Emulator Legality Discussion

[CKRNZ]

im not yelling..or flaming...just stating my belief that emulation is a part of piracy itself.no different than the devious work of echelon,utopia,etc..

teen angst...lol...thats good...

[MetaFox]

im not yelling..or flaming...just stating my belief that emulation is a part of piracy itself.no different than the devious work of echelon,utopia,etc..

There's no legitimate reason to use pirated copies of commercial games.

There are legitimate reasons to use emulators, however - as I stated before. That's where the difference lies.

Also, it should be noted that multiple judges have found both emulation and independent development on consoles to be completely legal. You said that you'll trust the companies over the developers until the courts say otherwise. They already have: in Sony vs. Bleem and Sega vs. Accolade.

[TyBO]

"No company is going to spend the money for court fees to go after someone releasing something for free. Even so, they're still copyrighted (e.g. for all commercial purposes)."

Copyright does not apply to only commercial use. It applies to any use. If I went out and took pieces of "The DaVinci Code", rearranged them, added bits of my own, and then released it for free on the internet, it would still be copyright infringement.

True... a real life example of this would be the Chrono Trigger Resurrection project, where hobbiest coders were developing a 3D Crono Trigger remake on GameCube that was to be distrubuted as freeware. Square Enix sent them a cease and decease letter for violating the rights they had on their intellectual property.

So yeah, I think copyright laws apply to game characters, non-commercial products, and a whole slew of things we haven't mentioned here.

[Christuserloeser]

..or they just lied to us and just abandoned their project for whatever reason.

[CKRNZ]

as i recall metafox,the sony v bleem(cast) matter didnt end as well as the earlier court matters did with the PC version of bleem..and to make matters worse,the whole thing was swept under the rug..as witnessed by the fact that when news agencies tried to inquire from bleem as to the downfall,all they got was snippy emails about being kaput,finished,etc..no real details..a website with a self-pitying sonic over a bleem headstone..and also i recall a high court injunction that WAS won by sony in the bleem matter.

in other words,there were victories by bleem AND sony in the matter..it wasnt a one way victory.there were differing views by the courts...

[MetaFox]

as i recall metafox,the sony v bleem(cast) matter didnt end as well as the earlier court matters did with the PC version of bleem.

You recall incorrectly. Sony lost every case against Bleem that went to court. The only reason that Bleem is no longer an active company is that Sony bled them dry financially and caused them to go bankrupt by appealing the court cases that Sony lost over and over again.

and to make matters worse,the whole thing was swept under the rug..as witnessed by the fact that when news agencies tried to inquire from bleem as to the downfall,all they got was snippy emails about being kaput,finished,etc..no real details..a website with a self-pitying sonic over a bleem headstone..and also i recall a high court injunction that WAS won by sony in the bleem matter.

There was no high court injunction that was won against Bleem. You are thinking about the Connectix Virtual Gamestation. In that emulator, the bios image was used from the Playstation hardware. In Bleem, the bios was reverse engineered, and no proprietary Sony code was used. The courts found that Bleem was legal for this reason - since it used no Sony code and used no proprietary Sony information to reverse engineer the emulator. When an emulator is created by complete reverse engineering, every court case has found them to be legal - dating way back to the computer emulators of the 1980s.

in other words,there were victories by bleem AND sony in the matter..it wasnt a one way victory.there were differing views by the courts...

In the case of Bleem, it was a one way victory. Bleem never lost a court case against Sony in every single instance that it went against them in court.

[CKRNZ]

what im really trying to say metafox is this..this entire scene for dreamcast is rooted,whether anyone likes it or not..in what utopia,and echelon did..there would be no dreamsnes,dcgnuboy,etc,etc,etc..if they had not released a functioning ip.bin...(well maybe by now..but who truly knows as that was never the case..)whether or not there is an independant non sega ip file available now is almost a moot point..as there wasnt in the begining.the bootstrap is the gateway to the dreamcast..and that ip.bin file that they released is still in use throughout the homebrew scene for dc..even with a true independent bootstrap.


but now that there is a development kit that is non sega,a bootstrap that is non sega,maybe the scene can be free of its murky past.


you are correct i misread the article i found which had bleem and connectix info jumbled together.my mistake.

[MetaFox]

what im really trying to say metafox is this..this entire scene for dreamcast is rooted,whether anyone likes it or not..in what utopia,and echelon did..there would be no dreamsnes,dcgnuboy,etc,etc,etc..if they had not released a functioning ip.bin...

Incorrect again. Bleemcast and the Action Replay CDX used the Mil-CD format for loading independent code way before the warez releases were released - starting in May at E3 2000. The CDX was released on June 2, 2000, which obviously contained an IP.bin file. Marcus Comstedt released his hello world example (the first publically released user-bootable code for the Dreamcast) on June 20, 2000. The warez releases didn't come out until two days later.

whether or not there is an independant non sega ip file available now is almost a moot point..as there wasnt in the begining.the bootstrap is the gateway to the dreamcast..and that ip.bin file that they released is still in use throughout the homebrew scene for dc..even with a true independent bootstrap.

