In my view the whole test is bogus because we don't have figures for the original CD track.
By definition, the original track is a 5.00, because the scale measures perceptual similarity between two tracks on a 1.0 to 5.0 scale, and the testers were provided with a.flac (lossless compressed wav) version of the original CD to test against.
If you were to make a two dimensional spectral analysis of a such sound recording with the time axis to the right, the frequency to the top and the amplitude as the color intensity of the point you would see a lot of wiggling lines at
regular distances.
In the field of acoustics, that type of plot is generally called a "Spectrogram". See recent stories about Aphex Twin on Slashdot and/or Kuro5hin to learn more.
(BTW: this would make a great visualization plugin for xmms)
Winamp (AOL's proprietary freeware media player for Windows, coming soon for Linux) already has one: Nullsoft Tiny Fullscreen.
The day I can't legally JAM on the melody to 'Free Bird' or something, shoot me.
You have sentenced yourself to death for violating 17 USC 106, which bans most public performance of a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder. Thank you for playing;-)
Public performance ban in USA copyright law
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 2
What if you do borrow a melody. There is no law against performing someone else's music.
You mean other than 17 USC 106? "the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:... in the case of... musical... works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly". ("Publicly" is defined in 17 USC 101.)
Where would Las Vegas be without all those Elvii?
Professional impersonators of the late Elvis Presley license the rights to Presley's name, likeness, and catalog of musical works through big clearance organizations to which the amateur musician has little or no access.
Is it possible to write your own music?
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 1
Learn to homebrew.
Illegal for about 1/3 of Slashdot readers because of lack of chronological age.
Open Source Software. Lots of projects out there.
Once your computer breaks, and the only computers on the market require Palladium operating systems, then what do you do?
Make your own music. Heck, someone has to make it.
Is that even possible? How do you know that when you write a song, you won't "accidentally" borrow a melody from another existing song?
That is, if we could petition Nintendo to release such an emulation demo-disc for the Cube.
Nintendo itself == hundreds of titles.
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 1
How much of a share are you going to pay Konami, Capcom, Enix, or any of the other NES licensed developers to use their titles.
No need. Nintendo itself released hundreds of NES, Game Boy, Super NES, and Game Boy Color titles, and the GCN's 486 MHz PowerPC processor can probably emulate all those systems handily.
What protection?
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 3, Informative
All Nintendo has to do is say that it was intended as such.
The fact that Nintendo made most of the NES cartridge specs PUBLIC in Nintendo Power magazine during the third year of publication kind of blows "anybody who reverse engineers our NES cart edge bus is breaking trade secret law" out of the water.
As an added bonus, the catridge format had the advantage of being a fairly effective form of copy protection, especially in a non-emulated context.
Are you saying emulation is illegal? Try telling that to the developers of Wine and Bochs. If, on the other hand, you merely claim that Game Paks were physically hard to copy, then look at all the pirate multicarts you can pick up in HK.
Sure it was bypassable, but the mechanisms for bypassing cartridge-based protection tended to be fairly elaborate.
I understand that Nintendo 64 Game Paks and later Super NES Game Paks (the one with the SA-1 coprocessor) had a small amount of protection against homebuilt dumping machines, but there is NO protection on Famicom, Game Boy, or Game Boy Advance Game Paks: just write the address, read the data. Write the address, read the data. From there, you can construct a complete backup copy of the binary.
In contrast, the Dreamcast protection was almost non-existent (with an unmodified Dreamcast being able to boot cracked, burned games)
That's about how much protection there is on GB and GBA, and homebrew developers like it.
If I own a 1980 Zephyr station wagon and the parts are no longer available for me to fix it, does that mean that I can go out, steal somebody else's car, and be legally free from ramifications?
But does it also mean you can't manufacture such parts yourself?
you own the engine and frame of the car, but not the seats. You should therefore be able to go out and steal seats, wheels, a drive shaft, car mats, and every other "accessory" to the car.
Or make them yourself. Get a flash cartridge and copy games onto it, making sure that you possess and own a genuine original copy*. You're protected under 17 USC 117, the law that permits the owner of a copy (e.g. a cartridge) of a copyrighted computer program to make limited copies.
* No, that's not necessarily the situation with the rental outlet described in the present Slashdot article.
Nintendo tries to apply 17 USC chapter 9 (mask work law) to game cartridges in an attempt to get around the backup law. IANAL, but I don't think Nintendo has a case. Apparently, mask work law doesn't apply because it applies to the actual semiconductor masks, not the underlying computer programs. Besides, mask work law doesn't apply to NES or Super NES games because mask work rights last only 10 years (in contrast to perpetual copyright), and the design for NES and Super NES ROM masks was laid down in 1985 and 1991 with the release of the pack-in titles.
