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[darklin0]

Fuckers

Pokemon rom hacks are the only way to play Pokemon

I am playing Pokemon on my 3DS right now. I did it boys, I gamed the system!

 

[Peltz]

...What you might call "theft" is the way culture organically grows and evolves, and it's the way it has done so for thousands of years. Intellectual property is a recent invention that artificially restricts the free movement of culture. It doesn't exist to promote originality or help artists survive. IP law exists for the sake of capitalists and their profits by creating monopoliea over ideas. Why should we cheer this on?

...

My point here is that ideas are first of all immaterial and cannot be possessed or stolen as objects can, but more importantly is the fact that by existing as a source of happiness and artistic inspiration for millions of people, ideas like Mario and Pokemon are in fact used by a great deal many more people than those who profit from those ideas. They hold sentiment for for more people. And while they are not needed by any of those people in a strictly utilitarian sense, they aren't needed by anybody at Nintendo in that sense either, unless you consider their legal monopoly over their ideas to be a need or an inherent right.

What I'm saying here is that Pokemon and all other beloved gaming series- Mario, Zelda, everything- rightfully belong to the the people because they are a part of our culture. These ideas may have originated in the brains of people working at Nintendo, but now they're in our brains too and the human brain's creative impulses and instincts don't care about copyright. Humans are creative beings and it's in our nature to create things based on the ideas floating around in our heads. It's also in our deepest instincts to freely share those things because we are social beings. The amount of fan art and fan media surrounding Pokemon that's spread all over the Internet is a testament to this.

"Stealing" and "copying" ideas to remix them with your own take is how art and culture is naturally shared among humans. Intellectual property law deprives us of this collective right. Now we have all these ideas floating around in our heads that we can't share to the fullest extent possible and that's a very recent situation for humanity. The idea that an idea can be "owned" and that it should only ever be used by the person who introduced it isn't something inherent to human conceptions of morality. It's something that has been recently introduced into our culture and become part of our cultural programming- because it benefits capitalists.

...It speaks to the fact that our legal system is designed for the interests of profit and not for what benefits common people and our culture.

I feel that video games are a form of art and we should be celebrating them as art, but instead we celebrate games as brands and we cheer on corporations. We have actual artists creating art and when Nintendo uses the law to shut it down, instead of mourning the loss of art we celebrate the protection of a brand. I know a lot of people in this thread are upset about this C&D and agree with fhe point of those last few sentences, but my impression is even those who are saddened by Nintendo's actions are probably thinking "well, it's within their legal rights, that's just how it is, and we do need IP law after all..." And it seems like this discussion is always framed in terms of "Fair use is okay, but once your creation infringes on the profits of a capitalist it's gone too far." So I just want to introduce this idea into these discussions because I never see it. That it doesn't have to be this way and we should question the legal structures that allow this to happen in the first place.

You are just wrong on so many levels here. Your argument is absurd.

Copyright remains the fundamental way by which authors, sculptors, artists, musicians and others can fund the creation of new works, and without a significant period of legal protection of their future income, many valuable books and artworks would not be created.

The modern, market-driven copyright system provides authors with independent financing (through royalties). Without a feasible way to recoup investments of creative time through copyright, there would be little economic incentive to produce and works would need to be motivated by a desire for fame from already affluent authors or those able to obtain patronage (with associated constraints on independence).

In other words, getting rid of copyright protections would hurt the proliferation of art and the welfare of artists.

Most importantly, copyright only protects the artist's expression of his/her work and not the ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in it and thus artists are free to get ideas from copyrighted works.

Anyone can create a pokemon clone. But you can't do it within the pokemon brand without obtaining consent of the rightful license holder. No one is stopping creators from being inspired by Pokemon or Mario. People are instead being stopped from using Mario and Pokemon in their own creations.

 

[FSLink]

Could someone make an OT for this? I'm really enjoying it so far but there's not really anywhere to talk about it.

 

[Lynd7]

If I wanted to try the mod, how hard is it to dump a gbc ROM and what do I need to play it on my game boy?

It runs on an Everdrive GB, but since it has no real time clock in the cart, the clock won't work. I don't know if they made it possible to change the time whenever you want. It didn't seem like it to me from the tiny bit I tried.

 

[mieumieu]

You are just wrong on so many levels here. Your argument is absurd.

Copyright remains the fundamental way by which authors, sculptors, artists, musicians and others can fund the creation of new works, and without a significant period of legal protection of their future income, many valuable books and artworks would not be created.

