Linux source code can legally be downloaded once per neighborhood and sneakernetted from one machine to another. Xcode, being proprietary software, doesn't allow this.
Since when? I thought it was proprietary software, that Apple switched from GCC to LLVM specifically to avoid copyleft.
You probably meant "Xcode is free as in without charge." That's true if your home Internet lacks a quota or has dozens of GB per month. But if you're stuck behind cellular or satellite Internet, such as in a rural area or urban Seattle, multiple gigabytes can become very expensive to download.
The Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color internal ROM is just a small bootloader, and emulators tend to high-level emulate this, meaning they reimplement its functionality in native code as part of the emulator. Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, on the other hand, have a BIOS with actual routines that games call. Emulators can HLE these, or you can you can use a BIOS dump made with your own system and a flash cartridge.
I'd like to see more about app permissions like the old Android Market listing
The permissions are still listed. Crossy Road, the endless Frogger-clone that's become popular on Google Play. Scroll down to "Permissions" and click "View details". Or are you asking for some sort of rich privacy policy where each permission is justified with an immediately adjacent rationale, such as "Uses camera to scan barcodes" or "Uses phone state to pause gracefully when a phone call is received"?
and only whitelisting certain sites for apps to connect to
I don't see how this can be effective, as the app may use one of those whitelisted "certain sites" as a proxy.
Nintendo is being hypocritical here, since they themselves use ROM dump and emulator technology in their game systems.
Nintendo is allowed to distribute its own games because it owns copyright in its own games. The team responsible for Virtual Console didn't have to download infringing copies from the Net. Instead, they could have done one of two things. Either they found where Nintendo had saved the original files used to create the mask ROMs, or they pulled a copy out of the library where a copy of every licensed game is kept and dumped the PRG and CHR data out of that.
As much as you wish you could be, you are not Disney
Exactly. Nintendo didn't lobby for the 1998 copyright term extension. Disney did.
and can't just keep injecting adrenaline into that geriatric lineup of classic characters.
In 2003 and 2004, Disney killed Bill. How much more violent can you get than Quentin Tarantino?
What you need is fresh, original content.
And Splatoon isn't?
Encourage people to try speedruns on your hardware, by offering new versions (not just console dumps!) of old titles with new features that allow tracking of speedrun times.
Something like NES Remix?
Say HI to Atari for me while you are out there. They too went down the dark road of filling their console lineup with CRAP.
Incidentally, a lot of Nintendo's practices were intended to avoid the crap that associated itself with Atari's brand in 1983-84. That's why the NES had a lockout chip, for instance.
So does this mean that Twitch is a criminal enterprise?
It is if it doesn't have a defense to copyright infringement. Following the OCILLA takedown procedure (17 USC 512) is one defense to copyright infringement that Twitch, YouTube, or another service provider can use.
Also, does this mean that any game review is in violation copyright law, since they are derivative works based on the original audiovisual work?
A review is infringing unless it has a defense, which is likely one based on the four factors of fair use (17 USC 107). For one thing, a review usually uses far less footage than a complete playthrough, which brings "amount and substantiality" in its favor more than it does for a speedrun video. Second, reviews tend to have a more transformative "purpose and character". But just saying something is fair use doesn't make it so.
a game is an interactive audiovisual work. A recording of a speedrun is not interactive.
Nor are the game's cut scenes. Besides, transformation into a different medium is a "derivative work", which is still infringement unless there's a fair use or other defense.
Youtube is pretty infamous for selling out its users
Until the alleged infringer outlines a plausible fair use defense as the basis for a counter-notification pursuant to OCILLA.
The emulator developers should license their emulators specifically to disallow the original manufacturer from using them commercially to replace the need for the original hardware.
They already do that. Popular emulators such as FCEUX are distributed under the GNU General Public License, a copyleft free software license. Console makers, on the other hand, forbid the use of copylefted software in licensed games. This ban became public after it was discovered that Majesco had used ScummVM, an emulator for LucasArts games, to port Pajama Sam to Wii. Nintendo instead develops its own emulators for use in Virtual Console releases.
