Messages

16

EverDrive N8 / Re: krikzz, are you interested in debugging white artifacting issue?

« on: January 28, 2017, 07:24 PM »

I don't have this issue on any of my NES systems with the Everdrive. I own both Everdrive N8 NES and Famicom. I use an AV Famicom (with Hi-def NES mod), NES (standard composite), and an AVS.

I have never seen these artifcats on my games, and Metroid and Punch-out! are definitely games I have played on all three systems with both everdrives.

17

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 23, 2017, 02:58 AM »

Like Conker, this will be my last post in this thread. Even after posting proof I doubt that you will ever change your perspective and opinion.

It's a straw man argument because the topic for debate was who has ownership of the work, not right of sale.

Nevertheless:

Here is an essay, full of citations of actual court cases supporting the content detailing how derivative work rights have changed over the last 185 years. (the decades of legal history you asked for)
http://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1046&context=facschol

And to make it easier to digest, here is an actual law firm's explanation of how derivative work rights are active today:
http://www.wagenmakerlaw.com/blog/nonprofit%E2%80%99s-guide-copyright-law-derivative-works

Specifically the section called "The Right to Create Derivative Works"
-Copyright law vests the original work’s copyright owner with the exclusive right to prepare derivative works.  Therefore, the owner in the preexisting work must authorize the creation of a derivative work in order for it to be separately owned by another.  If not authorized, the preparation of a derivative work constitutes copyright infringement of the preexisting work and is not copyrightable.  But if authorized, and an absent an agreement otherwise, the owner of the preexisting work will not have any copyright ownership in the derivative work.-

Should this hack even constitute being a derivative work, which is does not - as it does not create any new story, it was never authorized and the author would have no copyright claim. They don't have any right to dictate reproduction, distribution, etc... Rather, the Copyright Act of 1976 outlines that the owner of the original copyright retains all ownership and rights automatically. (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106)


I will reiterate that I, personally, fully support ROM hacking and use hacks regularly. There is just a lot of misinformation being thrown around about ownership and what they can and can't do. Nintendo, like many copyright owners, will often not pursue fan made projects because it does not generate any new income for them and often creates stronger fanbases for original productions. However that does not mean they cannot or will not. But drawing unnecessary attention to unauthorized works can only have a negative impact on the ability to keep them available as it increases the likelihood that Nintendo will be aware of them - hence what I said on the NintendoAge forum.

18

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 22, 2017, 11:51 PM »

You're totally off the mark. But go on then, prove me wrong. Prove that you are right. Name me one unofficial piece of work that became, simply because it was based on an official work, the property of the copyright holder and not the property of the person who made it. If you're right, then companies who made the original IP would always be claiming that the (good) fan made products actually belonged to them, so it would be easy for you to prove that you were right. Just google for some instances of this, and post the results here.

Show me all the fan made hacks of the Metroid games or the Super Mario games that are now being sold by Nintendo, since (according to you) when one of these hacks is made, it instantly becomes the property of Nintendo. There are lots of hacks of Metroid, Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, etc, and some of them are supposed to be very good. Yet I've never seen Nintendo say "That hack belongs to us", and then sell the hack without the hacker's permission.

And Portal, Team Fortress, etc don't count, as they were sold by their creators to Valve and co. Name me one. And I'm not talking about a few changes to the game's loader, or a few isolated bug fixes, I mean where the hack makes a significant change to the game.

Look, Zoinkity unofficially translated Sin and Punishment to English, right? But that doesn't mean that whoever made S & P now owns the translation code that Zoinkity wrote, it's still Zoinkity's code and he owns the copyright to it. S & P's creators can't just use Zoinkity's code on a S & P rom, and sell it as the English version, since that would be infringing Zoinkity's copyright.

If, say, I wrote a Harry Potter story and it was really good (I wish!), then I wouldn't be allowed to sell it, as J. K. Rowling has the copyright for Harry Potter, and I'd be infringing on her copyright. But the story I wrote is still my copyright, even though it uses (without permission) J. K. Rowlings characters. By your logic, J. K. Rowling would also own the copyright of my story, and be able to sell it herself, but that's not correct.

