ROM Hacking, Patches, and the legal consequences

[mikethepokemaster]

I was looking so forward to playing Pok?mon Prism on my emulator. I had a feeling this was going to happen. But I'm gonna say exactly what I have said on other sites:

The sad moment of when Nintendo destroys hopes and dreams, as well as a fan?s imagination. It?s not an easy task for anyone to publish a game in order to get a Nintendo NDA developer?s licence. It?s extremely hard, people have to be extremely wealthy enough to create a business that can publish a game. When Nintendo or any gaming giant takes away a person?s imagination, that?s exactly how creativity is lost and destroyed.

That?s why I?m gonna say this: Don?t ever give up on your ROM Hacks or any fan projects. No matter even if Nintendo issues a cease and desist notice or any DMCA notice, don?t ever give up ensuring that your fan project has a future. We have to fight on, make sure that it will spread throughout the internet, no matter how many authorities come running after us. We have to fight on, no matter what. We know all too well that gaming giants will try to use everything in their power to ensure they dictate over their IP. They won?t accept ideas from people that are not on their team. All we can do, is defend ourselves!

Also, I completely understand copyright law and know how it all works. But the way I see it is that it?s designed so that only the wealthiest of companies can survive. It?s pretty much survival-of-the-fittest when it comes to companies abiding to copyright law. Is this really the kind of world we want to see?

It doesn't even matter what a person does, any lawyers of a gaming giant (such as Nintendo) will always try to find every opportunity they can to try and eliminate any competition, such as ROM hacks or any fan-made creativity (unless their directors are okay about any fan-made stuff, but even when they do, they will only limit it to things like drawings or some kind of artwork).

No ROM/ISO/hardware hack was ever safe from any gaming giant. Not even a Windows executable fan-game was ever safe. Nintendo is not the only business that will try to take down fan projects. Sony and Microsoft also do the exact same thing. They have also been widely criticised for their stance on patching exploits in their hardware to prevent any Custom Firmware or Homebrew stuff (which again, is another form of reverse engineering). Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) goes to great measures to even ban users from their PlayStation Network. Microsoft also bans users from Xbox Live if they find any evidence to believe that the person has either reverse engineered their hardware or a game. Even gaming giants that don't develop consoles also have issued Cease & Desist notices on various websites, including Google. There was one case on the Dolphin Emulator website in where they heard that Google had delisted one of their pages, just because Capcom's file detection bots detected a small 128KB .zip file containing a name "Monster Hunter Tri", which was a name of a trademarked game, in which had no copywritten material at all.

So... the end result? There really is nothing we can do about trying to fit into abiding copyright laws. Businesses will always try to find loopholes in the legal system in which they can use against individuals as well as other businesses, they will always try to find a way to eliminate any kind of competition and choice. It doesn't even matter how loyal a person may be, and it doesn't matter how much a forum or website encourages people to dump their ROMs or ISOs, they will still find a way to eliminate the competition. In this case, we know all too well that Nintendo goes after three things: fan-games, game dumps and emulators (and they don't care what emulator it is, either). Heck, in countries where emulation is prohibited, Nintendo's lawyers (or any lawyer of a gaming giant that hates emulation) will go after those people who make it in that country or even order the courts to block overseas websites that host such material (in countries with internet-blocking Internet Censorship, such as France or even the UK). With some businesses, they can get greedy and think they can abuse their power by using their country's copyright law or any related laws against those people, just so it can lessen the competition. And their only purpose, is to generate more money, so that the shareholders and the owners can use it to either gamble it away or buy very expensive stuff.

But like I have said, don't ever give up on your ROM hacks, try to ensure that your ROM hack survives, no matter how much legal issues it gets. If you're worried, perhaps you could send it to someone you can trust, so that person can then release it elsewhere? All of us ROM hackers and researchers will do what we can to defend ourselves against any legal issues. And if I was developing a ROM hack and ever get into any legal issues, I'll certainly do my best to defend myself and ensure that my ROM hack has a future, I would never let anyone down.

I care for every ROM hacker and researcher out there, and I will always do my best to support every ROM hacker and researcher out there. Let's ensure that ROM hacking and any reverse engineering will always have a future!