The modern, market-driven copyright system provides authors with independent financing (through royalties). Without a feasible way to recoup investments of creative time through copyright, there would be little economic incentive to produce and works would need to be motivated by a desire for fame from already affluent authors or those able to obtain patronage (with associated constraints on independence).

In other words, getting rid of copyright protections would hurt the proliferation of art and the welfare of artists.

Most importantly, copyright only protects the artist's expression of his/her work and not the ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in it and thus artists are free to get ideas from copyrighted works.

Anyone can create a pokemon clone. But you can't do it within the pokemon brand without obtaining consent of the rightful license holder. No one is stopping creators from being inspired by Pokemon or Mario. People are instead being stopped from using Mario and Pokemon in their own creations.

I feel both of you have a point does that make me a bad person?

 

[kevm3]

Change the name of the game, change any of the assets that look like Pokemon rips, tweak the battle system and gameplay mechanics a bit and release the game.

 

[Atomski]

Cant they just release a patch for the ROM with no copyrighted materials? How can Nintendo stop that?

 

[Kouriozan]

I see it got leaked, so thankfully justice was served.

Told you guys

Time to leak it anonymously.

 

[coughlanio]

Does Nintendo even have ground here, if the hack is just released as a patch, and doesn't include any Nintendo assets? Even so, couldn't it be considered fair use?

 

[MUnited83]

Cant they just release a patch for the ROM with no copyrighted materials? How can Nintendo stop that?

Legally speaking, Nintendo can't. Shit wouldnt ever hold in court ultimately.
But Nintendo, with their big ass pockets of money and huge amounts of lawyers can pretty much threaten the little guy as they wish, because the little guy can't afford going to court over it.

 

[Kyzer]

Legally speaking, Nintendo can't. Shit wouldnt ever hold in court ultimately.
But Nintendo, with their big ass pockets of money and huge amounts of lawyers can pretty much threaten the little guy as they wish, because the little guy can't afford going to court over it.

You keep saying this, you really think this falls under fair use? Didn't someone say there's some copywritten material in the patch?

 

[Orin GA]

oh...it got leaked...didn't see that coming, almost seems like all this was a waste of time....

 

[MUnited83]

You keep saying this, you really think this falls under fair use? Didn't someone say there's some copywritten material in the patch?

It absolutely falls under fair usem
Feel free to find a single court case against a mod where the company complaining won the case.

 

[Kyzer]

It absolutely falls under fair usem
Feel free to find a single court case against a mod where the company complaining won the case.

How is it fair use to distribute a patch with content that belongs to Nintendo for free

 

[hemo memo]

Cant they just release a patch for the ROM with no copyrighted materials? How can Nintendo stop that?

Yep, change the title to Monspoc or something and gyms to trophied etc. Just do your best to release it. 8 years of work is alot.

 

[MUnited83]

How is it fair use to distribute a patch with content that belongs to Nintendo for free

What kind of question is that? The entire point of fair use is distributing copyrighted material in a limited manner without acquiring permission from the original owner.

 

[Kyzer]

What kind of question is that? The entire point of fair use is distributing copyrighted material in a limited manner without acquiring permission from the original owner.

No it's not. Not even close. The point of fair use is not to bypass copyright law...

It's fair use to modify it for your own purposes, when you own it, not distribute said modifications, especially when the content is copyright protected. You can remix a song, you can't distribute that remix for free. If it's transformative enough to pass the smell test then it is an original work or different enough anyways to not get in trouble

 

[Hanso]

Great game for now. Did not play any pokemon after gold/silver. Would have never touched a pokemon game again if it wasn't for this hack and only played it because of the free publicity it got.

Are there new pokemon in this game that are not from Gamefreak? The newer designs always put me off but until now every design kinda fits the style of the classic ones.

I don't know.

 

[Aroll]

AM2R was a rom hack originally. So this isn't a first for shutting down highly publicized stuff - and yes, Nintendo does have a legal requirement to take these actions to protect IP rights.

The other option is to grant written permission after the fact, but no one really thinks a game company is going to support anything to do with roms, do they?

"But tons of rom hacks exist for Pokémon - why now?"

Simple - attention. The fact tom hacks exist for basically all Nintendo games is a testament that Nintendo doesn't care. However, if something does get "too popular", they have to take their required legal action. Heck they typically even offer future dates to stop letting downloads occur and they allow you to inform the public. It's rare they require already publicly available downloads to be taken down immediately. Happened with Hero of Time, am2r, etc.