You are correct, she might be able to. She wouldn't do so because it would legitimize your art as equivalent to her brand and thereby devalue her own IP, not to mention the bad publicity that would come with such an act.

You're looking at this the wrong way. Five seconds to google "Nintendo DMCA fan project" produces 391,000 results and some of the top are reports on how 500+ projects were targeted recently by Nintendo. They wouldn't turn around and sell the fan projects for reasons including the above example with J.K. Rowling and your straw man argument, but they would force the access/distribution to be removed and all code be handed over if not deleted voluntarily by the infringing parties, and all continued development to cease, and seek damages if warranted.

19

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 22, 2017, 08:16 PM »

The hacker does own the code they make (assuming it doesn't used other copyrighted stuff, such as putting Batman into a Zelda game), though legally the code might be classed as being dependant on the original rom, and so the hacker wouldn't be allowed to make money from the modification.

And they do get to say what they do and don't wish to see done with the patch. They might not be legally able to enforce it, but they are entitled to make their wishes known.

Agreed. I also wouldn't be too happy if I started seeing other people distribute and sell my Conker hacks in the form of fake n64 repro carts. As minor in changes as my hacks might be right now, I don't think they are relatively well known since I barely spread any word about my efforts and work. I have yet to see repros of my hacks surfacing, but I highly doubt my hacks are ever being taken notice of.

Also, to the guys who apparantly keep bothering kerr and the makers of the rom patches, and doesn't even give a damn about it all; If you guys keep having this view of Nintendo not caring about hacks of their games being sold on repro carts, then you really have no idea of how serious this can turn out to be, and if ROMs, patched or not, keep being posted here, then this place could be shut down much quicker than you think.

Here's the rub. I'm not "bothering" anyone. I am speaking true information about how IP copyrights work. If you create something using someone else's IP, the IP owner owns that work - because they own the IP. No matter how much any ROM hacker will say otherwise. If Nintendo or Rare or Electronic Arts etc...wanted to seek damages against your content, they could and they would win or you would be forced to settle, relinquish any claim to ownership, and hand over all of the code you wrote to them. This is because you don't have claim of ownership of the content, legally they can claim ownership.

It's a position that you all are obviously passionately defending, but there isn't any foundation to support your claims. Only the opposite.

The reality is that the work is voluntary and not owned by the hacker. And once it is online the internet will do with it what it always has - whatever it wants. The author can request for things to not be done - like post in certain forums or not distribute physical copies - but can't stop anyone who ignores the request. There is no "Fair Use" at play in ROM hacking.

20

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 22, 2017, 04:13 AM »

With all due respect for what you do, you don't own the IP. There isn't any way to make it more clear. You don't own the work. It wasn't your IP.

You can't prevent anyone from uploading it anywhere else. You can't sue them for damages for selling what you created. You don't have any say or actual ownership or rights to the content, despite what you feel is owed from the hours you voluntarily spent creating it.

I mean this sincerely, I love that you all spend so much time making things compatible and crafting patches for broken ROMs and making hacks of existing games. But you don't actually own the IP, and can't dictate anything to the community about what they can and cannot do with it, legally. It's really that simple.

21

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 22, 2017, 01:46 AM »

To use your own argument's logic, Kerr, if they are using Nintendo IP to produce their hack, and not creating anything original from the ground up, the hacker has no ownership. ROM hackers have no ownership if they are utilizing IP they don't own. They don't get to dictate what the community at large does with what they make available online.

And you are attempting to subdue or stifle ROM hacking/innovation by discouraging people from posting and developing for some indeterminate amount of time to avoid the ire of big bad Nintendo.

It's a ridiculous proposition.

22

EverDrive 64 / Re: Bad news (please read)

« on: January 22, 2017, 12:08 AM »

Not to be too antagonistic but can you fearmonger any harder? So much melodrama and meaningless speculation.

ROMs have been widely available on the internet for the last 20 years. They aren't going anywhere. Neither are patches. Once something is out in the ethos of the internet, good luck to the man who tries to remove it. It just doesn't work that way.

