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Sony Dismisses Claims Against Playstation Emulator
Gridle writes "According to this CNet article, Sony has voluntarily taken back the patent infringement case against Connectix, the makers of Virtual Game Station, a Playstation emulator for Macs and PCs. Here's the press release from Connectix."
With the...er, hacker, nature of Slashdotters, I'm wondering why there aren't any playstation emus for Linux.
If VGS can do it, and now even legally, why aren't there thousands of slashdot monkeys at thousands of computers writing software to turn my $2000 computer into a $100 game console?
I believe that you could patent the concept of rotary blades within the context of a reaper (at least at this time), provided that there was no existing/known usage of rotory blades for reaping. Your patent for such would not prevent me for patenting rotary blades for cutting hair...
No, it's not stupid. They were obviously hoping that a lot more of those allegations would stick. When only 2 of them did, they decided that it wasn't even worth pursuing that case. They are planning on trying something else with another suit against Connectix.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I also doubt that the point of Bleem! for Dreamcast is to sell to people who already have Playstations.
In conclusion, Sony sucks.
If they ever get the Micros~1 style monopoly they want over video gaming, expect games to show the same high level of quality and originality as Windows shows stability and security.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Of course, TransMeta CPUs should do the emulation must faster, but they have CLOSED that part of their architecture ...
--
It's a
-- Danny Vermin
You don't really need to read the ROM - you can download them from various sites (sorta like warez).
NESticle is one emulator, and there are a bunch of others.
-Dave Turner.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
I've seen a lot of people ask why would anyone want to use an EMU when the original system has perfect compatibility and doesn't cost much more...
Here are my answers:
1. It usually does cost more to buy a console than an emulator.
2. By the time the Emulator is complete usually PC hardware is up to date to play the games better than the original console.
3. Consoles break, PC's do as well, but over time, it's easier to keep the PC alive as when something breaks you can just upgrade it to the latest and greatest.
4. Some emulators are freeware which would theoretically mean that anyone could attempt to program a game. It's tough to do that on a console without the proper software.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm ashamed to admit it, but I once did exactly this.. VMware on NT booting Linux, Linux running ZSnes in Wine, and playing Super Mario Kart.. All because NT wouldn't run ZSnes right, and I was bored..
C'mon! Any one else do this? Don't tell me you haven't!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Reverse engineering has always been a hot topic. The issue comes down to what exactly was done. The ethical (and I believe legal as well but IANAL) litmus test that has generally been accepted is the black box idea--you treat something as a black box--info goes into it and then info comes out of it--and you make something that performs exactly the same way without actually looking into the box. My understanding was that Connectix (with previous experience in emulation software) was very careful to do it this way and could prove they did it this way. The Sony lawsuit was not about winning, but rather about pushing back the release and slowing sales of the Connectix product. It worked, and with the PS2 out, they'll probably do the same thing again.
As an aside, thankfully Compaq reverse engineered the IBM PC ROM using the same "black box" technique and helped launch an industry and change the world (tough to admit for a Mac lover).
Vote Quimby.
No. A court found the copyright infringement claims invalid. Sony has voluntarily dropped the patent infringement claims, suggesting to me that they probably weren't valid either---if they did have a valid patent claim they have lots of money for lawyers and they could easily win. This is pretty much what I'd expect for a clean-room reverse engineered product: any overlap with Sony's intellectual property would have to have been the result of chance; that's pretty unlikely.
Here's a laymans rundown of what various forms of intellectual property traditionally protect: Trademarks protect a particular name or logo that distinguishes a company or product in the market. This case has nothing to do with trademarks. Copyrights protect the particular expression of an idea. Patents protect a particular implementation of a functional idea (i.e. an invention, defined quite narrowly by how it was implemented). Trade secrets protect all sorts of things, but once the cat is out of the bag they provide no protection at all. The real issues here were copyright and patent infringement.
Smart people trying to produce an emulator would have poked through the Playstation and documented the interface for games without describing Sony's patented algorithms or providing any of Sony's copyrighted code; then a separate team would have written an emulator to the specification without even looking at a console. (i.e. the clean room reverse engineering mentioned above). Barring a massive coincidence, this pretty much guarantees that they don't use any of Sony's IP.
Regarding your own hypothetical product, anyone is free to make a product that does the same thing, so long as it doesn't borrow from your particular implementation. Thus _all_ people can profit from their own particular ideas and innovations, including emulator companies.
