the original Legend of Zelda ROM freely. Nintendo would have had 28 years to make money off of the game. Plenty of time.
In addition, this would help with orphaned works. Suppose there was a great game for the NES that you loved playing. You want to play it in an emulator but want to stay on the completely legal side of the law. Unfortunately, in the time since its release and today, the company was sold, split up, bankrupted, bought again, etc. Now nobody seems to know WHO owns the rights to the game. The original code might even have been deleted at some point so even the proper rights holder might not have it.
With current copyright laws in place (and using 1985 as the release date), it could fall into Public Domain somewhere between 2080 and 2105. This would be a death sentence for any orphaned work. They'll vanish before then. With 14+14, you'd be able to freely copy the game in 2013 (even assuming the copyright was renewed). Orphaned works could be saved.
Of course, this would "hurt" businesses who rely on locking things up under copyright essentially forever. They'd use all of their legal muscle to oppose any return to 14+14.
Too late nintendo!! (Score:2)
People already played all the old games and downloaded all the roms.
Now we want VR games.
Hate Nintendo (Score:2)
They have become a blight on the gaming community and are very big copyright maximalists.
If you care about the gaming economy, stop buying Nintendo.
counter sue for useing ines headers in there own e (Score:3)
counter sue for useing ines headers in there own emus.
They benefit from the free workload of the people doing the emulator work but want to shut them down and force people to use there own emulators that do less then the free ones.
What about being able to just buy the roms? (Score:2)
What about being able to just buy the roms?
So you can use your own emulator or use an flash cart on real hardware?
Online Store Inc? (Score:2)
I assume Nintendo is preparing to release some online switch store where you can get a rotation of games for a membership like PSN and XBOX does or you can directly purchase access to old games.
As such, they are getting rid of any low hanging fruit before release now that these rom sites are possibly costing them money.
Two separate issues (Score:2)
"Old Nintendo games" and "Nintendo copyrighted works" are not the same thing.
If your NES or SNES rom was not published or developed by Nintendo then Nintendo has no issue with you.
The company that did publish it might care if its still in business but its not Nintendo's problem. Notice
the sites they are suing are making money off their IP and trademarks.
I mean (Score:2)
What did they expect? Nintendo is actively engaged in these old games' sales with the retro / mini units. Obviously a lot more people would be buying the units if free ROM downloads didn't exist. It's just business. They didn't seem to care much for years before the units came out.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool. So show us where we can purchase those ROMs legitimately.
Thanks.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool. So show us where we can purchase those ROMs legitimately.
Thanks.
Amazon has the Nintendo NES and SNES classic editions back in stock. That covers some of the ROMs. Beyond that, as annoying as it may be, they don't have to sell you anything, but still get to keep copyright control. So you can host ROMs or download ROMs, but risk legal trouble if you get caught. But you know all this already.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Nintendo is certainly within their legal rights to do this, but I don't get the point of it as a business strategy.
Is the idea that if people can't get the ROMs anywhere they'll just play new games on the newer consoles? Those are completely different market segments. I don't see how that idea would work at all.
Is the idea that they're losing NES/SNES classic sales because people are getting the ROMs instead? That's the same kind of argument the MPAA/RIAA uses that never seems to work out in the real world.
It just seems like they're spending more money on litigation than they'll ever get back in sales from this. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's smart to do it.
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Is the idea that they're losing NES/SNES classic sales because people are getting the ROMs instead? That's the same kind of argument the MPAA/RIAA uses that never seems to work out in the real world.
I'd be cautious comparing these. The NES/SNES classic sales are a hardware device with a shitton of ROMs, made available again. The arguement for the MPAA/RIAA compares small segemented short term entertainment along side of services that make them freely available. Not having access to a song may not translate to a sale to the MPAA because I may just stream it from Spotify, or play it on Youtube whenever I want to, not to mention it may be on the radio right now.
The same can not be said for the NES/SNES wh
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No, it's because those sites were raking in the adrevenue thus profiting on Nintendo IP.
Can't have that.
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It just seems like they're spending more money on litigation than they'll ever get back in sales from this. Just because you have the legal right to do something doesn't mean it's smart to do it.
even worse, a loss in sales as respect for the companie decreases. it's not as if there aren't other consoles available.