Who cares if a ROM hacker doesn't want his patch to be put on a cart? Once it's out in the wild, they no longer have ownership of it and we as a society can do whatever we damn well please. No one will be successful in getting them to stop distributing crappy cart versions of the LOZ Master Quest on Aliexpress. Go on and try.

I welcome innovation that ROM hackers bring to the retro scene and shame on you for trying to stifle or subdue it.

Lawyers will always be lawyers. Nintendo will always DMCA fan projects. It has always been this way, and will always be this way. N64 is no different than all the consoles that preceded it. But many of the users and creators are young and are just now being acquainted with how the IP copyright world works. This is not new or unique.

23

EverDrive N8 / Re: Soft Reset to rom list on Everdrive N8 still a possibility?

« on: January 22, 2017, 12:00 AM »

There may not be room in the fpga for something like this. We have already had things removed to add mappers for more game compatibility. I would rather the focus be 100% compatibility than a few QOL changes.

The AVS has a soft reset feature built-in. I use this with my Everdrive and it works great for me.

24

EverDrive N8 / Re: Everdrive N8 with Hi-Def NES

« on: January 20, 2017, 08:52 PM »

Check that the ppu is seated properly inside and test for cold soldering points. You might have an issue with the ppu connection. I haven't had to tool with any settings for my hi def mod and i don't have any of the issues you are describing

25

EverDrive N8 / Re: Where is the download for Unofficial Mapper Surpport Download Links?

« on: January 18, 2017, 02:58 AM »

The smokemonster rom set has the unofficial mappers in the pack, and the full USA/JP/EUR rom sets with a boatload of hacks and homebrew games.

26

EverDrive N8 / Re: Castlevania 3 draculas Curse

« on: January 17, 2017, 09:09 PM »

You will have to download the Roms and the Everdrive OS files to play anything and put them on an sd card that must be purchased seperately. But there is no additional patch required to play any of the three games you listed.

27

EverDrive N8 / Re: Compatibility with RetroUSB's AVS??

« on: January 16, 2017, 06:24 AM »

It would be more likely that the Everdrive has an issue. If the AVS works otherwise, and the Everdrive doesn't work at all, then it probably isn't the AVS.

Try to find an NES to test the Everdrive on, a friend or maybe your local retro game store might let you use one just to test it out.

28

EverDrive N8 / Re: Compatibility with RetroUSB's AVS??

« on: January 16, 2017, 02:53 AM »

Famicom N8 SD Card - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010Q57T02/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

NES N8 SD Card - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B7ID97A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

29

EverDrive N8 / Re: Compatibility with RetroUSB's AVS??

« on: January 16, 2017, 01:27 AM »

Grab the smokemonster everdrive n8 pack and give that a shot.

A bunch of his roms are sourced from no-intro, but they are all tested by the community and he regularly updates as needed. He also has the some of most up to date mappers for N8 included, including several expansion audio mapper fixes for certain famicom games.

Just format and unzip to the sd card it comes preloaded with the os files, nothing needs to be added to get it working.

30

EverDrive N8 / Re: Compatibility with RetroUSB's AVS??

« on: January 15, 2017, 08:03 PM »

I need to ask, I've been trying to get my Everdrive N8 to work with my AVS for the past week. I've formatted, reloaded, tried other cards, made sure the AVS system was up to date everything I can think of to get it to work to no avail. I get stuck on the 'OS Init...' screen.

I did notice that in the video the 'SAVES' folder is outside of the 'EDFC' folder, could that be what I'm missing.

1. There's no reason why your evedrive wouldn't work on the AVS, which OS version are you using on both the everdrive and AVS? make sure you have the latest for both, and follow the installation instructions to the letter for both.

2. Test with different microSD, perhaps thats the issue.

3. Make sure your everdrive works on real hardware.

4. Test your AVS with real carts.

5. Did you buy your everdrive directly from Kkrikz.com?

I bought the Everdrive from Retrogate.com, both of them are up to date to the latest firmware, and the AVS does work with original NES carts. I haven't been able to test the N8 with an original NES though.

What is the source of your ROM and N8 system files? The go-to option is the Smokemonster Everdrive pack. Google it and give that pack a shot. You don't have to do anything but unzip all the folders to a freshly formatted sd card. It works great.