"Why don't we hear about this with other companies"

Because they simply don't have the popular staple of classic games that fans are passionately doing this with to a similar popularity level. The few that do often do get shut down, or in the rare case like Sega, get "bought out" by them being hired officially.

It's really a unique situation at the level Nintendo has to deal with it.

Essentially, if you are doing this, don't say a word about it until it releases. Get the fan fare, hey shut down, but your game is forever available. No legal problems. Nintendo did what they had to do, and life moves on.

Or, convert your projects. Legend Maker started off as Zelda Maker using Zelda assets to show Nintendo that the "too difficult to do" excuse is stupid. Well, he converted the project to his own thing with original assets. It's basically Zelda Maker, without infringing on any copyright. That's the ideal way fans should do things moving forward.

It also legally allows you to do things like kickstarters, or charging for the title, etc.

 

[Spiritreaver]

Great game for now. Did not play any pokemon after gold/silver. Would have never touched a pokemon game again if it wasn't for this hack and only played it because of the free publicity it got.

Are there new pokemon in this game that are not from Gamefreak? The newer designs always put me off but until now every design kinda fits the style of the classic ones.

I don't know.

AFAIK only a few. I have only seen official Pokemon. Considering the game has Fairy types it likely borrows Pokemon from up to Gen 6.

 

[Pacotez]

Fuck Nintendo. Skipping Switch sounds like an interesting idea as of late

 

[MUnited83]

AM2R was a rom hack originally. So this isn't a first for shutting down highly publicized stuff - and yes, Nintendo does have a legal requirement to take these actions to protect IP rights.

The other option is to grant written permission after the fact, but no one really thinks a game company is going to support anything to do with roms, do they?

"But tons of rom hacks exist for Pokémon - why now?"

Simple - attention. The fact tom hacks exist for basically all Nintendo games is a testament that Nintendo doesn't care. However, if something does get "too popular", they have to take their required legal action. Heck they typically even offer future dates to stop letting downloads occur and they allow you to inform the public. It's rare they require already publicly available downloads to be taken down immediately. Happened with Hero of Time, am2r, etc.

"Why don't we hear about this with other companies"

Because they simply don't have the popular staple of classic games that fans are passionately doing this with to a similar popularity level. The few that do often do get shut down, or in the rare case like Sega, get "bought out" by them being hired officially.

It's really a unique situation at the level Nintendo has to deal with it.

Essentially, if you are doing this, don't say a word about it until it releases. Get the fan fare, hey shut down, but your game is forever available. No legal problems. Nintendo did what they had to do, and life moves on.

Or, convert your projects. Legend Maker started off as Zelda Maker using Zelda assets to show Nintendo that the "too difficult to do" excuse is stupid. Well, he converted the project to his own thing with original assets. It's basically Zelda Maker, without infringing on any copyright. That's the ideal way fans should do things moving forward.

It also legally allows you to do things like kickstarters, or charging for the title, etc.

Again, incorrect. There is no legal requirement to do this whatsoever. People really should stop spouting that terrible argument.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Great game for now. Did not play any pokemon after gold/silver. Would have never touched a pokemon game again if it wasn't for this hack and only played it because of the free publicity it got.

Are there new pokemon in this game that are not from Gamefreak? The newer designs always put me off but until now every design kinda fits the style of the classic ones.

I don't know.

The only original Pokemon are a small group of legendaries that appear in the postgame

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Change the name of the game, change any of the assets that look like Pokemon rips, tweak the battle system and gameplay mechanics a bit and release the game.

Do you even know what a ROM hack is?

 

[Gestault]

Even ignoring some of the grey-area rights issues behind the process, am I right that the game you end up with after the mod is applied uses the Pokemon name/assets/characters? That seems like the most obvious violation with something that was being promoted and distributed.

 

[jman2050]

oh...it got leaked...didn't see that coming, almost seems like all this was a waste of time....

Well even if the game itself is released KBM can't do any promotion of the title and it's very unlikely to receive any promotion from third-party sources. Like AM2R it just sort of exists and is there, beloved by people who are aware of it but not really breaking out beyond the collective consciousness of that group.

Unfortunate as it is, I imagine Nintendo doesn't think that result is a waste of time.

 

[Spukc]

playing it on my gb boy colour with the gb everdrive..
looks great.
Might be the second hack i finish.
i wonder if i need the ingame clock