Selling hacks without permission, claiming that this permission has been given?

Discussion in 'Discussion and Q&A Archive' started by AbyssalLeopard, May 4, 2016.

  1. AbyssalLeopard

    AbyssalLeopard Well-Known Member Member

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    Alright. I know I haven't posted for a while, but I recently came across something that drew my attention (thanks to JoenickROS, I owe him one), and which I particularily didn't like at all. Apparently, there is a guy who randomly makes covers of hacks and sells them without apparent permission of the creators. Even though so, he claims he has notified us about it and that we have agreed to do this. I'm not sure if it's the case of any of you here, but it definitely wasn't mine. Anyhow, a good example of this is my little baby here:

    https://www.etsy.com..._home_active_13
    The main reason why I'm writing this is probably obvious. I know SEGA has legalised the upload of hacks into the Steam Community thing and such, so they obviously know about us. However, there are some hacks (in which mine is included) where we use content from other franchises, without having been given permission in terms of copyright-related stuff. This could get both them in trouble, yes, but we, and by we I mean the major part of the community affected by this, are also in this, since they have claimed they have our permission, which I reiterate, that wasn't my case. Why? My personal project was made with the sole purpose of entertaining fans of the Sonic franchise, with a hack made with our heart, by our being the whole team, since it wasn't only my merit. I never had intentions to sell it (which is why in the disclaimer we told the player to notify us in case it was bought so that we could do something about it in the first place, though I'm not sure if this guy has manipulated our work so that the text has been edited). We never had the intention of disrespecting SEGA and the others' copyright - instead, we made this hack because we have always had this passion about Sonic The Hedgehog, which has been part of our respective childhoods.

    I guess that was enough beating around the bush. What I precisely wanted to ask is what do you guys think about this, and I'd like suggestions about what I should do about this. Think about it - our whole community might get in trouble with something we haven't done. Therefore, I think I had, in a way, to let you guys know about this big problem.

    Other examples of hacks affected by this are Sonic Classic Heroes, Sonic Bro-Tro, The S Factor, Knuckles in Sonic The Hedgehog (renamed as Knuckles The Echidna) among others.

    So yeah, let me know about things
     
  2. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    I thnk we should update hacks with splashscreen saying "if you see this on steam, this wasnt uploaded by the permission of creators."
     
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  3. ArcaniaCQ

    ArcaniaCQ Well-Known Member Member

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    But this was not on Steam but I actually agree with you MrCat.
     
  4. AbyssalLeopard

    AbyssalLeopard Well-Known Member Member

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    The problem is, Cat, it's not Steam I'm worried about. People are taking advantage of our creations with no permission and they're selling them, which is illegal from what I know. They're getting money from our hacks, disrespecting SEGA's and others' copyright, and also our decisions. What pisses me off the most is the fact that they are lying, saying WE have given them permission to sell our fan-made games when it's clearly not the case. They could have perfectly asked us and respected our decisions, but noooooo...
     
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  5. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    Holy shit I didnt get the point of topic. But you still can get the splashscreen to prevent 'em from doing so...
     
  6. AbyssalLeopard

    AbyssalLeopard Well-Known Member Member

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    I already had a disclaimer there, but either they ignored it completely, or they modified it so that it says something else. I'm unable to know since I can't (and I won't, obviously) buy it.
     
  7. Animemaster

    Animemaster Lets get to work! Member

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    I know some people are in the mentality of "Who cares? sega doesn't so why should we?", but I agree with abyssal leopard. I know things like this happen all the time, but it doesn't make it right. I don't know Sega's thoughts but they must be aware of this by now, I mean they are clearly aware of us since the Sega hub. Best thing to do in my opinion which I know Abyssal is going to do is, if your hack is up their and you disagree with it, he has an email you can contact him. Best thing to do is just ask for him to take down. I get people's thoughts on the whole "this isn't a big issue", but maybe some of us don't want this you know?. If we get upset about the Sega hub, isn't this worse?. Well that's my 2 cents anyway.
     
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  8. AURORA☆FIELDS

    AURORA☆FIELDS so uh yes Exiled

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    I am in fact trying to build my hack so its incredibly hard to disassemble, and going to do some tricks to show a message for the players. And if you remove it, the hack will not function correctly. Of course, this will be quite a trick to make the message not removable, but I'll hope to do so. And if I succeed I can help some other people with this as well.
     
