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!