Really long winded but good speech.

 

[Crizzle]

Prism's out and a few days early, lol. KBM did what I'd do. Anonymous leak on the dl. Can't trace it back to you. Little guys still win.

 

[ThomasWinwood]

If something better than Nintendo's own new games were being released, you can bet there are plenty of people who would play those instead of Nintendo's.

Heaven forbid Nintendo improve their game by (to pull an example out of the air) adding a difficulty mode setting (such as was used in games as cutting-edge and innovative as Quake) so their games don't treat their most dedicated fans like imbeciles. No need to make an effort when you can wield the law like a club.

You could make your own game from scratch using your own ideas and your own assets, advertise it well enough, and release it to the public (it can be done, look at Cave Story), and it will compete against other games on the market. It doesn't matter whether it's free or not.
In this case, Nintendo (or any other games company) couldn't say anything against it, because that's fair competition.

As we all know, there is no such thing as nostalgia. Brand new ideas always have exactly as much influence over people as things they have fond memories of, which is why Hollywood spends so much money on only the most original concepts and never rehashes anything ever. The idea of a multinational corporation squeezing profits out of one man's appropriation of public-domain stories (to the incidental detriment of said public) is a ludicrous fiction.

Making a fan Pok?mon game and making it pretty much identical to a Nintendo release, however, very much has the potential to take away from their profits. Say someone was interested in getting back into Pok?mon, they've played until Gen. V or something but skipped Gen. VI and don't have a 3DS. They hear about Pok?mon Prism and see how finished, polished and professionnal it looks compared to the official games.

Why does Nintendo have the exclusive rights to exploiting a chunk of my memory and my life experiences? It's all in my head, shouldn't it belong to me now, at least a little bit?

Did you know that Stealth and Taxman, two of the people responsible for the Android ports of Sonic 1, Sonic CD and Sonic 2, started off as ROM hackers working with/on disassemblies of those games without Sega's permission?

 

[PiaCRT]

It's been leaked. Been dumping sprites on Skeetendo and RHM all morning.

 

[Taemin]

I'm not surprised. We're not even supposed to be making ROM hacks as it is, and even though making trailers for games is fun and such, its still a risk to advertise. :/ I think the best way to keep a ROM hack going is to leave it on forums and fansites so that companies can't find out about it so easily. It's a shame too, because of the effort that goes into them. This one was really well done, from the looks of the trailer.

 

[Unown Seer]

I'm just relieved that I can play what looks to be the most polished hack to date.

 

[Platinum Lucario]

I'm not surprised. We're not even supposed to be making ROM hacks as it is, and even though making trailers for games is fun and such, its still a risk to advertise. :/ I think the best way to keep a ROM hack going is to leave it on forums and fansites so that companies can't find out about it so easily. It's a shame too, because of the effort that goes into them. This one was really well done, from the looks of the trailer.

I don't think forums or fan sites would be safe either. We can never be sure of what the future can hold. I just hope that Nintendo, Nintendo of America, TPCi or TPC keeps their hands far away from Pok?Community. Otherwise the forums will never be the same again.

Nowhere is safe for any fan game, I can guarantee you that. But that's why I'm telling everyone to never give up on their fan games or ROM hacks or any mods. Because otherwise we'll be left without our imagination of a franchise that we enjoy. We all love creating an entirely new story in an existing franchise, and all of our reverse engineering efforts should never fade away.

 

[FSBS]

I think SphericalIce was right - business as usual. Maybe Nintendo will drop the hammer on rom hacks and essentials, but more than likely they'll go after the big releases whenever they have a big release themselves. Who the hell hacks for fame and renown? Nobody. We all hack because it's interesting, because it's fun, and because it's personally rewarding. Frankly, I don't expect more than a dozen people to play my hack if it's ever released or finished, and I don't care. It's a creative outlet that I can engage in on multiple levels, unlike a base game in which I can't control anything other than what kind of team I build.