No way I could talk my friends into buying a 3DS for an hour of Mario Kart or Mortal Kombat a few times a month.
One might say the same thing about PC games and their one system per player policy that PS3 and Xbox 360 happened to pick up as well. Besides, Mortal Kombat isn't Nintendo; it's WB, and it's on Steam. Even for Mario Kart, you can still "play games other than those published by Nintendo", such as Lego Racers or SuperTuxKart or emulated Crash Team Racing.
No, I don't work for Nintendo. If I did, I probably wouldn't have linked to original homebrew NES games a couple times in this discussion, and I wouldn't have recommended avoiding Nintendo's first-party games. I'm just trying to help clear up what current law and current facts are so that we have a better idea of what fans are up against.
Isn't download count the "if everyone was jumping off a bridge" argument? Over a billion people have downloaded the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps, yet Facebook is still considered intrusive by many Slashdot users.
In the rare case someone don't have a bank account that a direct transfer can be done to then it's a question of cash
She has a bank account capable of direct transfer. Though she routinely uses her bank's web site to check her balance, she is unwilling to learn to use its online form for sending a direct transfer: "I'm old and set in my ways, and I ain't usin' no online transfer." She breaks into the redneck dialect that she reserves for when she is frustrated and understands that her appeal to emotion and tradition is invalid. To her, the alternative to a check is not paying at all. So during the cycling off-season, when daily high temperatures can be below the freezing point of water at 1 atmosphere, I'm back to holding live checks for several days at a time until I otherwise have an opportunity to be near one of my bank's ATMs that takes deposits.
Or should most people buy a car to work around receiving the occasional paper check?
Let me guess: you said "and two controllers" specifically to rule out 3DS use.
Copyright gives Nintendo the right to choose whether its own works shall be delivered in formats suitable for multiplayer use in a coffee shop. You could always choose to play games other than those published by Nintendo, such as RHDE.
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court bought the excuse that the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was intended for harmonization of the copyright term to that of another major market. Its opinion recognized the possibility of "perpetual copyright on the installment plan" but made a point to distinguish harmonization from that. So I don't see the "harmonization" excuse working again with the Supreme Court any time soon, as there are only about a half dozen countries with copyright terms longer than life plus 70, and they're on the whole less economically advanced than the G7 or BRIC.
For another thing, even if speedrunner.exe refers to a different executable, it works only for real-time speedruns that incorporate human reflexes and the limited information that the game provides to users. It's not practical for tool-assisted speedruns that attempt to achieve theoretically perfect play with perfect information. How do you perform the technique of "luck manipulation" in your case?
I'm not sure what Nintendo's exact legal claim is (of course they'd rather not specify it!)
A video game is an audiovisual work, and Nintendo has the exclusive right under copyright law to perform its works publicly.
Since these videos are derivative works of the games
Nintendo has the exclusive right under copyright law to prepare derivative works of its works.
I guess Nintendo is claiming that "fair use" doesn't apply if your source is an infringing copy of the work.
This is true. I remember some courts interpreting the "purpose and character of the use" factor to rule out fair use defenses by alleged infringers who have unclean hands.
More importantly, I think that the custom ROMs involve fair use of Nintendo's ROMs, especially since Nintendo isn't offering new ROMs for sale.
Since when were Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World removed from Virtual Console?
Not every publisher desires every type of publicity for every product it produces. Some publishers, for example, don't want modified versions of older products to compete with the same publisher's newer products. For example, if hackers mod all the new Super Smash Bros. For characters into Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo won't be able to sell as many copies of Super Smash Bros. For.
Part of creating something for the culture to enjoy is that it BECOMES part of the culture -- ergo, the limited terms of copyright.
Super Mario Bros. is less than one-third of the way through its limited copyright term. It has 65 more years to become part of the culture.
Why am I _not_ allowed to use an emulator if I legally have a physical cartridge? The medium is irrelevant -- I already purchased a license by physically buying the cartridge.
Under current law, the medium is relevant to an extent. See answer here.
[Creating device drivers] should be done by the manufacturer.