Sony has voluntarily taken back the patent infringement
The article at the link sure didn't read that way to me. It sounded like after losing seven out of their nine issues at court, Sony decided the cost of the lawsuit didn't justify the chance of winning. After all, their executives refused to comment; if they had been doing this out of a sense of "right", naturally they would have hyped it up into a big PR thing.
In conclusion, Sony remains evil, but at least the forces of evil have been held at bay... for now.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Notice that land ownership is a strange concept - in what sense do you own land? Do you own everything beneath the surface as well? How far? Land is already an abstract concept very different from, say, a saw or a hammer.
Thus if one uses your definition, we own very few things, perhaps even none at all.
I would argue there is no such thing as a "natural right" or entitlement. All rights and entitlements are rules that have been developed by humankind over thousands of years. Rocks, trees and animals do not have rights. While information ownership might be different from ownership of physical objects (but perhaps not so different from land ownership (btw most land used to be the property of the local ruler or king)), the property rights for information fall within a certain pattern of development. As law and society reached a certain stage, copyright became necessary to encourage innovation and to ensure stability.The distiction between ownership and copyright is purely a matter of terms. Copyright is the idea of ownership taken to a new domain.
Start with a G4-based enterprise server (not the Macintosh)
Install LinuxPPC
Run Mac-on-Linux
Run the RealPC emulator for Macintosh
Install a lilo dual-boot of Windows and Linux on that
Within the Linux partition, run Wine on VMWare
Within Wine, run VGS.
Half measures never got us nuthin! :)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Acctually, they arent using an emulator. They have an I/O processor in the Playstation 2 that acts as the Playstation 1's CPU. So their not using an emulator because the actual PSX hardware is in the PS2.
I guess its hardware emulation then, rather than software.
Perhaps the XBox could be emulated, but it would be exceedingly difficult to do with the PS2 or Dreamcast, since both use a sort of multi-processor setup, which is nearly impossible to emulate. You ever wonder why you never see any Sega Saturn emulators? That's why. Even if you were to have two processors on a motherboard, each emulating one of the processors, the simultaety still needs to be preserved, which is not a key part of emulators. Oh well. Save a life. Buy more cheese. - Naerbnic
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
Just my thoughts on the matter.
"The public" couldn't care less about copyright infringement suits. /. readers may have this perception, but /. readers are about as far from the general public as you're going to get, and I mean that in a good way.
Yes, there was a Black Playstation which was called the NetYaroze. It let you use a basic API on your PC to write games, which were d/l into your playstation via cable (Can't have people burning PSX cds, now can they?). However, there were a few things which limited it. First off, it is no longer being sold. Second, your programs had to be less than 2megs, since that was the size of the PSX's RAM. That two megs also included a 500KB API library included with it. And of course, you couldn't show your friends unless they also had a NetYaroze. So the Black playstation wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. You can find some more info, including some on how to make real PSX games at Hitmen or Napalm.
Save a life. Buy more cheese.
- Naerbnic
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
That is not true. The problem with giving up means that they leave themselves open for Emulation on the new PSX2. While this does leave it unresolved, it's better to be unresolved for Connectix. Connectix can make money off the PSX emu for now, and later on fight with more power, money, and a semi-precident of having done this and gotten away with it before. In my opinion, Sony lost this battle.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
I would think that emulating an X-Box on a PC wouldn't be terribly different
True, but Connectix makes great emulators for MacOS as well (VGS and VirtualPC). I imagine that MS will make X-Box games work on Windows, but I'm not so sure they will go after the MacOS market (it *is* possible -- there is money to be made from Mac users, and MS does make some very decent Mac software (Office98 and IE 5)).
If Micosoft isn't interested in supporting games on MacOS, perhaps Connectix can step in to make that work.
- Isaac =)
Did it occur to you that perhaps Sodakar has an opinion based on a sense of right/wrong, and doesn't care about the details of laws he/she doesn't agree with?
So, like I said. He feels the way that he feels and doesn't want to let the facts, or reality, get in the way.
what you said, in other words, is: I feel it is my duty to define what other people mean by their statements and pass arbitrary judgements on them.
That's pretty much it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Well, as it works out, when it comes to tangible property two people can't independently of each other own the same thing. If I own a bottle of liquor, you don't have the ability to use it except as I permit. And vice versa.
Information is the same in that respect. We can't both share _precisely_ the same piece of information. But unlike tangible stuff, information can be and is trivially copied all the time. When you read a book, you do not move the information from the book into your mind. A copy of the information carried in the book is made in your mind; the book still has all the information it ever did. Tell me what the book said, and now I get a copy as well.
