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Google Yanks Several Emulators From App Store
PC Magazine reports that the "-oid" family of emulators from developer Yong Zhang (better known as yongzh) has been pulled from Google's Android Market. These include Nesoid, Snesoid, and Gameboid. From the article: "So what got Zhang the boot? Or, rather, who? Neither Zhang nor Google have commented on the primary source of the complaints against the developer's emulator apps. While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft–there's also speculation that Zhang allegedly violated the open source licenses for projects that parts of his programs were derived from." A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.
I don't care what you're position is on emulators or Google. This guy tried to make money off of other people's work, his emulators were just based off of open source projects like snes9x. And he actually had the gall to try and play the sympathy card about how he's lost his primary source of income. You mean he might actually have to work, or come up with something original to earn money? How sad.
He deserved to get pulled.
I mean, is this really anything more than a minor hiccup? It's pretty easy to install apps around the App Store. It's not like iOS (yet)... There's a ton of free emu's out there for Android. Pick a substitute and game on.
Which has a strict non-commercial license. The developers do not want their work being sold for profit.
So in that instance this has nothing to do with the GPL. Not sure about the other two.
Personally, I'm happy to see this one pulled.
"While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft"
Why even speculate which of the Big Three it was? The emulators were for:
- Nintendo SNES
- Nintendo Gameboy
- Nintendo NES
- Nintendo N64
Call me crazy, but if it wasn't pulled because of licensing issues, shouldn't it be obvious who would of had the beef with this guy?
Snesoid at least was based on snes9x which strictly says you can't make money from it and he did. That's a clear violation which, if I were the author of Snes9x I'd be pissed.
Thats why i am staying away from evil and sticking to android.
A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.
Lisa, I would like to buy your bridge...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies, 71 FR 68472-01"
I realize this exception is being stated for video games and computer programs, but it rather reminds me of Disney's Dong of the South in laser disc format.
Snes9x is not GPL.
Yes it's such a shame you can only install apps that come from the Android Market.....oh wait
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Maybe so, but it's not like "yongzh" distributed the source code of his emulators, which _is_ required by the work derived from GPL. That said, while SNES9X doesn't use GPL, it does forbid commercial use of its source code.
If you release software that says "you can feel free to make money off this", and I make money off it, how have I done anything wrong?
Two of the emulators that people port to everything under the sun (VisualBoyAdvance and FCEUX) are GPL. In this case, if you fail to pass on the copylefted source code, then you've done something wrong. And if you do pass it on, you haven't done anything wrong, but anybody else will have the right to rebuild it to APK and submit it as a free app to Amazon, AppsLIb, and SlideME.
I'll try to explain using smallish words. He took other peoples emulators, ported then to Android, and charged money. These other peoples emulators had licenses on them that either required he make the source code for his changes available (which he did not do) or forbade charging money (which he did). It has nothing to do with emulators being OK or not. It has to do with copy write and what he was and was not allowed to do with other peoples code.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
A quick Bit Che search shows that right now there are 14,000 seeders and 4,000 leechers for the torrent with the hash ed25fbe9a48b5335de86fbfc61100698e06876c0
That's just the top seed I found on my first search. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of seeders and leechers for other torrents RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Not exactly the same topic, but related.
About two years ago, I posted to a different slashdot story here:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1325079&cid=28949323
In that thread I challenged slashdoters to provide instances of backup software. All the people who install bypass chips INSIST that they're mostly used for legal purposes and that just because they can be used illegally, that doesn't mean it's common.
I never received a response. Not to that slashdot thread, nor via the email address I set up for my little experiment.
There are MY citations. They may not be indisputable, but they're what I've managed to obtain so far. What do you have to offer for the other side?
Also, two questons:
1) How do you know Nintendo's VC is successful?
2) If it is indeed successful, how does this prove that piracy isn't wide spread and harmful? Can't both states be true?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
A quick Bit Che search shows that right now there are 14,000 seeders and 4,000 leechers for the torrent with the hash ed25fbe9a48b5335de86fbfc61100698e06876c0
Okay, so what does that actually mean?
In that thread I challenged slashdoters to provide instances of backup software. All the people who install bypass chips INSIST that they're mostly used for legal purposes and that just because they can be used illegally, that doesn't mean it's common.
I wouldn't get too excited about that. We don't even read the article, why would anybody take the time to take photos of backups? I know I'd be hard pressed to do it, like I want photographic proof that I'm copying games.
There are MY citations. They may not be indisputable, but they're what I've managed to obtain so far. What do you have to offer for the other side?
Nintendo's Virtual Console is just fine. People are still selling games from the 80's and 90's on eBay. Nobody has been able to actually show a loss, even on games where the pirated version was out before the release version. In fact, we've seen nothing but growth from the video game market.
1) How do you know Nintendo's VC is successful?
Nintendo keeps releasing games, the prices haven't changed, and the 3DS will get a version of it. It's obviously worth Nintendo's while.
2) If it is indeed successful, how does this prove that piracy isn't wide spread and harmful? Can't both states be true?
Are you using the term piracy to mean 'copyright infringement' or 'theft'? If you mean the former, then sure, I think they can be true. I don't think piracy really causes any harm at all, at least not until you you start doing stupid things like preventing your paying customers from being able to use the product. I don't think, though, that the question's all that fair.
You mention seeders and leeches, but neither of those are numbers of people who are downloading the games and playing them. The people I've met that go around doing that really aren't players, they're collectors. They might fiddle a bit, but they're not really getting out of it what the game developers imagined. I haven't the foggiest idea how one would go about finding out what the actual ratio is, but this is where we get back to this point that no losses have actually been measured.
I'm going to mention something so you can understand a bit about where I'm coming from on this: Not long ago I had software for sale on-line. Somewhere in the middle a crack was released for it and people downloaded it. With that knowledge in mind, you could not look at a graph of my sales and even guess when the crack actually came out. I'd also like to mention that the work I do involves copyright and my living depends on people buying content. You may first assume that I am trying to justify some sort of behaviour, but I want you to understand that if people pirated to the point that money wasn't flowing, I'd be back in my home town pumping gas for a living.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Strictly from my POV as one of the maintainers of the one of the emulators (Stella), this person asked for permission to release a port of Stella, but without releasing the changes under the GPLv2. Of course we said that was against the license, and he responded that he would figure out another alternative instead. Then a little later, the software was ported and source code not provided. It's almost as if he asked permission, and then when the answer wasn't what he wanted, he went ahead and did it anyway.
I suspect this happened for a number of other emulation projects too, and enough of the emulation authors (rightfully) complained and had them removed. The weird thing about it is if he'd just followed the licenses, the software would still be in the app store. I don't think most authors were concerned about another port, just that he was unjustifiably making profit from it.