For which operating system? GNU/Linux? FreeBSD? NetBSD? Haiku? Syllable? The toy OS on my cousin's floppy drive?
I jest, but making and submitting a patch to use a particular piece of hardware costs time that an engineer could be used for other things, and the minimum wage law states that time is money. Unless ensuring compatibility with GNU/Linux is a sufficient selling point that it will overcome the cost of ensuring said compatibility, a company trying to maximize shareholder value won't take effort to ensure said compatibility.
Playing through a TAS does not require emulation. Making the TAS, however, does unless you want to spend several minutes for each rerecord. And even then, without an emulator, you'll have no way of observing the hidden variables used in luck manipulation. So existence of a well-optimized TAS is prima facie evidence that an emulator was used.
Or at least, you can get the same version ROM that matches a cart you bought at the flea market.
This is illegal, you know, for the reasoning described in the opinion of the court in UMG v. MP3.com. To take advantage of the necessary adaptation and backup provisions of US copyright law (17 USC 117), you have to dump the ROM yourself. And you can't just buy an NES Game Pak reader at the same flea market. Even the Retrode never supported NES format; it came with Super NES and Sega Genesis cartridge readers, and most adapters fit in one of those slots.
So does anything with an NES emulator, since I made a robotfindskitten implementation for NES. But a text game with about 2.5K of code that someone could hack up in a night doesn't quite qualify as "high-production-value games".
, what else does anyone need?
I was referring to, say, a first-person shooter or action-adventure game with characters more detailed than smiley faces or stick figures and environments more detailed than just a bunch of featureless boxes.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux source code can legally be downloaded once per neighborhood and sneakernetted from one machine to another. Xcode, being proprietary software, doesn't allow this.
Xcode is free.
Since when? I thought it was proprietary software, that Apple switched from GCC to LLVM specifically to avoid copyleft.
You probably meant "Xcode is free as in without charge." That's true if your home Internet lacks a quota or has dozens of GB per month. But if you're stuck behind cellular or satellite Internet, such as in a rural area or urban Seattle, multiple gigabytes can become very expensive to download.
Then why don't the SMBX developers make additional graphic skins that aren't pixel-for-pixel copies of Super Mario Bros. graphics?
The Game Boy, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color internal ROM is just a small bootloader, and emulators tend to high-level emulate this, meaning they reimplement its functionality in native code as part of the emulator. Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, on the other hand, have a BIOS with actual routines that games call. Emulators can HLE these, or you can you can use a BIOS dump made with your own system and a flash cartridge.
I'd like to see more about app permissions like the old Android Market listing
The permissions are still listed. Crossy Road , the endless Frogger-clone that's become popular on Google Play. Scroll down to "Permissions" and click "View details". Or are you asking for some sort of rich privacy policy where each permission is justified with an immediately adjacent rationale, such as "Uses camera to scan barcodes" or "Uses phone state to pause gracefully when a phone call is received"?
and only whitelisting certain sites for apps to connect to
I don't see how this can be effective, as the app may use one of those whitelisted "certain sites" as a proxy.
Nintendo is being hypocritical here, since they themselves use ROM dump and emulator technology in their game systems.
Nintendo is allowed to distribute its own games because it owns copyright in its own games. The team responsible for Virtual Console didn't have to download infringing copies from the Net. Instead, they could have done one of two things. Either they found where Nintendo had saved the original files used to create the mask ROMs, or they pulled a copy out of the library where a copy of every licensed game is kept and dumped the PRG and CHR data out of that.
As much as you wish you could be, you are not Disney
Exactly. Nintendo didn't lobby for the 1998 copyright term extension. Disney did.
and can't just keep injecting adrenaline into that geriatric lineup of classic characters.
In 2003 and 2004, Disney killed Bill. How much more violent can you get than Quentin Tarantino?
What you need is fresh, original content.
And Splatoon isn't?
Encourage people to try speedruns on your hardware, by offering new versions (not just console dumps!) of old titles with new features that allow tracking of speedrun times.
Something like NES Remix?
Say HI to Atari for me while you are out there. They too went down the dark road of filling their console lineup with CRAP.
