ROM translation not illegal?

[declan]

Did you hear that tcaudilllg2?
byuu speaks words of wisdom

[tcaudilllg2]

Berne doesn't apply to the U.S.. Parts of it do, but those "parts" are very plain. The U.S. is "party" to WIPO, but a look at the Copyright Office's summary statement for WIPO says point blank, the U.S. liked some parts of it and ignored the rest. (the translation parts being one of those which are not mentioned, and therefore ignored).

When the U.S. considers a treaty, it contrasts its content against the 1st Amendment, whose like most countries, even democratic ones, don't have. Congress simply cannot regulate the 1st amendment. (and I know you're gonna argue about the specifics of that, but the wording is plain: Congress may make no such law). Which means Congress cannot pass some treaty elements that other nations might agree to.

And that's all I'm saying. If you like being wrong, you can continue to argue. As it is, it just lowers my opinion of you. The point is this: you're safe. The ROM translators, they are all safe so long as they avoid using original material. (if you live in the States, anyway).

(another note: WIPO tries to make information databases copyrightable, but the U.S. had problems with that, too.)

[sweener2001]

laughing out loud

as if your opinion of anyone here matters

[Gil_Hamilton]

Congress simply cannot regulate the 1st amendment. (and I know you're gonna argue about the specifics of that, but the wording is plain: Congress may make no such law).

The wording is plain... and often ignored.

[byuu]

If you like being wrong, you can continue to argue. As it is, it just lowers my opinion of you.

Oh, shit man. You went there. Now how am I going to sleep at night? :(

I'm really sorry. Please accept my apologies, I concede defeat. Yeah, fuck international law! We're the US of A!!
Clearly, I was wrong to question your authority. Do you think more of me now? Do you?
Please say that you do ... don't ... don't make me beg. Please.

[Deathlike2]

If you like being wrong, you can continue to argue. As it is, it just lowers my opinion of you.

Oh, shit man. You went there. Now how am I going to sleep at night?

I'm really sorry. Please accept my apologies, I concede defeat. Yeah, fuck international law! We're the US of A!!
Clearly, I was wrong to question your authority. Do you think more of me now? Do you?
Please say that you do ... don't ... don't make me beg. Please.

Sarcasm will get you a dead cat.

I'd prefer some reasoning to why you hate the other thread (for my entertainment purposes only).

[byuu]

Sorry, I've wasted enough time as it is. I don't want to get into it again. I'm too old for this stuff, and it just makes me look like an ass, anyway.

[Joe Camacho]

Berne doesn't apply to the U.S.. Parts of it do, but those "parts" are very plain. The U.S. is "party" to WIPO, but a look at the Copyright Office's summary statement for WIPO says point blank, the U.S. liked some parts of it and ignored the rest. (the translation parts being one of those which are not mentioned, and therefore ignored).

When the U.S. considers a treaty, it contrasts its content against the 1st Amendment, whose like most countries, even democratic ones, don't have. Congress simply cannot regulate the 1st amendment. (and I know you're gonna argue about the specifics of that, but the wording is plain: Congress may make no such law). Which means Congress cannot pass some treaty elements that other nations might agree to.

And that's all I'm saying. If you like being wrong, you can continue to argue. As it is, it just lowers my opinion of you. The point is this: you're safe. The ROM translators, they are all safe so long as they avoid using original material. (if you live in the States, anyway).

(another note: WIPO tries to make information databases copyrightable, but the U.S. had problems with that, too.)

You do know how International Conventions work? If a signing State doesn't make a reserve before signing or ratifying an international convention, it submits itself entirely to it.

After some searching, I didn't find any reserve section for the Berne Convention, but I did find this:

"The United States initially refused to become party to the Convention, since it would have required major changes in its copyright law, particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of general requirement for registration of copyright works and elimination of mandatory copyright notice. This led to the Universal Copyright Convention in 1952, to accommodate the wishes of the US. But on March 1, 1989, the US "Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party to the Berne Convention, making the Universal Copyright Convention obsolete."

There you go.

[Neo Kaiser]

Link the sources of it as probably tcaudilllg2 would not believe you. BTW when someone makes a translation patch does it contain the whole original Japanese script or it is only some kind of map that pinpoint every Japanese character on a game?

[Gil_Hamilton]

Good news! According to my PM box, tcaudilllg2 will not be intimidated by the likes of me! So I can continue to needle him without concern!

[byuu]

BTW when someone makes a translation patch does it contain the whole original Japanese script or it is only some kind of map that pinpoint every Japanese character on a game?

An IPS patch typically contains only the English script. A UPS patch can contain either a XOR against the English and Japanese (if they're stored at the same place), a XOR against random Japanese data and the script (if the script is moved to a different spot in the ROM), the raw English script (if it was moved to the end of an expanded ROM), or any combination of those.