This is the sort of thing I'm talking about with how the universe - which as far as this debate is concerned is basically just us Earthlings (property law on Planet Claire is irrelevant) - works.
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As for the traditional requirements for ownership go (these are legal requirements AFAIK - I didn't invent them myself) you're missing the point.
Let's say that Alice lawfully owns a car. It is illegal to hit people with it. This doesn't mean that Alice does not own the car. It doesn't mean that Alice doesn't have the ability to hit people with it. It means that it is illegal to hit people with it. Alice's ownership of the car is never in question.
Remember, I didn't say that you could only use or enjoy or restrict or dispose of things lawfully in order to own something. As a practical matter, you may be compelled to forfeit your property when using it in an illegal manner.
Obviously this doesn't mean that you never owned it to begin with, but that as either a punishment or a corrective measure Alice's future ability to exercise rights over some piece of property have been taken away. Acquiring property in a manner that violates the previous owner's property rights is also illegal, and as a matter of course, includes the return of the illegally _acquired_ property.
So Alice owns all kinds of stuff. And there's nothing preventing her from doing whatever she wants with it. But there may be repercussions from some uses that effect her continued ability to freely exercise her rights.
That's what I'm saying here, and to my understanding that's basically what the law says. IANAL, and I'm sure that there are many fine points involved but I don't think that it flips the entire thing over.
As for land, yeah, you own everything in an ever shrinking wedge down until the center of the earth, IIRC. The ownership of air and space is a newer issue however. And because sometimes property rights may conflict with each other but the means of resolution are generally not brand new here. (e.g. if I own property which is completely encompassed by your property, you are required to grant me access. This infringes on your right to exclude me from your property, but if you could exercise that I would be unable to exert ANY right over my own property. The encompassor imposes the greater burden on the other party; it's less of a burden for him to relent)
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Natural rights exist. I'm not talking about mother nature (trees and rocks? please) but the state that people exist in when there are no laws other than physical ones like gravity. But you have to remember that the existance of a right doesn't necessarily preclude other people from infringing on it. The best strategy so far imho appears to be to restrict the exercise of your rights just enough to preserve as many others intact as possible. It's more an art than a science though.
But let's consider your thesis. If there are no natural rights, then Alice, who is alone in the woods is incapable of saying whatever she wants? This is clearly untrue. Thus freedom of speech is a natural right. Unfortunately it does not carry with it a defense against those who would infringe on that right - Bob threatening Alice with bodily harm if she speaks her mind. And that is where laws are introduced.
But copyrights are fundementally opposed to the natural freedom of speech. If Alice gives a speech, there's nothing in the absence of law or threats from others that prevents Bob from repeating it word for word.
Copyrights were developed which prevent Bob from doing so without incurring the possibility of punishment. But the clearly stated objective of copyrights (in the US anyway) is to encourage Alice to give many speeches that Bob wishes to repeat. This is frequently overlooked.
Copyrights are an incentive for Alice. They are limited in a number of important ways because it's more important for Bob to be able to repeat Alice's speeches than for Alice to have absolute control. Unfortunately our carefully developed and rather fair system of copyrights which has evolved over the past ~200 years has been unconstitutionally corrupted by moneyed interests.
Anyway - the intrinsic requirement that information be copied, rather than transferred is what makes it impossible to own it.
*If I compose a poem in my mind, I can enjoy it. I can satisfy the first requirement.
*If I want to let someone listen to the poem, I can do that and fulfill half of the second requirement. But I can't compell them to give it back or to forget it or stop thinking about it in some manner which I dislike. I can't fully exercise the second requirement.
*I still can't dispose of it (i.e. willfully forget it) and can't own it. This is a limitation of how humans work. But I can't fulfill the third requirement either.
_This_ is how I can't own information. And this is why copyright law doesn't claim to confer ownership of information. If it did, we'd call it something else. Copyright rather clearly indicates that it is an exclusive right to copy.
A more accurate definition would be: An exclusive (but not sometimes, or under some circumstances. and only for a limited time anyway) right to copy.
I haven't said that copyright is necessarily bad. I think that it can serve a purpose, but presently is in need of significant reform. But it's not ownership, and it's really important that people understand that. I hope that I've managed to convince you. It's NOT just a matter of terms.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Sony was slowly losing their entire case. In the past few months, one claim after another was tossed out by the court; eg. had no merit. Sony was facing a difficult task on the remaining claims. And oh by the way .....