Incidentally, a lot of Nintendo's practices were intended to avoid the crap that associated itself with Atari's brand in 1983-84. That's why the NES had a lockout chip, for instance.
So does this mean that Twitch is a criminal enterprise?
It is if it doesn't have a defense to copyright infringement. Following the OCILLA takedown procedure (17 USC 512) is one defense to copyright infringement that Twitch, YouTube, or another service provider can use.
Also, does this mean that any game review is in violation copyright law, since they are derivative works based on the original audiovisual work?
A review is infringing unless it has a defense, which is likely one based on the four factors of fair use (17 USC 107). For one thing, a review usually uses far less footage than a complete playthrough, which brings "amount and substantiality" in its favor more than it does for a speedrun video. Second, reviews tend to have a more transformative "purpose and character". But just saying something is fair use doesn't make it so.
a game is an interactive audiovisual work. A recording of a speedrun is not interactive.
Nor are the game's cut scenes. Besides, transformation into a different medium is a "derivative work", which is still infringement unless there's a fair use or other defense.
Youtube is pretty infamous for selling out its users
Until the alleged infringer outlines a plausible fair use defense as the basis for a counter-notification pursuant to OCILLA.
The emulator developers should license their emulators specifically to disallow the original manufacturer from using them commercially to replace the need for the original hardware.
They already do that. Popular emulators such as FCEUX are distributed under the GNU General Public License, a copyleft free software license. Console makers, on the other hand, forbid the use of copylefted software in licensed games. This ban became public after it was discovered that Majesco had used ScummVM, an emulator for LucasArts games, to port Pajama Sam to Wii. Nintendo instead develops its own emulators for use in Virtual Console releases.
No way I could talk my friends into buying a 3DS for an hour of Mario Kart or Mortal Kombat a few times a month.
One might say the same thing about PC games and their one system per player policy that PS3 and Xbox 360 happened to pick up as well. Besides, Mortal Kombat isn't Nintendo; it's WB, and it's on Steam. Even for Mario Kart, you can still "play games other than those published by Nintendo", such as Lego Racers or SuperTuxKart or emulated Crash Team Racing.
No, I don't work for Nintendo. If I did, I probably wouldn't have linked to original homebrew NES games a couple times in this discussion, and I wouldn't have recommended avoiding Nintendo's first-party games. I'm just trying to help clear up what current law and current facts are so that we have a better idea of what fans are up against.
Isn't download count the "if everyone was jumping off a bridge" argument? Over a billion people have downloaded the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps, yet Facebook is still considered intrusive by many Slashdot users.
In the rare case someone don't have a bank account that a direct transfer can be done to then it's a question of cash
She has a bank account capable of direct transfer. Though she routinely uses her bank's web site to check her balance, she is unwilling to learn to use its online form for sending a direct transfer: "I'm old and set in my ways, and I ain't usin' no online transfer." She breaks into the redneck dialect that she reserves for when she is frustrated and understands that her appeal to emotion and tradition is invalid. To her, the alternative to a check is not paying at all. So during the cycling off-season, when daily high temperatures can be below the freezing point of water at 1 atmosphere, I'm back to holding live checks for several days at a time until I otherwise have an opportunity to be near one of my bank's ATMs that takes deposits.
Or should most people buy a car to work around receiving the occasional paper check?
Let me guess: you said "and two controllers" specifically to rule out 3DS use.
Copyright gives Nintendo the right to choose whether its own works shall be delivered in formats suitable for multiplayer use in a coffee shop. You could always choose to play games other than those published by Nintendo, such as RHDE.
Nintendo should have their own emulators and a ROM shopping site.
Nintendo has Virtual Console on the Wii, 3DS, and Wii U.
[Some German store] disagrees with you.
But if the device is no longer produced, how long will its stock last?
And there are others for copying/using NES-cartridges, like [CopyNES USB]
In other words, "lrn2solder".
Retrode is discontinued and never supported NES anyway.
Couple hundred years sounds more realistic.