That's not true. I don't know of one release out there that uses the IP.bin files from the warez releases.

but now that there is a development kit that is non sega,a bootstrap that is non sega,maybe the scene can be free of its murky past.

There is no murky past. The belief that independent Dreamcast development started from warez is just a myth.

[CKRNZ]

i dont believe that for one minute..two days later..?.....really.

[MetaFox]

i dont believe that for one minute..two days later..?.....really.

Both he and the warez groups were working on getting independent code working at the same time, independent of each other - both gathering information from the just released CDX disc. Both of them wanted to get bootable CD-Rs running on the Dreamcast, and both of them wanted to get it done as quickly as possible - to show the world that it could be done. Marcus just happened to be the person who did it (and released it publically) first.

The fact that they both came out so close to each other is simply due to the fact that they were both working from the CDX disc, and that the disc had only been released earlier that month.

[Ex-Cyber]

well third party hacking..not development..is what caused the system to die. more so than poor management

I think the only thing that can be said with substantial evidence is that publishers killed DC, by withdrawing their support. I don't think that warez or homebrew played as big a role in that as you're implying, because Sega fixed the hole that allowed booting on unmodded DCs, and warez with mods happens on pretty much every system worth mentioning. Besides, if warez on unmodded systems is such a killer, why didn't the advent of softmods kill Xbox and PSP? My hypothesis is this: up to that point, it was conventional wisdom that the market could only support two mainstream consoles at once, three new consoles were about to come out, and nobody thought Dreamcast would be in the top two, so resources mostly got moved to the most promising contender - PS2. History suggests that this was the right business decision, although it was arguably a self-fulfilling prophecy.

a bootstrap that is non sega

There's no such thing. All of Sega's disc-based systems require the bootstrap to contain a small program that displays a "Produced by or under license from Sega" screen. This program must be byte-for-byte identical to a copy stored in the BIOS. However, a finding in Sega v. Accolade regarding TMSS (the precursor to this scheme added to late-model Genesis systems) suggests that complete copying of these programs is fair use because because they are extremely small, are not substantially creative, and are required for interoperability purposes:

We therefore reject Sega's belated suggestion that Accolade's incorporation of the code which "unlocks" the Genesis III console is not a fair use. Our decision on this point is entirely consistent with Atari v. Nintendo, 975 F.2d 832 (Fed. Cir. 1992). Although Nintendo extended copyright protection to Nintendo's 10NES security system, that system consisted of an original program which generates an arbitrary data stream "key" which unlocks the NES console. Creativity and originality went into the design of that program. See id. at 840. Moreover, the federal circuit concluded that there is a "multitude of different ways to generate a data stream which unlocks the NES console." Atari, 975 F.2d at 839. The circumstances are clearly different here. Sega's key appears to be functional. It consists merely of 20 bytes of initialization code plus the letters S-E-G-A. There is no showing that there is a multitude of different ways to unlock the Genesis III console. Finally, we note that Sega's security code is of such de minimis length that it is probably unprotected under the words and short phrases doctrine. 37 C.F.R. ? 202.1(a).

I was actually referring to The Great Giana Sisters, which used edits of Nintendo characters and identical level layout.

Do you happen to know the name of the case? I'd be interested in reading that opinion (although it sounds like a cut-and-dried case of unauthorized derivative work).

[BlackAura]

Actually, most homebrew stuff uses an IP.BIN file that is as free of Sega-related code as it can possibly be. There are several sections of code and data within the IP.BIN. A few of them are checked byte for byte against a copy stored in the Dreamcast's BIOS, and the rest of them aren't. Those that aren't checked were replaced a long, long time ago, leaving only the parts that absolutely must be there.

I think the only thing that can be said with substantial evidence is that publishers killed DC, by withdrawing their support. I don't think that warez or homebrew played as big a role in that as you're implying, because Sega fixed the hole that allowed booting on unmodded DCs

Too late. Only a small fraction of manufactured DCs had the updated BIOS. By that stage, most third-party publishers had already withdrawn their support. Much of the collapse can be attributed to those third-party publishers because Sega couldn't possibly carry on by themselves. While the PS2's impending release may have encouraged some publishers (or at least, the marketing divisions) to back off on DC support, the rampant piracy would have pushed it way over the edge. No console before or since has had such widespread piracy, because other consoles have always required some kind of modification or extra hardware.

I'd say the PSP is likely to be close behind, because you can copy games with just a memory stick, but it's still nowhere near as easy as copying DC games was.

