NNY Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 No, that was Dampe of the Ocarina of Time 2d remake. Oh that's right. I was looking forward to that too. I think a key to releasing these projects is to not announce it until you are about to release it. That way you don't have to fake your death or legalities when you find out just how mediocre you are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Applying logic and reason to discern Zeality's purpose is like trying to use quantum physics to figure out why I had sex with your mom. I'll do it, so help me God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Author Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Applying logic and reason to discern Zeality's purpose is like trying to use quantum physics to figure out why I had sex with your mom. It's quite simple, all your "random brain impulses" are in fact dictated by a reaction between quarks caused by a neutrino bombardment about 205 000 years ago. This bombardment caused a chain reaction that led to your birth, and therfore to every one of your brain patterns. In addition, I believe you had sex with Halt's mother is due to the quantum entropy that lead to her body aging at a rate that satisfied your senses. Basically you had sex with his mother because a neutrino ran into a quark eons ago. All of your life was in fact determined by that incident. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sappharad Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I'd argue against doing anything. Last thing we need is S-E actually coming down on romhacks. While I have no interest in this hack, I'd have to say I disagree. In the same position, I would have: 1. Replied to verify the authenticity of the demand. 2. Point out that the project is NOT illegal (despite what the creators seem to believe and screwed themselves over by stating in a readme). Distributed as a patch only, the patch would contain 100% original modification data which requires the original product data to function. 3. Impose a 5-day deadline for all replies. If they can do it, so can you. 4. If no reasonable objections past the demand, ignore the C&D and release anyway. There's nothing illegal about ROM hacking, and it's something I'd personally go to court just to prove. (Although I wouldn't really be thrilled if it was at my expense.) Remember that devices like the Game Genie did hardware masking to ROM data, which is an entirely hardware solution to ROM hacking that has already been proven legal in court. (Although the Game Genie was only capable of modifying 5 bytes on cart, if I recall correctly...) Because it requires the original game data to run it's the equivalent to buying a laptop, adding a touchscreen, and reselling the same laptop. (Like that one company that sells the $5000 touchscreen MacBooks) Plenty of companies sell modifications for existing products, and this is no different. The primary problem here lies in the fact that they're using characters and story elements from an existing work without permission. Still, I would assume that qualifies as fair use as long as they're not charging money for it. Since users are theoretically required to own the original data (although very few dump their own roms...) the author wouldn't be losing any profits over the work. I honestly can't think of a single reason of why a freely distributed ROM hack would be illegal. The fake looking C&D letter suggests that they've circumvented copy protection to do their modifications, but the SNES didn't really have any. As long as you hook up VCC and GND, and provide an address via the address pins on the cart, you'll get back the value at that address from the data pins. Nothing special there. With some very limited knowledge of embedded systems, and a listing of the SNES cart pinout you could build a ROM dumper in a few hours. In summary I don't really have a point, other than that I disagree with the way they're handling this. I can see why Chrono Trigger Resurrection got shot down, because they were effectively copying someone else's copyrighted work and had a stand-alone product. But in this case, a patch can't stand on its own thus you're not stealing anything. (unless you steal the original game in order to play the patch) Just thought I'd get a word in, even though I've echoed the same thoughts elsewhere already. (I'm kind of disappointed that the romhacking.net thread on this was locked. But apparently it's not worth arguing because the creators aren't going to bother trying to prove the lawyer's points wrong.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpanishFly Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Wow, well, uh...that cleared some things up for me, I'll say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkeSword Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I didn't say that S-E would be successful in quashing romhacks, I'm just saying that romhacks don't really need that kind of negative attention from the copyright holders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 I doubt it would fall under fair use if it came down to it, as I remember there are some pretty strict criteria a work needs to meet in order to qualify. Using a few screenshots or audio clips in a review or something is fair use...re-using characters and assets to create a derivative work is most likely not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zircon Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Fair use is not solely determined on whether the use is for profit or non-commercial. It actually depends on four factors: 1. Commercial vs. non-commercial, educational usage: obviously, the latter is preferred. This isn't an educational usage, though. 