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court bought the excuse that the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 was intended for harmonization of the copyright term to that of another major market. Its opinion recognized the possibility of "perpetual copyright on the installment plan" but made a point to distinguish harmonization from that. So I don't see the "harmonization" excuse working again with the Supreme Court any time soon, as there are only about a half dozen countries with copyright terms longer than life plus 70, and they're on the whole less economically advanced than the G7 or BRIC.
For one thing, "speedrunner.exe" appears to be malware according to a thread on Spybot forums.
For another thing, even if speedrunner.exe refers to a different executable, it works only for real-time speedruns that incorporate human reflexes and the limited information that the game provides to users. It's not practical for tool-assisted speedruns that attempt to achieve theoretically perfect play with perfect information. How do you perform the technique of "luck manipulation" in your case?
I'm not sure what Nintendo's exact legal claim is (of course they'd rather not specify it!)
A video game is an audiovisual work, and Nintendo has the exclusive right under copyright law to perform its works publicly.
Since these videos are derivative works of the games
Nintendo has the exclusive right under copyright law to prepare derivative works of its works.
I guess Nintendo is claiming that "fair use" doesn't apply if your source is an infringing copy of the work.
This is true. I remember some courts interpreting the "purpose and character of the use" factor to rule out fair use defenses by alleged infringers who have unclean hands.
More importantly, I think that the custom ROMs involve fair use of Nintendo's ROMs, especially since Nintendo isn't offering new ROMs for sale.
Since when were Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario World removed from Virtual Console?
Speed runs are FREE publicity.
Not every publisher desires every type of publicity for every product it produces. Some publishers, for example, don't want modified versions of older products to compete with the same publisher's newer products. For example, if hackers mod all the new Super Smash Bros. For characters into Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo won't be able to sell as many copies of Super Smash Bros. For.
Part of creating something for the culture to enjoy is that it BECOMES part of the culture -- ergo, the limited terms of copyright.
Super Mario Bros. is less than one-third of the way through its limited copyright term. It has 65 more years to become part of the culture.
Why am I _not_ allowed to use an emulator if I legally have a physical cartridge? The medium is irrelevant -- I already purchased a license by physically buying the cartridge.
Under current law, the medium is relevant to an extent. See answer here.
[Creating device drivers] should be done by the manufacturer.
For which operating system? GNU/Linux? FreeBSD? NetBSD? Haiku? Syllable? The toy OS on my cousin's floppy drive?
I jest, but making and submitting a patch to use a particular piece of hardware costs time that an engineer could be used for other things, and the minimum wage law states that time is money. Unless ensuring compatibility with GNU/Linux is a sufficient selling point that it will overcome the cost of ensuring said compatibility, a company trying to maximize shareholder value won't take effort to ensure said compatibility.
Playing through a TAS does not require emulation. Making the TAS, however, does unless you want to spend several minutes for each rerecord. And even then, without an emulator, you'll have no way of observing the hidden variables used in luck manipulation. So existence of a well-optimized TAS is prima facie evidence that an emulator was used.
Let them get an emulator, and let them get a homebrew ROM. Just stay away from infringing copies of games published by Nintendo itself.
Or at least, you can get the same version ROM that matches a cart you bought at the flea market.
This is illegal, you know, for the reasoning described in the opinion of the court in UMG v. MP3.com . To take advantage of the necessary adaptation and backup provisions of US copyright law (17 USC 117), you have to dump the ROM yourself. And you can't just buy an NES Game Pak reader at the same flea market. Even the Retrode never supported NES format; it came with Super NES and Sega Genesis cartridge readers, and most adapters fit in one of those slots.
It has Robotfindskitten
So does anything with an NES emulator, since I made a robotfindskitten implementation for NES. But a text game with about 2.5K of code that someone could hack up in a night doesn't quite qualify as "high-production-value games".
, what else does anyone need?
I was referring to, say, a first-person shooter or action-adventure game with characters more detailed than smiley faces or stick figures and environments more detailed than just a bunch of featureless boxes.
I can't read the linked page because as of right now, reddit is giving 503 "all of our servers are busy right now" errors.
[a few minutes later]
Do the gaming keyboards require Windows users to install a specific driver?