Indeed, I think part of hacking is that we aren't trying to make a better version of an existing game - we're making a personal version of a game we already enjoy. I can play any number of versions of Fire Red with difficulty increases, new Pokemon, limited Pokemon, new mechanics, new places, every Pokemon, original regions replacing old ones, different tile sets, and so on. Every one of those was hacked because someone saw that it could be done and decided they wanted to do it their own way - at least, that's what happened to me.

Considering the long development period of Prism, I think that koolboy was endeavoring a labor of love as well - the only thing was, he dun goofed. He built up a release, got people talking, and the wrong people noticed. It's like when you're trying to have a party the weekend your parents are out of town and they find out you're going to have a party because the word of mouth spread around town and they heard about it, so they're staying in this weekend and you're grounded for the summer - only in this case summer is the rest of koolboy's life. Lesson learned: keep your release on the DL and remember that even if it takes a decade, you're doing it for you, not for a few twitch fans.

 

[Absoluzion]

now i'm confused to continue my hack or not :(

 

[Platinum Lucario]

Also, because Adam is Australian (like me) American but with the domain hosted in Australia, the Australian Copyright Act 1968 clearly prohibits reverse engineering of software. So Nintendo Australia would definitely take advantage of that.

But not so much if a person is living in the US, since their Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1999 clearly allows for reverse engineering of software, but prevents DRM bypassing though, but even then, Nintendo of America is extremely careful about how they issue takedown requests, because it can often be considered as "lawful", that's why Nintendo of America tends to avoid taking down ROM hacks, where as Nintendo Australia, Nintendo of Europe (and other countries in which prohibit reverse engineering) will always hunt down any ROM hacks in their own country.

However, I did hear about a mod of SSBB called Project M that got taken down, I'm not sure if the owner of the project resided in the US or elsewhere on Earth, such as Europe or the UK.

But that's why I'm saying, every gaming giant will always see every opportunity they can to lessen the competition and only care about feeding their shareholders and owners with more money (which often gets gambled away or spent on extremely expensive stuff that isn't that extraordinary).

If we are to create any safe havens, we'll need to either beg to our governments or vote for candidates that actually support reverse engineering, distributing ROMs/ISOs, internet freedom, repealing copyright law to replace it with something more fair and balanced, as well as a new type of entertainment economy where the government pays for digital content instead of the individual. But I doubt anyone is going to support something that is balanced, unless we can create it ourselves and show how it works and how it will work in the long run.

In the meantime, just keep ROM hacking and researching stuff and don't ever give up, no matter how much legal threats are made against you. Don't ever let copyright law stop you from doing what you enjoy doing. ^^

 

[Delta Nite]

Sorry for everyone saying that Nintendo did the right thing / is in their legal right / Prism developers were dumb to promote the project too heavily.

There's a difference in moral justice and legal justice. Sega supports fan games. Capcom supports fan games. Nintendo is being completely disrespectful to fans. And fans are the reason Nintendo still exists to this day, even flop after flop.

I see this issue not through a programmer's eyes, but as a fan who promotes Nintendo's IPs through fan projects. What if it wasn't a game? What if it happened to your fanart? Fanfiction? Custom Pok?mon cards?

Fan projects inject interest in the franchise. Nintendo is sending a very clear message with all these cease and desists sent this year: to them, it doesn't matter if you have nostalgia for their games. It doesn't matter the dedication you have to their franchises. They only see you as your cash.

I'm done. No more fanart, no more fangames, no more custom cards. No more spending my time and money with their games.

 

[Platinum Lucario]

He isn't Australian, he's American. The reason the legal document was based in Australia was because the owner of the rijon domain is Australian.

Ah, I see. I just thought he was Australian, just because the domain name was situated in Australia. I think if anyone is trying to host a website such as Pok?mon Prism or anything to do with a ROM hack, they could maybe host it in the US or some place where it doesn't have as much restrictions as here in Australia, just to be on the safe side.

 

[Mewtwolover]

Should've just stayed low and under the radar. :S

So much this, Koolboyman can blame only himself, he did the same mistake what Mane6 did with Friendship is Magic. Always remember that too much publicity means C&D so keep your hacks underground.

Luckily it's leaked by anonymous so nothing of value were lost after all, props to the anonymous leaker.