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Beyond that, as annoying as it may be, they don't have to sell you anything, but still get to keep copyright control.
That's not just annoying, that's blind stupid and wrong. The law is wrong, and needs to change.
The default is No Copyright. Copyright is a legal fiction created to try to incentive production of works. Until that legal fiction was created, there was no such "right". There still isn't any such fundamental right. It's only a legal right, and it can be changed. It should be changed, since the current terms are failing the public who agreed to a restriction of our rights, and are now no longer benefiting
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Used, on a ROM chip. It's up to you to format shift that - and since there's no DRM it's perfectly legal.
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That locks out the NES in its absense. The content is not copy-protected in any way.
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I suspect that there is a very good reason why Nintendo has not re-released some vintage games. Most likely they sold off, or never had, the rights to the game. Because Nintendo has made so many of their vintage games available I won't criticize them for going after companies who are illegally profiting from their copyrighted work.
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One of my good friends collects vintage games, with NES being his #1 passion. He has legitimately purchased many cartridges over the past 10 years.
I'm not trying to defend Nintendo but I cannot defend someone that makes money by selling or giving away ROMs (because it's highly unlikely they don't turn a profit fro
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Odd that you chose the word "purchase" in your statement. Do you think it's ok to make a copy of someone else's work and sell it, for profit, just because the original is difficult to obtain?
No, no I do not. Note the word I used right before "purchase".
One of my good friends collects vintage games, with NES being his #1 passion. He has legitimately purchased many cartridges over the past 10 years.
I'm not trying to defend Nintendo but I cannot defend someone that makes money by selling or giving away ROMs (
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
Nintendo is actually one of the better ones for popular games from their back catalog [wikipedia.org] for modern consoles. This is a far cry different from a publisher that has gone out of business or who longer sells the old titles.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Informative)
Sure thing. All you need to do is go to a site like eBay [ebay.com] or Amazon [amazon.com], purchase the cartridge/disc for the game you want (buying it used should be fine), and then rip it yourself using one [nintendolife.com] of the numerous ripping devices [reddit.com] that are legally available. Easy peasy.
When you get down to it, the process is more or less identical to ripping audio from a CD or a video from a DVD (in fact, I used to rip all of my PS1 games from disc, just like I would my CDs, and I actually intend to go back and do so for all of my disc-based games in the next few years here) and, for the most part, just as legal.
The most obvious way that you might run afoul of the law with the steps above is that some emulators require that you separately download a copy of the console's BIOS before they'll work, which is an act of copyright infringement. Thankfully, more and more emulators are moving away from that practice by doing the tough work of reverse engineering the original BIOS so that they no longer need a copy of it to work, and the standing precedent in the US [wikipedia.org] is that they are perfectly legal. The other way you might run afoul of the law is that newer systems may have copy protection mechanisms in place. Just as you're allowed to format shift a blu-ray but you're not necessarily allowed to break the encryption on the blu-ray to do so, you may run into issues with games on newer consoles that have similar protections in place.
Alternatively, if you don't want to deal with ripping ROMs from your own, legally-purchased copies of the game, most of the popular games from old Nintendo systems (as well as others) are available for purchase on newer Nintendo systems. Were you actually interested in pursuing this legally (rather than simply asking a rhetorical question as a poor rationalization for your illegal behavior), you'd already know that the Wii and Wii U provide a rather extensive back catalog of old titles that are available for purchase (though I think the Wii is losing access to the store in a few months). Likewise, many old console games are available on Steam, GOG, or similar storefronts. And for older games that had a PC release, many are still playable thanks to WINE, ScummVM, or other pieces of software that allow you to simulate outdated hardware.
Honestly, it's easier than ever to go about this stuff legally. Unless you're talking about obscure games that have been lost to time, there's almost always a legal avenue open that (after a possible fixed cost for the some necessary hardware) only costs whatever the prevailing price is for the game.
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First off, you can't rip a NES cartridge with a DVD drive. Second, I already paid (well, my mom paid) $50 for Super Mario 3 in 1990, so I have the legal right to download a ROM. Fuck Nintendo if they think I'm paying for the game *again*, not to mention $300 for a Switch or Wii or whatever console they decide to lock it to (PC Master Race). It's pathetic that they're actively selling 30 year old games from stone-age consoles for non-trivial amounts of money in the first place.