Sony is huge player in the games title business (er... I mean content). They didn't see the logic of going to court and pissing off a bunch of game evangelists all for the sake of preserving a low margin aspect of their business - the HARDWARE end when they could just coopt and force more games through the channel. Games is where they make the real money cause you invest to get the first one and then each next copy takes a few bucks to make, distribute and sell. Consoles are expensive to make, hard to ship, get returned....blah blah blah.
And anyway does emu run as well as a console? or is a BIG company like Sony banking that slow performance will motivate folks to switch to a console. And what about PS2?
Well, 7 of their 9 allegations got tossed out, and from what the article says, it looks like they're going to file, or have already filed, another case against Connectix.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
For those of you truly interested in this topic, here is an article that has an interview with the CEO of Connectix regarding this issue. It's posted at MacNN.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
Sony makes little to no money off of their hardware (in the case of Playstation 2, it reportedly costs more than double the retail price to manufacture!). Their money is made off Playstation software, and things like bleem! and Virtual Game Station only *expand* the market for that software. I'm surprised Sony hasn't attempted to create an "officially licensed" emulator, as some software companies have. (Activision, Williams, and Konami all sell discs with their older games running on emulators).
They've lost every case so far against Connectix. They probably are tired of spending money on the legal fees. They don't really need to worry too much about it anymore with PSX/2 coming out.
Short interview with Connectix CEO
He mentions that a key point is that the technique of reverse engineering was completely cleared, opening the door to creating PS2, Dreamcast, and even X-Box emulators in the future (once PC hardware speeds are capable of it).
- Isaac =)
If we all could just have just been happy with the original Atari gamming system, all this pain could have been avoided. The answer is in you.
Get your own Red Swingline Stapler
That, and they were getting their a?? kicked. Most of the patent disputes were already rejected by the courts. This was just the last nail in the coffin of the Sony lawsuit.
Hopefully, when "VGS2" comes out, they will not waste their time. After all, the PSX2 has lots of crunchy features that make it a nifty living room appliance, but the typical PC owner who already has a DVD player will have little reason to bother with the platform unless there is an emulator... and Sony makes the big money on the games, not the player.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Interesting - I heard that if your hardware was good enough, then the resultant emulation was actually much better than what the PlayStation hardware could give (in terms of resolution & such). I haven't tried it myself (yet), but that's what I heard.
Sony has refiled their suit against Connectix.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
We are not Locke. We inherit a rich political tradition that has, in part, been built around the rights and processes his ilk won. But here we must make a distinction about what we mean when we say what law "is for".
On the one hand, its purpose is quite clearly as suggested; to wit, to secure and maintain public order. To preserve property, as Locke put it. That is why law can exist in the most tyrannical regimes; why we find it in many societies, regardless of the rest of their political structure.
But in another, real, and more important sense, law exists to secure justice. It is no accident that we call our system of laws "the justice system". And though the implementation and even design of those laws often fall short of ideal, the assumption of justice is the engine that drives the system. It is the only thing that legitimatizes it.
In that sense, one must ask whether the current crusade to defend intellectual "property"(*) is actually just and whether the legal system should be pursuing it as strenuously as it is. By the twisting of the concept of "property", rights holders are also twisting the legal system into an engine for their self-enrichement regardless of whether the result is just or even whether the terms have been ratified by common usage. ---
(*) Intellectual "property" is to property as fool's "gold" is to gold.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I know you're joking, but I've actually become quite entranced by the GameBoy platform recently. It's simple, VERY well documented, and lots of free tools exist for developing for it. Nintendo doesn't seem to be too annoying about shutting down emulator and reverse engineering projects, too (they even released a game "Harvest Moon" recently, which was developed by amateurs). And best yet (in my view) no high-3D-flashiness/low-gameplay!
If you yearn for classic gaming and a reasonably open platform, grab an emulator (rew) and assembler (rgbasm) and check it out!
I would say that copyright infringement suits are certainly unpopular with the majority of Sony's PlayStation market. My mom and dad don't care, but they also don't buy video games.
Shouldn't this have a favorable impact on any ruling rgarding DeCSS? It's practically the same thing i.e. Connectix provided a way for play Workstation disks on non-Sony players; DeCSS provides for a way to play DVD's on PC's.
Somewhat offtopic, but still interesting.
Someone was once describing the art of writing patents to me. The idea is basically to make the patent wording broad enough to cover all future derivations of the patent, but at the same time not cover anything that had been developed before. Apparently, the most profitable patent ever written was for the first word processor and was something to the extent of "A program that tabs across the screen and fills in the blank spaces."