Eventually, in several dozen years, they will fall to public domain as the copyrights expire.
Not if you keep voting for Senators and Representatives who continue to extend the term of copyright.
17 USC 117 permits backups; what EULA?
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 1
Is there such a thing [as a respected emulation site]?
Re: Dumping cartridges, you can only do that if the EULA (in the back of game manuals) explicitly allows it.
What do you mean? 17 USC 117 permits a US-resident owner of a program cartridge to dump that cartridge for use on a computer. Because I didn't see any EULA when I handed over my con$ideration, I see no reason why it becomes a binding contract.
(That section doesn't in and of itself permit what these people are doing.)
Rental restrictions in USA copyright law
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 2
the copies weren't licensed for rental, only sale.
This is based on a restriction in United States copyright law that applies only to sound recordings and those computer programs not designed for video game consoles (17 USC 109(b)(1)).
No Sonic CD for obvious reasons?
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 1
I hear it will have every sonic on it but Sonic CD (for obvious reasons).
The GBA can address up to 32 megabytes without bankswitching, even though the largest current cart is 8 megabytes. Most of Sonic CD was redbook audio, right? Would somebody who has a copy of Sonic CD please check how long (in m:s) the first track is? If it's less than 3:30, then it's less than 32 megabytes.
After all, playing the games on a TV w/ a controller is so much better than a computer keyboard.
My TV is 13" and doesn't take anything over a 480i NTSC (Never The Same Color) signal. My PC display is 17" and takes up to 768p RGB signal. My game controller is a Nintendo 64 controller connected through an adapter to my PC's USB port. NES games, Super NES games, and Game Boy Advance games feel just fine through my rig.
As long as it's not PC software
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Games I know are probably different, do they obtain a special license to rent
In the United States, it's illegal to rent PC software without a license from the publisher (17 USC 109(b)(1)). PC software means a computer program designed for a computer that isn't primarily marketed to play video games.
Is a cartridge an access control device
on
Borrowing ROMs
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· Score: 1
The "library" in this case is actively bypassing the manufacturer-produced copy protection (the console format)
But does a form factor and a pin assignment count as copy protection? In most cases, the cartridge is just a plain old storage device, just like SmartMedia, MemoryStick, or CompactFlash, that just happens to have data etched into a semiconductor mask. (NES and GBC carts also have bankswitching hardware.) Systems that use CDs generally use a standard (ISO 9660) format.
Which is one of the guidelines for fair use enshrined in 17 USC 107.
they don't market these games anymore.
Konami still markets Castlevania. Nintendo still markets Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World. Nintendo will soon resume marketing of Zelda 3. Namco still markets its old arcade games. And that's just on one console, the GBA. Think of how many other games are being redone and marketed on the other consoles, not to mention PCs.
<devils-advocate> How can you prove that it's your own music? For all I know, it could be your performance of a song written by some other songwriter. And don't tell me you wrote that song; surely you "accidentally" cribbed a melody from one of the millions of songs written since January 1, 1923, all of which are under copyright in the United States of America. </devils-advocate>
What application does this? [download from Internet to/Documents and Settings/Pinocchio Poppins/Desktop, then double-click package]
To install Nullsoft Winamp, you use the web browser to download winamp280_full.exe (a Windows SuperPIMP installation package). Then you double-click the file, which launches the install wizard.
Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things
Yeah? Even if some open-source project manages to make a set-top Linux distribution that manages to move almost everything to the numeric keypad (for binding to IR remotes), how do you enter a URI into a set top box's web browser? Or to compose e-mail? Or to enter the name of a CD that isn't up on freedb yet?
> The new version won't instantly enable USB 2.0 to work with Linux-based devices
*Still* having trouble getting their heads around this Linux thing
I know exactly what that part of the article means. It means that Linux now supports USB 2 controllers and hubs but does not yet support any USB 2 devices connected to a USB 2 tree.
Slashdot Mirror
In my view the whole test is bogus because we don't have figures for the original CD track.
By definition, the original track is a 5.00, because the scale measures perceptual similarity between two tracks on a 1.0 to 5.0 scale, and the testers were provided with a .flac (lossless compressed wav) version of the original CD to test against.