This shit is why you hoard d
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First off, you can't rip a NES cartridge with a DVD drive.
First off, you ought to read past the first sentence before you respond. I addressed this directly in the second sentence, including with links.
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First off, why is it OK for a rich company to charge more than once for the same product?
They aren’t. If I see a movie in the theater, should I be entitled to a free DVD of the film? No, of course not, they’re different products. If I bought a paperback book, should I get the hardcover for free? No, of course not, it’s a different product. If I bought a game on cartridge for the NES, should I get a free Steam copy? No, of course not, they aren’t the same product. The content may be very similar, but you’re starting from a false premise if you’re suggesting it
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Re: A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:2)
You seem confused. That a rights holder decides againt selling something to you, on any terms, doesn not give you any right to create illegal copies.
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And availability of legitimate copies is irrelevant to copyright infringement cases.
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Think of it this way. You run a record store and sell music perfectly legally. You have a rather loyal customer base that frequents your store. Based on this regular income you plan your business expenses.
Now I come along and open another record store across the street selling exactly the same stuff as you do. In my opening weeks I run special attractions that give people free records with the purch
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You can't deprive anyone of something that they don't already own. That is what it basically comes down to.
Well, people begin with infinite freedom. You have the power to speak, to imprison, to rape, and to kill. You can take from others their infinite freedoms.
People then give up some of this infinite freedom to the government; in exchange, the government provides them protections.
Accordingly, a person gains protection of the control over their own intellectual property. They have the right to create--to have an idea, to put their time and labor into it instead of into something that would produce a tangi
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Source: https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.... [oxforddictionaries.com]
According to these definitions: theft, as an act of violating the (terms of) law or rights of another, it certainly is a form of infringement - all crime would be a form of infringement in one or another way. How
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You have control over the property which was produced, not the property which may be produced. A person has control over the derivatives of their own intellectual property--control which can be taken, as control includes prevention as much as exercise. Imagine if others drove your car, but only when you weren't using it; what have they taken from you?
So, now I do own your words, but you no longer do?
To the car example: What they have taken from me? Assuming that the premise "but only when you weren't using it" is always true, that would depend on what remains of the original car in my possession when they return the car.
For example if they don't refill the tank when returning the car they have deprived me of the fuel that the c
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it is; copyright theft is the theft of the right (control) to copy.
True that, however that really needs to be balanced against time and the community built up around those works. If we look at Disney they claimed huge amount of European works as the basis for their stories then lobbied to keep extending their copyright control (for lifetime of artist + 120 years now IIRC). So who exactly has the right to perpetual copyright control over our culture?
There has to be a time when, as Spock once said, The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, should I pay CBS a licence for saying that? They got paid for making a contribution to our culture, for creating something that grew, matured and then faded into memory. They made a lot of money. When do we get to finish paying the lease on memories?
If Nintendo aren't maintaining the works and the community is where is the harm of people getting joy out of playing them? Is Nintendo offering these games for sale anymore, have they offered the sites a means to create a licensing option for people who what to play them or did they just come to the party to spoil everyone's fun? Sure they offered a retro console recently but does that allow a method to access these works?
The bottom line here is when these companies start acting like a member of the community, instead of pretending they own it, is when our culture will be richer for all.
Let's hope that one day they see that.
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I don't disagree the least bit, but I believe Nintendo has started to make money by selling old games on Wii U and Switch. Probably what prompted them to take this more seriously all of a sudden.
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You use a strange definition for the word "theft", which is not like everybody else uses it.
"I don't think that word mean what he thinks it mean."
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oh so I can now just go grab any Studebaker I see? "
No, but you can build one for yourself that looks and behaves exactly as the original.
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But he can't sell it (an exact copy would have the Studebaker monikers too) or give it away with intent to profit (by forcing someone to watch an ad (which he's been paid to show) before getting the keys for example.) Whoever owns the Studebaker IP can, but probably won't unless production turned into a few cars, sue. You can, buy an original Studebaker, make changes to it, and then resell it which is comparable to buying a chart, changing/editing the ROM, placing the ROM back into the original cart, and
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And that's 100% legal for you to do as long as you don't use trademarked terms in the process, so fire up the IDE and start coding your "Legend of Melda" today without fear.