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  9. Royameadow

    Royameadow Welcome to the modern existence. Member

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    The following ROM hacks and Megadrive Homebrew works are listed as available for sale on the FanBrew Games shop, at the time of this post:

    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog: Classic Heroes.
    ~ SeGala.
    ~ Amy Rose in Sonic the Hedgehog.
    ~ Amy Rose in Sonic the Hedgehog 02.
    ~ Mobius Evolution (presumably the release post~Sonic Hacking Contest XIII).
    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog 02: The Lost Worlds.
    ~ Super Mario Brothers by Mairtrus.
    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog: Brother Trouble (2010).
    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog: Code Gray.
    ~ Winter Adventures '13.
    ~ Pringles.
    ~ Somari the Adventurer (Sonic Hacking Contest XIII Build).
    ~ Metal Sonic Maximum Hyperdrive.
    ~ Mighty the Armadillo in Sonic the Hedgehog.
    ~ The S Factor '13.
    ~ Sega Master System Brawl.
    ~ Super Donkey Kong Country '99.
    ~ Fix~It Felix.
    ~ Doctor Robotnik's Creature Capture (Revision 03).
    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix (Sonic 01 Megamix variant, Version 03 Revision 00).
    ~ Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog.
    ~ Vector the Crocodile in Sonic the Hedgehog.
    ~ Cave Story: Alpha Demo.
    ~ South Island Adventure starring Espio the Chameleon.
    ~ Sonic the Hedgehog: Back in Time.
    ~ Berzerk by Paul Lee.
    ~ Big's Fishing Derby '15.
    ~ Sonic Boom (2009) (Sonic Hacking Contest VII Build).
    ~ Super Mario 03: Around the World (Russian Homebrew).
    ~ Super Mario 04: Space Odyssey (Russian Homebrew).
    ~ Sonic Erazor (Revision 05).
    ~ Battle City MD.
    ~ Super Mario Brothers 02 (Pirate Game).
    ~ Charmy Bee in Sonic the Hedgehog.
    ~ Knuckles' Emerald Hunt (more than likely the Sonic Hacking Contest XIII Build).
    ~ Bunnie Rabbot in Sonic the Hedgehog.

    In the event that there happen to be any that I have missed, then please do mention them as required, I will add them to this list for the sake of having them all in one place.
    If I had to say anything on this though, I wholeheartedly agree with the majority of the community in the regard that ROM hacks need to remain as Non~Profit works at all times, particularly because of the ongoing issues regarding Piracy and/or Copyright Infringement, as well as the fact that we have no need to create trouble with the original teams and/or publishers, they must not ever be for a premium and those who are selling Repro Carts must be reported when necessary, this might be one of those scenarios given what has been said above; to be truthful though, if people wanted to have these games for using on actual hardware, then I feel that people might as well get an Everdrive or make their own Repro Carts for personal use, there is absolutely no reason to have to buy ones that were already made (although at TooManyGames, there are Translation and Regional Imports of Generation IV console games available for cheap), there truly deserves to be a more legal way to do this but that is not available at this time, so I understand why threads such as this have to be made in the first place: To protect the rights and interests of the parent companies and game modders alike without delivering criminal charges or lawsuits in the long run, that is entirely understandable to me and I will not contest that.
     
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  10. Misinko

    Misinko Oh SHIT it's the Biolizard! Member

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    There wasn't really a need to list all the pirated ROMS like that, but thanks, I suppose.

    Anyway, is there any way to report these guys to the people who run Etsy? Or is there a way to contact them directly? That'd probably be the best first step to take in solving this issue.
     
  11. Animemaster

    Animemaster Lets get to work! Member

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    Yeah the guy has an email, I told abyssal to email him and see what happens.
     
  12. rika_chou

    rika_chou Adopt Member

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    Last edited: May 5, 2016
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  13. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester ♡ ! Member

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    Hello people??

    You're talking about people who have years of experience making money off of selling ROMs, do not underestimate them.
    1. If you think you can put a splash screen up with a message, guess again, they will remove or change it.
    2. If you think you can fool them with assembly tricks, think again, they will figure it out.
    3. If you think you can protect your ROM via encryption/compression methods, think again, their experience leads them to a solution around it.
    Unless you physically put the ROM on a cart, and protect it that way through a series of hardware methods, forget it, any raw ROM you send out on its own, can and will be deciphered, even then on hardware, you'd be limiting your audience, and that'll only delay them. These people are not doing it for fun, they are making a living from it, it is a serious business to them, you cannot begin to live up to that effort of avoidance.