If you were to make a two dimensional spectral analysis of a such sound recording with the time axis to the right, the frequency to the top and the amplitude as the color intensity of the point you would see a lot of wiggling lines at regular distances.
In the field of acoustics, that type of plot is generally called a "Spectrogram". See recent stories about Aphex Twin on Slashdot and/or Kuro5hin to learn more.
(BTW: this would make a great visualization plugin for xmms)
Winamp (AOL's proprietary freeware media player for Windows, coming soon for Linux) already has one: Nullsoft Tiny Fullscreen.
The day I can't legally JAM on the melody to 'Free Bird' or something, shoot me.
You have sentenced yourself to death for violating 17 USC 106, which bans most public performance of a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright holder. Thank you for playing ;-)
What if you do borrow a melody. There is no law against performing someone else's music.
You mean other than 17 USC 106? "the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: ... in the case of ... musical ... works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly". ("Publicly" is defined in 17 USC 101.)
Where would Las Vegas be without all those Elvii?
Professional impersonators of the late Elvis Presley license the rights to Presley's name, likeness, and catalog of musical works through big clearance organizations to which the amateur musician has little or no access.
Learn to homebrew.
Illegal for about 1/3 of Slashdot readers because of lack of chronological age.
Open Source Software. Lots of projects out there.
Once your computer breaks, and the only computers on the market require Palladium operating systems, then what do you do?
Make your own music. Heck, someone has to make it.
Is that even possible? How do you know that when you write a song, you won't "accidentally" borrow a melody from another existing song?
Bundle it with an old-school NES controller that's been adapted to plug into the cube
I already know what NES-style controller Nintendo would use for emulating NES games on the Cube: Game Boy Advance with the GameCube Cable.
That is, if we could petition Nintendo to release such an emulation demo-disc for the Cube.
How much of a share are you going to pay Konami, Capcom, Enix, or any of the other NES licensed developers to use their titles.
No need. Nintendo itself released hundreds of NES, Game Boy, Super NES, and Game Boy Color titles, and the GCN's 486 MHz PowerPC processor can probably emulate all those systems handily.
All Nintendo has to do is say that it was intended as such.
The fact that Nintendo made most of the NES cartridge specs PUBLIC in Nintendo Power magazine during the third year of publication kind of blows "anybody who reverse engineers our NES cart edge bus is breaking trade secret law" out of the water.
As an added bonus, the catridge format had the advantage of being a fairly effective form of copy protection, especially in a non-emulated context.
Are you saying emulation is illegal? Try telling that to the developers of Wine and Bochs. If, on the other hand, you merely claim that Game Paks were physically hard to copy, then look at all the pirate multicarts you can pick up in HK.
Sure it was bypassable, but the mechanisms for bypassing cartridge-based protection tended to be fairly elaborate.
I understand that Nintendo 64 Game Paks and later Super NES Game Paks (the one with the SA-1 coprocessor) had a small amount of protection against homebuilt dumping machines, but there is NO protection on Famicom, Game Boy, or Game Boy Advance Game Paks: just write the address, read the data. Write the address, read the data. From there, you can construct a complete backup copy of the binary.
In contrast, the Dreamcast protection was almost non-existent (with an unmodified Dreamcast being able to boot cracked, burned games)
That's about how much protection there is on GB and GBA, and homebrew developers like it.
If I own a 1980 Zephyr station wagon and the parts are no longer available for me to fix it, does that mean that I can go out, steal somebody else's car, and be legally free from ramifications?
But does it also mean you can't manufacture such parts yourself?
you own the engine and frame of the car, but not the seats. You should therefore be able to go out and steal seats, wheels, a drive shaft, car mats, and every other "accessory" to the car.
Or make them yourself. Get a flash cartridge and copy games onto it, making sure that you possess and own a genuine original copy*. You're protected under 17 USC 117, the law that permits the owner of a copy (e.g. a cartridge) of a copyrighted computer program to make limited copies.
* No, that's not necessarily the situation with the rental outlet described in the present Slashdot article.
Nintendo tries to apply 17 USC chapter 9 (mask work law) to game cartridges in an attempt to get around the backup law. IANAL, but I don't think Nintendo has a case. Apparently, mask work law doesn't apply because it applies to the actual semiconductor masks, not the underlying computer programs. Besides, mask work law doesn't apply to NES or Super NES games because mask work rights last only 10 years (in contrast to perpetual copyright), and the design for NES and Super NES ROM masks was laid down in 1985 and 1991 with the release of the pack-in titles.
Eventually, in several dozen years, they will fall to public domain as the copyrights expire.