I can't say this is true, since I heard it second hand, but this basically covers all forms of word processors (word, wp, etc) and any other form type programs. I guess at the time, all other programs didn't follow this same flow of tabbing across the screen, so they didn't fall under the patent application. If this is true, some serious bank must have been made.
IANAL: If Sony had taken this to court and had lost, it would have killed any future chance they had at suing Conectix (or however you spell it) on these grounds. Sony probably wasn't able to put their case together in time and as such dropped the case so they can regroup and sue Conectix at some future date. Money could not have been in the consideration, Sony has far more money than Conectix ever will. If they keep suing eventually Conectix will run out of money.
-matt
Never mind my 1600x1200 resolution at 100 frames per second against TVs 640x480 with 30 frames per second.
Other than that, though, I'm sure the psx2 will whoop up on my pc.
So, this wasn't a victory at all, it's an illustration of some of the more questionable aspects of the legal system. Apparently, Sony can keep trying until the get the lawsuit right, and force Connectix to waste more and more time and legal expenses on it. Imagine you were being sued and the company bringing the lawsuit could just file it again and again.
Don't forget, this isn't the only PlayStation emulator out there -- bleem! has been around for a while.. wasn't Sony suing them as well? Or was that just to prevent it's release?
So, Sony has made an emulator for PSX. If Sony won the lawsuit and forbade Connectix from writing an emulator, then can Sony legally write an emulator for the PS2? I know this sounds silly, but can anybody dispute this?
WHere can I find an emulator? I have a used cartridge of caveman games in my trunk, but never owned a nintendo. The friend I meeant for ruined it before I could deliver it :(
Hmm, then I need to read the rom in the cartridge, too . . .
As for the MS/DOJ thing, it is not about patent infringement or IP. It is about predatory monopolistic practics at MS.
Also blockquoth the poster:
A patent does not guarantee the right to make a profit from an invention. It does not guarantee the right to an exclusive market due to an invention. It does not prohibit others from fulfilling the same need you've chosen to address via the device patentned.A patent does prevent someone else from implementing a solution in exactly the same way you do. In other words, I can't simply duplicate McCormick's reaper, but I sure as heck can come up with my own device for harvesting grain. It is not the concept of rotary blades that is patented; it's the particular form that is protected.
Admittedly, the federal courts and the PTO have really murked the waters by allowing software and "business model" patents (egregiously wrongly, IMHO). But even they don't say "MS patented Word, so no one else can make word processors" -- even ones that read Word files.
--- (*) Intellectual "property" is to property as fool's "gold" is to gold... It can't be "stolen", although one's rights vis-a-vis it can be infringed. Current usage is a deliberate obfuscation to play on the connotations of "theft".
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Notice from the press release, they note "We recognize Sony may still attempt to bring these claims back before the court at a later date..."
Also note this occured 1 day before they were set to present their motion to dismiss (they being connectix). To me, it sounds like Sony is suing, causing trouble, then dropping the case before there's a chance for resolution. In other words, they're grinding on them without ever allowing the court to actually settle the issue, costing Connectix money and making people question the viability of the product, just using money on lawyers to make trouble. Maybe connectix should have had the right to seek a summary judgement on the matter to prevent such abuse. (or at least a right to continue a day and have their motion heard)
The way I see it, a PlayStation emulator isn't all that harmful to Sony -- after all, as lots of people are quick to point out, Sony doesn't make any money selling their hardware. Often, they'll sell it for a loss and make their money on royalties for their games. (They get a pretty hefty chunk of change on every PSX game sold.) If they can make money selling games without having to take a loss on the hardware, they'll probably be pretty happy.
The biggest drawback for Sony that I can see is that a game running on the Sony emulator (in my experience anyway) isn't as good as when it runs on normal PSX hardware. I suppose that someone who had never seen a PlayStation before and tried playing Soul Blade on their Bleem emulator might think, "Boy, Playstation games aren't all that good."
Another more dangerous (but perhaps less likely) potential problem is the fact that maybe these console companies could steal each other's publishing deals. Suppose to make Tunnel Raider V for the PSX, it'll cost me $5/game in royalties for Sony. Suppose Sega offers me a better deal -- say, $3/game -- to make the "Dreamcast Bleem Emulator" version of the game (which, totally by coincidence, happens to run on the Playstation as well). That could really screw over Sony. I don't think it's a particularly likely scenario, but it's possible...
Of course, most of this is a moot point now that most people are looking forward to the PSX2, which is probably the real reason why Sony isn't continuing their legal battle.
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"