2. The nature of the copyrighted work. Is it a for-profit endeavor? A non-fiction biography? Has it already been published? In this case, the original work is published (better for fair use) but commercial and fiction. So... romhacks lose again. 3. The proportion of copyrighted material to the new work. In this case, it's ALL recycled CT assets. Not good. 4. The effect of the use on the potential market for the original IP. Hmm, well, ROMs and certainly romhacks can easily impact the potential market for the original IP. I would say the odds of romhacking being "fair use" are awful. Good luck arguing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhsu Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 That's about what I figured, but in terms of potential market, how would a romhack affect that? Who's going to decide they're not buying CTDS because of this hack? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herograw Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 But all the work was basically done. And he WANTED to do the project. If he didn't want to be involved he could have stepped out, but now you're telling me he made more work for himself dealing with this PR nightmare? Regardless of how massive of a douche zeality is (and he is; I used to know him pretty well) you're right. It makes no sense that he would do something like this. If anything he's getting bsed by someone else. Edit: yeah dave already said it. Isn't there a third option here? Couldn't it be fake, but sent by someone else? Given that Zeality probably made enough enemies through his attitude & behavior, it seems plausible that the letter could be from a third party... let's say they used legit phone numbers, too - if they actually called Square to see if it was legit, it might end up "becoming" real since they probably wouldn't give the project a green light if contacted directly... just a thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJT Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 what is with ocr and its tendency to babble on and on about things or people that they apparently do not like says the troll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tensei Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 No, that was Dampe of the Ocarina of Time 2d remake. This is funny because there's a character in Ocarina of Time called Dampe, and he dies too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agent12 Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Everyone it's legi.... You know what...I actually planned a long post to explain why it's legit, rebuttals to arguments and stuff but it's not worth it. Of all the dumb things I managed to read on the internet (and believe me over the last few hours I've gone to the depths of the internet because I've been going through and offering comments/internal insight to many, many forums who are talking about this) this forum was far and wide the most narrow minded crap I had to read through... You guys should be embarrassed about how your bias against one man completely clouded your judgement. Romhacking.net was pretty bad, but atleast it has some people who were actually using logic that wasn't "zeality obviously crazy cuz he is dum" If you don't believe it..call the number which can quite easily be verified and ask "did the compendium receive a C & D letter". It takes about 10 seconds, there have been several people who have already done it....there problem solved. Sigh..i almost don't want to hit submit but i spent all this time anyways. --JP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nekofrog Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Everyone it's legi....You know what...I actually planned a long post to explain why it's legit, rebuttals to arguments and stuff but it's not worth it. Of all the dumb things I managed to read on the internet (and believe me over the last few hours I've gone to the depths of the internet because I've been going through and offering comments/internal insight to many, many forums who are talking about this) this forum was far and wide the most narrow minded crap I had to read through... You guys should be embarrassed about how your bias against one man completely clouded your judgement. Romhacking.net was pretty bad, but atleast it has some people who were actually using logic that wasn't "zeality obviously crazy cuz he is dum" If you don't believe it..call the number which can quite easily be verified and ask "did the compendium receive a C & D letter". It takes about 10 seconds, there have been several people who have already done it....there problem solved. Sigh..i almost don't want to hit submit but i spent all this time anyways. --JP You're not changing any minds with your limpwristed arguments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobaltstarfire Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 The primary problem here lies in the fact that they're using characters and story elements from an existing work without permission. Still, I would assume that qualifies as fair use as long as they're not charging money for it. Sorry to burst your bubble but fair use only applies to non-profit educational uses, review, private use, and parody. Things like effect on the originals value and degree of the original being used also factors in. I don't know anything about the technological aspect of it, but companies tend to get their panties in a bunch over that part too, they especially don't like their stuff being modified or even looked at at all. Also, why the hell is this such a big deal whether it's real or not? Either way it's gone so meh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HUmarMatt Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Sigh..i almost don't want to hit submit but i spent all this time anyways. Woah... déjà vu... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Everyone it's legi....You know what...I actually planned a long post to explain why it's legit, rebuttals to arguments and stuff but it's not worth it. Of all the dumb things I managed to read on the internet (and believe me over the last few hours I've gone to the depths of the internet because I've been going through and offering comments/internal insight to many, many forums who are talking about this) this forum was far and wide the most narrow minded crap I had to read through... You guys should be embarrassed about how your bias against one man completely clouded your judgement. Romhacking.net was pretty bad, but atleast it has some people who were actually using logic that wasn't "zeality obviously crazy cuz he is dum" If you don't believe it..call the number which can quite easily be verified and ask "did the compendium receive a C & D letter". It takes about 10 seconds, there have been several people who have already done it....there problem solved. Sigh..i almost don't want to hit submit but i spent all this time anyways. --JP 1. It's a really bad idea to call a number from a document that is extremely speculative at best and flat-out fake at worst (or middle). 2. This is worth looking into because a lot of people in the video game communities were looking forward to Crimson Echoes, so much so that a lot of video game websites are reporting this to a fairly wide degree. This clearly is not just a little deal here. An episode like this has all the potential to be a stepping stone towards serious ramifications towards the ROM hacking community and, subsequently, the video game fan communities. Legitimate or not, a lot of other developers and industry bigs catch on to this news too and then if they wonder if their shit is being hacked and released... well, it only takes one domino to knock down thousands of others. Thats how things in this business tend to work. And thats if its legitimate. If its not, whether you and ZeaLity are part of it or not, its a large enough thing, IMO, that someone needs to answer for it to the communities, especially if these ramifications can still happen, and they can. There's just way too many weird things in play with this scenario to call it clean and leave it alone. That's why we're all wondering if its legit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tensei Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 Sigh..i almost don't want to hit submit but i spent all this time anyways. --JP You could've faked a C&D letter from Square against your post you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bleck Posted May 13, 2009 Share Posted May 13, 2009 says the troll don't see how that has to do with what I said but uh okay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sappharad Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 Sorry to burst your bubble but fair use only applies to non-profit educational uses, review, private use, and parody. Things like effect on the originals value and degree of the original being used also factors in. Point taken. That was the only potential issue I saw with what they were doing, and I guess that must have been the breaking point as well. In the end it sounds to me like it was killed for the same reason Chrono Trigger Resurrection was, and not because it's a hack. That actually makes me feel a lot better about this. As I said initially I'm not really interested in the project itself, I was just shocked because it's the first time I've ever heard of a ROM hack project being forced to stop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monobrow Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 all I have to say is: SHIT UR AZZ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyleJCrb Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 1. It's a really bad idea to call a number from a document that is extremely speculative at best and flat-out fake at worst (or middle). The number on the footer of the letter IS a legitimate SquareEnix contact number for their North American PR department. Thing is though, why would a legal letter have a phone number for their PR department? Maybe the legal department can't afford its own stationery... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toadofsky Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 Hmm, this all seems a bit odd, I know nothing of legal ramifications in this regard but this... They modified roms, which are already illegal (I could be mistaken on that). They used copyrighted assets to make the game, ILLEGAL. I've played Prophet's Guile, all it was, was Magus' venture through Zeal, didn't add that much to the story line, and was a royal pain to go through certain fights. Oh well, didn't hear about it till this so called cease and desist order... Let's just hope developers don't start thinking OC should start making us pay for these remixes, there'll be hell to pay then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meteo Xavier Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 The number on the footer of the letter IS a legitimate SquareEnix contact number for their North American PR department.Thing is though, why would a legal letter have a phone number for their PR department? Maybe the legal department can't afford its own stationery... Well thats one mild reason why not to call it, it'll probably just be redirect hell. I haven't seen a phone number on any questionably legit form that has ever been helpful in any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJT Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 don't see how that has to do with what I said but uh okay i just thought you of all people would understand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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