 

[BluRose]

Spoiler:

Also, because Adam is Australian (like me) American but with the domain hosted in Australia, the Australian Copyright Act 1968 clearly prohibits reverse engineering of software. So Nintendo Australia would definitely take advantage of that.

But not so much if a person is living in the US, since their Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1999 clearly allows for reverse engineering of software, but prevents DRM bypassing though, but even then, Nintendo of America is extremely careful about how they issue takedown requests, because it can often be considered as "lawful", that's why Nintendo of America tends to avoid taking down ROM hacks, where as Nintendo Australia, Nintendo of Europe (and other countries in which prohibit reverse engineering) will always hunt down any ROM hacks in their own country.

However, I did hear about a mod of SSBB called Project M that got taken down, I'm not sure if the owner of the project resided in the US or elsewhere on Earth, such as Europe or the UK.

Spoiler:

But that's why I'm saying, every gaming giant will always see every opportunity they can to lessen the competition and only care about feeding their shareholders and owners with more money (which often gets gambled away or spent on extremely expensive stuff that isn't that extraordinary).

If we are to create any safe havens, we'll need to either beg to our governments or vote for candidates that actually support reverse engineering, distributing ROMs/ISOs, internet freedom, repealing copyright law to replace it with something more fair and balanced, as well as a new type of entertainment economy where the government pays for digital content instead of the individual. But I doubt anyone is going to support something that is balanced, unless we can create it ourselves and show how it works and how it will work in the long run.

In the meantime, just keep ROM hacking and researching stuff and don't ever give up, no matter how much legal threats are made against you. Don't ever let copyright law stop you from doing what you enjoy doing. ^^

the rest of the post is fine and this isn't meant to detract from a point or anything (nor does this detract from your point), but project m was never taken down, the team developing it just stopped and said ominously that they were going to do something else in the future
project m was VERY careful about not like trying to look like they were stealing attention from the newer smash games, though, making it clear that the newer characters (in sm4sh) would not be included. this was semi-circumvented in the case of mewtwo and roy because they were previously on ssbm and thus "usable"
and now project m is like tremendous and is honestly my fav smash game (if i had gamecube controller ports on my wii then it would be even better tbh), and then there was the dev build that was leaked and then semi-perfected by the community (even though isaac is still buggy when certain characters face him)

so yeah i really don't see romhacking coming to an end and everything should really just continue as usual. i do see this becoming a more common occurence in the relative future, but i don't see it disrupting romhacktivity as a whole

 

[Crizzle]

now i'm confused to continue my hack or not :(

You'll be fine. Nothing has really changed.

On a side note, Prism is really good. Could see why Nintendo was so nervous.

 

[Absoluzion]

You'll be fine. Nothing has really changed.

On a side note, Prism is really good. Could see why Nintendo was so nervous.

Thanks

so coolboyman will never release pokemon prism then? even though in a patch format?

 

[Crizzle]

Thanks

so coolboyman will never release pokemon prism then? even though in a patch format?

He'll never release it but someone else might have already done it...

 

[crafteej]

I'm pretty sure that Nintendo legally has to do take legal action when these fan games and such get super popular, otherwise they could lose their right to defend their trademarks. They aren't being antagonistic or being disrespectful to the community or killing creativity or anything of the sort. They just have to do it. I'm sure some of Nintendo's employees feel just as bad when these kind of things happen, but Nintendo has to protect their IPs, especially when a new game of their's releases. In their defense, Nintendo is probably pretty on edge in regards to Pokémon seeing as how THE ENTIRE FREAKING SUN AND MOON DEX WAS LEAKED a week or two prior to their release and all the pirating of their roms going on. Like everyone else is saying, if Prism wasn't released near Sun and Moon's launch and it didn't get mega popular then Nintendo wouldn't have cared about it regardless if they knew it existed or not. It would be ridiculous to think that they didn't know about rom hacks for 20 years.

On the subject of monetized bootlegs and crap on the app store and other places, they aren't going to go on a witch hunt for all of them because these it would just waste their time, money, and resources. There's just way too many and almost nobody plays them anyways.