[Ex-Cyber]

Actually, most homebrew stuff uses an IP.BIN file that is as free of Sega-related code as it can possibly be. There are several sections of code and data within the IP.BIN. A few of them are checked byte for byte against a copy stored in the Dreamcast's BIOS, and the rest of them aren't. Those that aren't checked were replaced a long, long time ago, leaving only the parts that absolutely must be there.

I'm aware of this, but the fact is that every bootable homebrew disc still contains Sega code, and I wanted to get it out into the discussion and make it clear that it should be considered fair use.

Only a small fraction of manufactured DCs had the updated BIOS.

The same could be said for Xbox and PSP at the points that their softmod holes were fixed. The warez may have been a factor, but I find it hard to believe that it was anything close to the primary one. It's a tempting scapegoat - it allows placing blame on an amorphous group of evil people who don't contribute anything to the industry and absolving (to some degree) Sega and our favorite game producers. I just don't think it's realistic, considering that I have never heard warez cited as even a minor factor in the downfall of any other system, nor have I seen any actual evidence presented that it entered into the decisions made to withdraw Dreamcast support. Lots of people were doomsaying about GBA emulators, claiming that their early release would kill the system. 8-bit computers had rampant warez scenes. I can't see how Dreamcast is all that special in this regard; I find it much more plausible that publishers had bigger things to worry about than Echelon and Utopia.

[Darksaviour69]

Of course it was not just one thing that killed the dreamcast, but a combination, warez, mistakes by sega, third party support, the over hyping of the ps2 , xbox and gamecube comming in the future etc it just all adds up.

Personally I think the biggest factor was EA. If the bigger publisher in the world says that it will not release any games for your console... you screwed (yes I know EA are crap, but the sell the most games)

[BlackAura]

It's a tempting scapegoat - it allows placing blame on an amorphous group of evil people who don't contribute anything to the industry and absolving (to some degree) Sega and our favorite game producers.

Right. It was yet another factor that scared off a lot of third-party publishers, many of whom seem totally paranoid about piracy. It doesn't matter if piracy was a real threat to them or not - it scares the crap out of the corporate guys in charge of publishers. They see how easy it is for people to pirate stuff, how much people actually are pirating things, and it makes it much easier to justify the decision of dropping support for the console, or just never supporting it at all.

[Christuserloeser]

In addition to what's been mentioned alread, my personal conspiracy theories why the DC failed are:

1. Sony PS2, Nintendo GC, Microsoft xBox
2. PS1 ports no one cared for (never thought of that until someone mentioned it here on these boards)

[Christuserloeser]

No company is going to spend the money for court fees to go after someone releasing something for free. Even so, they're still illegal - it's just that companies don't usually do anything about them.

Let me reword it a little and I'd agree with you:

"No company is going to spend the money for court fees to go after someone releasing something for free. Even so, they're still copyrighted (e.g. for all commercial purposes)."

However, I think using copyrighted material isn't anywhere as cool as creating something that's entirely done by yourself. It's just soooo much more ...original!

Copyright does not apply to only commercial use. It applies to any use. If I went out and took pieces of "The DaVinci Code", rearranged them, added bits of my own, and then released it for free on the internet, it would still be copyright infringement.

You're right. What I meant would be:

"No company is going to spend the money for court fees to go after someone releasing something for free. Even so, they're still copyrighted (e.g. for all commercial purposes) - it's just that companies usually don't care as long as it's used in a context that does "fair use" justice (e.g. fan art)."

[MetaFox]

it's used in a context that does "fair use" justice (e.g. fan art).

Do fan games really count as fan art though? Usually fan games use the characters in a similar engine to what the companies themselves would use. In that context, it would more likely be classed as an unauthorized derivitive, rather than as fan art.

[Ex-Cyber]

IIRC, the legal standard for a derivative work is actual appropriation, not just similarity. Strictly speaking. something can even be identical if it was not actually copied. A problem arises when you make something so similar that you have no plausible defense against the accusation of copying. This is what gave rise to so-called "clean-room" reverse engineering - because of similarities in function, it is often the case that cloned programs or program components have sequences identical to the original. In and of itself this is not a violation of copyright, and the law does not actually require clean-room techniques. However, if you can show beyond any reasonable doubt that the person who wrote the clone was not given access to the original, you have a nearly airtight defense against copyright infringement, because it would have been impossible for copying to take place.

As for whether characters themselves can be copyrighted, this seems to be a murky issue plagued by conflicting case law, but considering that there has been at least one case (Anderson v. Stallone) in which the unauthorized use of characters was found to be infringing, it's probably a bad idea to assume that independent fan works are protected as fair use or similar.

[Smiley]

Basically, I would rather play games on their original hardware rather than on a pc or another console. That's not to say that I don't emulate others on my xbox, but generally, I prefer using the original console controller.

There are exceptions though.

EDIT: Don't talk about pirating games. You know better than that.