    My opinion is strictly this, forget about it, it's better having your name around, than to have it removed because you were trying to protect it.
     
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  14. LazloPsylus

    LazloPsylus The Railgun Member

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    Markey's dead-on. Make a bigger lock, and they'll make a bigger hammer and screwdriver to pop it with. Defense against things like this are often complicated, limit yourself to hardware-only, and/or constrain software capabilities. If you don't want your stuff to show up on carts, don't release it. That's just how they play, and fighting it costs time and money and influence that would be better-spent elsewhere.
     
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  15. Royameadow

    Royameadow Welcome to the modern existence. Member

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    Hence the route that Watermelon has taken with their titles, they have their Genesis and Megadrive titles available as Cartridge Only for this particular reason, they never had the intention of having their games be available for emulation, so it works in the opposite way as well.
    Sure, the 8192 KB Revision 00 and Reprint ROM images of Pier Solar have been dumped and made available in GoodGen by this point for those that want to play it on emulator for free, but even at that, it is not universally playable on emulator, provided the fact that it only works on MESS, to my knowledge, and it probably won't be on the others for the next decade or so; given that truth, I agree with both Markey and LazloPsylus on the fact that Megadrive and Super 032X Homebrew works that are intended to be available for a premium must remain as Cartridge Only to highly prevent Piracy, but I also feel that free Digital versions of the ROM image need to exist for those that can only play on emulator, especially after all of the physical copies are sold out, I truly feel that it makes logical sense to do so to get the games out to a larger audience, even if the emulated version cannot do everything that the hardware variant can do, all that some people might care about in the end is being able to play the game and they will do it however it be probable, even if it technically is illegal in the eyes of Federal Law.
     
  16. D.A. Garden

    D.A. Garden Sonic CD's Sound Test Member

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    People have been selling reproduction cartridges in Russia for as long as I can remember and, over the last few years, they've also been showing up more frequently on eBay here in the UK. Why is it now suddenly an issue?

    I have the same stance I always have: What we have been doing for so long (ROM hacking) hasn't exactly been kosher (until recently, anyway) and these guys are going through the effort of putting the ROM onto a cartridge, printing labels and pull-outs, and then packaging it as a legitimate game. Hell, as some have said, they are even reverse engineering some of them at times. I think that's a lot of dedication to what they are doing. I'm not exactly happy with it myself (making money off of someone else's work is disrespectful, to put it lightly), but I just accept it as it kind of inevitable.
     
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  17. LazloPsylus

    LazloPsylus The Railgun Member

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    Do run the numbers for the cost of making a repro cart sometime. Might find that the per-unit profit is somewhere between "thin" and "nonexistent" without mass batches. Or sub-par parts and mass corner-cutting.
     
  18. AURORA☆FIELDS

    AURORA☆FIELDS so uh yes Exiled

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    See, thats what I am concerned about; corner-cutting, as one. I am willing to bet they do a lot of that to pull off at least some profit. If that is the case and they can show that in fact most of what they make just go to covering their ass on the production costs, and are willing to take hacks down as requested by the mod authors, then it should be a fair game. Though them lying they get consent from us suggests me none of this is the case and they are indeed in it for-profit.
     
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  19. redhotsonic

    redhotsonic Also known as RHS Member

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    I'm more pissed off that after all these years I still haven't seen S2R or Sonic Bash up for sale =P
     
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  20. Royameadow

    Royameadow Welcome to the modern existence. Member

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    Well, Sonic Bash! literally just came out a matter of almost about 07 months ago, I do not know at the moment of any title(s) that have gotten the Repro Cart treatment within half a year (or a little more than it) of its original Revision 00 or Bugfixed release (with the exclusion of Sonic the Hedgehog 03 Complete Collection, but that is a different scenario entirely, based on what I read on their website).
    I would probably say that they might wait a full year or more to actually do it, but as for Recreation, I think that they are probably waiting for the updated version, whenever that becomes officially available; heck, it took about 04 years for Pirated versions of Megamix to become available (and even at that, they used the June 030 of 2007 build when they did so), so perhaps that is what they are waiting for with Recreation, a final, more stable and complete build might be what they are aiming to use if it ever were become a reality in the Repro Cart world, they appear to want players to have the utmost recent and as optimal of an experience as probable, so I have to applaud them for that in some way, contrary to what they do to the community.