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Trademark law does not prevent people from talking about Zelda or Windows or Pepsi. Indeed, it would be quite counterproductive if it did.
What it does is prohibit you from marketing a product that could confuse customers. So no Melda video game, but a Melda soda would be a-ok.
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We're talking about making clones of a Studebaker being legal, which they would be right up until the instant you installed Studebaker branding on them. So to keep the analogy I was saying while taking a copy of Legend of Zelda is not legal, you are perfectly within your rights to code your own game called Legend of Melda as long as you do all of the work yourself and don't do something like decompile the Zelda ROM to borrow code.
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"Oh so I can now just go grab any Studebaker I see? "
No, but you can build one for yourself that looks and behaves exactly as the original.
I’m too lazy to make anything of my own, so I’ll just sit around in yours and make car noises, that’s ok right, I mean you’re not out anything.
Nah mate, you magic yourself up an exact duplicate then you can go whatever the fuck you want with it.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:4, Insightful)
The original intent of copyright was to protect ownership for 28 years. That would put many NES games in public domain at this point. You'll have to wait until 2022 for the complete catalog, however.
I think you're missing a zero (Score:3)
There, FIFY.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
Something being out of circulation does not give you the right to access it freely.
What if I do own the rom and I can't access the console anymore? Do I have a right to play the games I really like if I can play it on an emulator?
Is the rom media the license or is it the method of delivering the software?
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:4, Insightful)
It should be that a ROM is considered a legal backup of the cartridge you own. But Nintendo has deep pockets and the DMCA.
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To be fair, if I have a Studebaker worth X dollars that's been driven (not in mint condition), and then everyone is able to copy it for free, my Studebaker is now worth considerably less than X dollars.
Did you get your Studebaker to drive or to sell?
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Nintendo tried to outlaw second hand market for nintendo games they even sued a company selling and buying used games
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for strong IP protection. I work in a field where patents enable a lot of innovation, so believe me, I get that IP is important. But come on, there's no reason why something released over two decades ago should not be in the public domain. If they want to sue over torrents of something like Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, or Pokémon UltraMoon, then sure, I'm all for taking down the sites who are hosting pirated copies of them and hitting them with lawsuits. But if we're talking about the original Metroid or Kirby, then I don't have much sympathy.
The companies that wrote the laws don't like the idea of works falling into the public domain because it hurts their ability to sit indefinitely on films, music, literature, and games and collect perpetual profit, but I saw screw 'em. Yes, they do legally have a case, but we shouldn't forget that it is only because of how messed up copyright laws are due to their clever investments in various nations' lawmakers.
Re:A note to you nerds and geeks (Score:5, Interesting)
You shouldn't steal things that don't belong to you. No sympathy here.
Except big business stole the public domain and our right to own our software first long before idiots like you enable massive corporate corruption and lawlessness, but lets not let the facts out lobbyist bought IP law because of morons like you slide. The evidence is overwhelming, historically and politically illiterate people like you are useful idiots that allow robber barons to exist.
Lets look at the constitution:
Intellectual Property Clause. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for **limited times** to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Note it says limited times, not infinite times, it was never intended to grant a permanent private monopoly on human culture to giant corporations. Technically IP is owned by the public and since it is already owned by us we are not stealing since we are the ultimate owners of OUR IP. Intellectual property was a temporarily granted monopoly to encourage the preservation of human culture not the destruction of it.
If it wasn't for ignorant people like yourself governments of the world wouldn't be so corporately owned and corrupt.
George carlin said it best about humanity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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3. Anonymous Cowards are cowards.
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Copyright rulings have historically gone in favor of the preserving institution and the DMCA has gotten explicit exceptions for it.
In Nintendo's case they could argue they still sell the games in different formats (eg. on the Wii) though although some may argue that's "not the same game".
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All games should be preserved, not just the ones you consider to be good.
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why did Nintendo wait until now 30+ years later?
Because they're selling the retro / mini NES / SNES / etc. units would be my guess.
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To be fair that's because current mobile phones are more powerful than PCs and consoles were for around 80% of computer gaming history.