Bad news (please read)

[Kerr Avon]

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.

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.

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.

No, I'm saying that I won't be linking to the patched roms. I'll still link to the patches themselves, and I won't (and can't) stop anyone else from linking to the patched roms. So I'm not discouraging anyone from anything, and people are still free to hack and release the hacks however they choose. And I hope that they do, as game hacks can be fantastic.

Now that you've removed the links it now be harder to track down prototype ROMs, I really REALLY hope you saved the entirety of the post into a Word or Text document so that it can be pasted back in later on because that ROM page was extremely useful.

Don't worry, mate, I have copied the thread, just in case.

If you think about it, these guys can simply patch the games themselves and still sell them. Removing the links does nothing but add an extra step to their plans and an extra step for people who want to put these hacks on their Everdrive.

I know, the people who make the fake cartridges are likely people who know how to patch a rom, so it's only some real gamers who'll suffer from the removal of the thread. But this way the forum is seen to be more legal and intolerant of piracy.

[ConkerGuru]

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.

[thecavalry]

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.

[geriatrix]

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.

Looks like someone here may have been doing just that already - policing "their work". http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=170523
Apparently someone got this persons website shut down for selling copies of Master Quest that allegedly used one of the patches from this site.

Have to say, that's a bit drastic. And definitely gives a bad vibe if this trend were to continue between hardware vendors and patch makers.

[Kerr Avon]

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.

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.

[ConkerGuru]

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.

I now realize why I never should have taken part in this topic... -_-;

I'm not policing my work in any way, no matter how small or big it might be. And yes, I probably don't own any of the code I wrote, even if I wrote it myself.

Besides, I'm not the right person to mess with or talk legal matters with, so don't even think about trying.

Anyway, even if there weren't much of any damage done, I still find it appropriate that the ROM links have been removed. It really shouldn't have happened in the first place. I often post my hacks as patches, and posting patches should be preferred over posting roms.

For now we're safe, and we all can carry on as normal. But in the future Nintendo could very well take action if ROMs keep being posted. Just saying.

[fille1976]

hahaha,that stupid nintendo cares about game hacks,they better cared about the wiiu and switch.
they promise much,and each time its a big disappointment.
better care about us and your hardware stupid nintendo,or its game over for you.
probably they going after it because they still sell those games on their store as vc ect...
im so curious what the switch will bring for games,like i readed its not much...
but we known that from the wiiu,apart from the exclusives,its not good enough.
i hope those hacks keeps coming,its nice.

[ConkerGuru]

Just to clarify; I'm not one of those guys that feels entitled about his/her own hacks(from the posts I've read in the topic on the nintendoage forums). I just hack video games because I find this activity interesting, and in my case it is more of a hobby than a job or being passionate. Sorry if I seemed to be acting in a ridiculous manner, nor was I trying to be rude. I was only trying to say that the best thing to do for now is to avoid posting ROMs until we know if the big N or any other company decides to take action or not.

I don't always hack video games every single day. I also have other interests besides that, and a life of my own to dedicate to(which you probably don't care much about). Anyhow, I'm sorry if I sort of lit up the flame again. I won't ever do that again.

If you think that I'm feeling entitled to my rom hacks or patches, fine. I might as well never come back here again in that case. (apparantly "bother" seems to be a very strong word these days...)

[thecavalry]

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.

[Kerr Avon]

Just to clarify; I'm not one of those guys that feels entitled about his/her own hacks(from the posts I've read in the topic on the nintendoage forums). I just hack video games because I find this activity interesting, and in my case it is more of a hobby than a job or being passionate. Sorry if I seemed to be acting in a ridiculous manner, nor was I trying to be rude. I was only trying to say that the best thing to do for now is to avoid posting ROMs until we know if the big N or any other company decides to take action or not.

I don't always hack video games every single day. I also have other interests besides that, and a life of my own to dedicate to(which you probably don't care much about). Anyhow, I'm sorry if I sort of lit up the flame again. I won't ever do that again.