Not if you keep voting for Senators and Representatives who continue to extend the term of copyright.
Is there such a thing [as a respected emulation site]?
Other than this? What about this or this?
Re: Dumping cartridges, you can only do that if the EULA (in the back of game manuals) explicitly allows it.
What do you mean? 17 USC 117 permits a US-resident owner of a program cartridge to dump that cartridge for use on a computer. Because I didn't see any EULA when I handed over my con$ideration, I see no reason why it becomes a binding contract.
(That section doesn't in and of itself permit what these people are doing.)
the copies weren't licensed for rental, only sale.
This is based on a restriction in United States copyright law that applies only to sound recordings and those computer programs not designed for video game consoles (17 USC 109(b)(1)).
I hear it will have every sonic on it but Sonic CD (for obvious reasons).
The GBA can address up to 32 megabytes without bankswitching, even though the largest current cart is 8 megabytes. Most of Sonic CD was redbook audio, right? Would somebody who has a copy of Sonic CD please check how long (in m:s) the first track is? If it's less than 3:30, then it's less than 32 megabytes.
Why [play SMB2 on GBA vs. NES]? Because of the GBA's only true advantage: It's portable!
So is my laptop. So is my neighbor's Palm device.
After all, playing the games on a TV w/ a controller is so much better than a computer keyboard.
My TV is 13" and doesn't take anything over a 480i NTSC (Never The Same Color) signal. My PC display is 17" and takes up to 768p RGB signal. My game controller is a Nintendo 64 controller connected through an adapter to my PC's USB port. NES games, Super NES games, and Game Boy Advance games feel just fine through my rig.
Games I know are probably different, do they obtain a special license to rent
In the United States, it's illegal to rent PC software without a license from the publisher (17 USC 109(b)(1)). PC software means a computer program designed for a computer that isn't primarily marketed to play video games.
The "library" in this case is actively bypassing the manufacturer-produced copy protection (the console format)
But does a form factor and a pin assignment count as copy protection? In most cases, the cartridge is just a plain old storage device, just like SmartMedia, MemoryStick, or CompactFlash, that just happens to have data etched into a semiconductor mask. (NES and GBC carts also have bankswitching hardware.) Systems that use CDs generally use a standard (ISO 9660) format.
it couldn't hurt sales that much
Which is one of the guidelines for fair use enshrined in 17 USC 107.
they don't market these games anymore.
Konami still markets Castlevania. Nintendo still markets Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World. Nintendo will soon resume marketing of Zelda 3. Namco still markets its old arcade games. And that's just on one console, the GBA. Think of how many other games are being redone and marketed on the other consoles, not to mention PCs.
Which means that if I make my own music
<devils-advocate>
How can you prove that it's your own music? For all I know, it could be your performance of a song written by some other songwriter. And don't tell me you wrote that song; surely you "accidentally" cribbed a melody from one of the millions of songs written since January 1, 1923, all of which are under copyright in the United States of America.
</devils-advocate>
how long it will be until some advertiser simply completely funds a show with omnipresent product placement.
I read somewhere that producers of movies in Asian countries with weak copyright laws actually fund production of movies this way.
So I use the DRM enabled videocam to pirate the next Star Warez movie
The camera recognizes the watermark placed by Lucas and shuts off.
What application does this? [download from Internet to /Documents and Settings/Pinocchio Poppins/Desktop, then double-click package]
To install Nullsoft Winamp, you use the web browser to download winamp280_full.exe (a Windows SuperPIMP installation package). Then you double-click the file, which launches the install wizard.
perhaps you should try getting them to compile and install unpackaged Windows software for a comparison.
Easy. If you have a source.zip, the user needs to follow these simple steps to compile a program on mingw:
If you want a start menu icon, drag the EXE on top of Start, then drag it into Programs.
Having to pull out a keyboard to do certain things
Yeah? Even if some open-source project manages to make a set-top Linux distribution that manages to move almost everything to the numeric keypad (for binding to IR remotes), how do you enter a URI into a set top box's web browser? Or to compose e-mail? Or to enter the name of a CD that isn't up on freedb yet?
> The new version won't instantly enable USB 2.0 to work with Linux-based devices
*Still* having trouble getting their heads around this Linux thing
I know exactly what that part of the article means. It means that Linux now supports USB 2 controllers and hubs but does not yet support any USB 2 devices connected to a USB 2 tree.
How can you have support for a non-existing CPU?!
Just because it hasn't showed up on pricewatch.com yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are prototypes, and before that, there were emulators.