Now, to bring up the point that other developers are fine with fan games and such. It's a developers' choice whether or not they want people using their IPs, and they have their own opinions on the subject. In the cases where the developers are fine with fan content they either give permission, like with Bethesda releasing creation kits, or just don't give a crap, like Sega. Nintendo just isn't always ok with it because they take protecting their IPs very seriously, and have every right to do so.

I also think that saying that you aren't gonna buy Sun and Moon or the Switch or whatever and that you aren't gonna support Nintendo anymore because of this one incident is extremely childish. You aren't looking at things from both sides and thinking rationally. The only people this really affects big time are the developers of Prism. Sure, it's a bummer you don't get to play a hack you were looking forward to, but this is the internet, where there are a bunch of other amazing hacks and fan games you can find, and an infinite amount of other things you can do to entertain yourself, so this isn't the end of the world. And let's face it: either you're still getting [insert Nintendo product here] anyway or you were never planning on getting it in the first place, and either way you're only trying to be dramatic by saying that Nintendo C&Ding Prism had any effect on your decision to purchase any of Nintendo's products.

Lastly, I don't think the rom hacking community has anything to worry about. Just as long as we aren't slapping gigantic red lights and "LOOK AT ME!!" signs to our hacks Nintendo is not going to give a sh*t. Everyone just needs to calm down and get back to having fun hacking.

 

[Deokishisu]

I'm pretty sure that Nintendo legally has to do take legal action when these fan games and such get super popular, otherwise they could lose their right to defend their trademarks. They aren't being antagonistic or being disrespectful to the community or killing creativity or anything of the sort. They just have to do it. I'm sure some of Nintendo's employees feel just as bad when these kind of things happen, but Nintendo has to protect their IPs, especially when a new game of their's releases.

I'll just leave this here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/...-require-companies-tirelessly-censor-internet

In the US, at least, companies are under no obligation to do what Nintendo did to KBM and Prism. They just decided to do it. This myth gets dragged out everytime something like this happens, and the corporations love it because it keeps the blame off of them and the fans off their backs.

EDIT: Also, ask yourself why SEGA doesn't give a crap that people use their IPs. Could it be that you can't lose a trademark by allowing fans to make fair-use art and mods based off of your IP? Do you really think that any big corporation would allow their most valuable IPs to be in jeopardy at all if they risked losing them from fan works? It's not that SEGA doesn't care, it's that SEGA has nothing to lose by allowing fair-use of their IPs. And neither does Nintendo.

 

[Platinum Lucario]

Yeah exactly, which is why I said earlier that it was Nintendo Australia that complained about Adam's Pokémon Prism (since the domain was hosted in Australia), not Nintendo of America or the main Nintendo itself.

While Nintendo itself is an enterprise of enterprises, it's divisions (such as Nintendo Australia) can also act independently upon certain things. They may just stumble upon a website hosted within their own country and send a complaint to the owner of the website to state that it is in violation with the country's federal or state laws (eg. Australian Copyright Act 1968), or something like that. Other such enterprises can either be lax about it, or they may want to see it as a way of eliminating any competition.

So the situation is, that Nintendo Australia complained about the Pokémon Prism website, because it was hosted in Australia and it violated the Australian Copyright Act 1968 in which prohibits reverse engineering of software of any kind. It was only Nintendo Australia that complained, no other division did. But if the website moved to a US server, it wouldn't have had any legal issues. If the website was hosted in the US, the Australian Government probably would've ordered all ISPs to block the US-based website (under the Telecommunications Act which MP Malcolm Turnbull put forward a two years ago and passed both houses, before he became leader). The thing is, Australia, the UK and some European countries all have laws in which can allow any enterprise to apply for blocking overseas websites that infringe on their copyright. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo Australia did that anytime in the future to apply for our high courts in Australia to block overseas websites (which I hope never happens).

We are already aware that free speech is declining throughout modding communities and reverse engineering. What could it be that is causing instability on both enterprises and the consumers? Is it the economy? Is it the legislation that has been passed through? Or could it be both? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I'm not going to point the finger at anyone, not even an enterprise, it's up to everyone to build the future they want to see.