If you think that I'm feeling entitled to my rom hacks or patches, fine. I might as well never come back here again in that case. (apparantly "bother" seems to be a very strong word these days...)

You certainly don't come across to me as 'entitled'. And please don't feel that you have to leave this forum or the N64 hacking community. There will always be a few percent of people in any group who are happy to misrepresent or ruin things; TheCavalry is trying to pass off his warped and un-provable view of things as fact in that thread about the Zelda fake cartridge, and he ends his (deluded) post with the unbelievable sentence:

It's like [the game hackers] are actively trying to engineer their own destruction [by denying the rights to distribute the hack via fake cartridges].

Source: http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=170523 (so you can check that I'm not making this up).

Seriously, according to him/her, not only do you not own the code you write, but if you limit the ways to spread your code, then you're making it more likely for Nintendo to want to close you down. If that's so then there'd be plenty of precident to prevent as truth to back up his claims, but as usual for fantasists like him, he doesn't prevent anything like proof.

Meanwhile, in that same thread, Aroenai catches all the flack even though he'd done nothing actually wrong. And since  TheCavalry doesn't see fit to try to correct this, then I assume he's in agreement (I can't claim to be surprised by that). So, ConkerGuru, please don't be put off by people like The Cavalry. Most people on these forums are reasonable and helpful, and hopefully neither you nor anyone else will feel the need to move on.

[Kerr Avon]

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.

No, she COULD NOT DO SO LEGALLY. Go on, post proof of how she could do so legally.

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.

You're avoiding giving me the proof I asked for, and instead using conjecture to answer a point I never made. And as for my "straw man" argument, it's you who're refusing to give a straight answer, which I can only assume is because you know you can't back up the drivel you're posting. I'm not going to give up, either you provide the proof, or admit that you posted without knowing what you were talking about, or just stop posting in this thread.

GO ON. POST PROOF OF WHAT YOU SAY. I'm not asking you to find Atlantis, or anything even remotely difficult (if you were right). You say that work by a fan automatically becomes the property of the original IP's owner, which is NOT the case. But you say it is, so prove it. If you were right then in the last century that situation would have arisen thousands of times, concerning the book industry, the film industry, the TV industry, and now the games industry. So put you hand into the decades upon decades of legal history, and put out the easily available cases where the original creator was given ownership and use of the fan made material.

You can't do it, of course. But prove me wrong, it's not difficult if you're right.

[Kerr Avon]

Sorry, double post (I'm typing this whilst I'm (supposed to be ) finishing off a report for work).

[ConkerGuru]

Well, the topic seems to have been locked by the mods now. Still, that last sentence of his does seem rather unbelievable.

@kerr avon; Sorry for that response of mine. I don't think I'll ever leave the everdrive forums or the N64 hacking community. I have a tendency to be sensitive or taking things too personally, which sometimes can't be a good thing, mainly for myself. I need to really practice more on that bit.

Besides that, I hope this discussion gets settled soon and we can keep doing whatever stuff we did before this topic came to be. I'm not going to involve myself with this thread any further from now on, because I've got a couple patches of mine that I have to post here at some point.(don't know when that'll be, maybe tomorrow or later. I'll see when I can find time for it.)

[ozidual]

I've said my piece about this topic, but since the NA topic was brought over here too, I wanted to add a bit about that specific case:

I agree, Retrostage made some nice carts.  If he was going to put that kind of money down, the least he could do was to ask the patch owners about it first.  He's now blaming the patch owners for shutting it down without PMing him when he should have done the first contact before manufacturing.  The fact he didn't contact the owners of the patch shows that he was trying to do an end run around them.  Either he was worried that they would want a portion of the profits or that they would tell him no.  Welp, the latter happened.  I'm sorry he lost money, but he was clearly doing something risky to begin with.

As for the website and eBay takedown?  He upped the ante thinking he could.  The patch owners upped the ante too.  Ultimately, eBay and his hosting company decided he was in the wrong.  He took a further risk, it didn't pay off.  It happens all the time with business. 

I'm sorry that there are people out there who want to buy these patches on carts and that they are not available.

[thecavalry]

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.