Either way, it's all just as illegal. Right of translation is still right of translation, and intent is more important than legal trickery regarding XORed data. It doesn't matter whether you're storing the original material or your own translation of it. You still don't have the right to distribute that.

Good reading here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/10/fr ... trans.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01043.html

This kid really dodged a bullet. The publisher could've destroyed his life if they wanted.

[tcaudilllg2]

In the end it really doesn't matter anyway, because the subject is so inane and obtuse that we'd have the support of the ACLU anyway. (in the U.S.) The translation rights are stupid, and amount to information control. Moreover, the translation regime is batantly self-serving, putting the financial ambitions of the copyright holder above the public right to know. That's never been the U.S.'s view on private ownership: the rights of the individual must be balanced against the rights of the public and its good. (the Left thinks so, anyway).

I would say that the creation of say, an internet videogame library would be useful, and would probably all but extinguish ROM piracy. If you could "borrow" a game copy for two weeks, and then allow the borrowing software to delete the copy, that would undercut the "supply does not meet demand" arguments of ROM pirates, while providing a no-cost option of access to the information.

In any event, the situation is so obtuse that no one who makes a translation of a game runs a genuine risk of being held liable for it unless they try to violate copyright by packaging the ROM.

Added to that is my suspicion that if Berne were actually challenged on that count, it would lose in the country in which it was challenged.

[sweener2001]

it only took five pages to realize this was worthless.

wow

[tcaudilllg2]

it only took five pages to realize this was worthless.

wow

The search for closure is never worthless.

[sweener2001]

just search for closure somewhere else

and PS: what do you want to be when you grow up? i want to be a mechanical engineer

[DancemasterGlenn]

Ohhhhhhh Batman... always leaving us with one of your famous sayings...

[Gil_Hamilton]

In the end it really doesn't matter anyway, because the subject is so inane and obtuse that we'd have the support of the ACLU anyway. (in the U.S.) The translation rights are stupid, and amount to information control.

Information control is, wait for it... EXACTLY what copyright is.

The ACLU has better things to argue about.
You'd have better luck with the EFF, though I think they'd probably chase you off.

Moreover, the translation regime is batantly self-serving, putting the financial ambitions of the copyright holder above the public right to know.

The right to play video games, you mean?
I need a reference for that.

That's never been the U.S.'s view on private ownership: the rights of the individual must be balanced against the rights of the public and its good. (the Left thinks so, anyway).

I've never seen anything in US copyright law to imply that there's an approval, implicit or explicit, of ignoring the copyright just because a given title hasn't been released in America.

At least, not in copyright as it currently exists.
For a long time, the US simply ignored international copyrights, as did every other nation.
That was viewed as untenable, and led to the current standard where most nations respect the copyrights of other nations.

I would say that the creation of say, an internet videogame library would be useful, and would probably all but extinguish ROM piracy. If you could "borrow" a game copy for two weeks, and then allow the borrowing software to delete the copy, that would undercut the "supply does not meet demand" arguments of ROM pirates, while providing a no-cost option of access to the information.

What pays for the bandwidth to operate this site?

And the piracy argument has never been "supply does not meet demand"
The CREDIBLE argument has been that the game companies are not hurt by piracy of games they no longer sell. Your "solution" does absolutely nothing to change that.


Less credible arguments run the entire spectrum from sheer laziness up to and including the right to play video games, which I've been surprisingly unable to find referenced in any major legal document.

[tcaudilllg2]

Eh I'll just link to my blog: http://tcaudilllg.wordpress.com/

That should make my motives clear enough.

There is, to my mind, value in the study of any plausibly realistic depiction of character. (that is, realistic enough that we accept the presented as mind) Japanese RPGs are unique in that most of them have a central theme, one which in my experience is never directly repeated once it is expressed once already. You look at the U.S. RPG tradition, and its story details are all but vapid: there is no underlying theme because the aim is realism. Even DQ has profound allusions to human nature inherent in its use of archetypal themes. (the ball of light which banishes all darkness and "restores peace", for example) The situation begins to take more global scope because action titles like Devil May Cry also have substantial character development, if only for a few participants. I found the end of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, whereupon the protagonist realizes he is Dracula, particularly insightful.

Perhaps what I'm saying is, access to intellectual work is important not only for academic study, but also to understand the context of the academic work thereby produced. I learned a lot from, but only because I had created a theoretical context under which to interpret the game. (thus it didn't seem cliche, because I was capable of studying the actual system underlying the story). I think byuu also saw something of the same (if only intuitively), or else he probably wouldn't have suggested everyone should play Der Langrisser. (I could be wrong, and I would like to know why specifically he made that statement on his blog). I would put Tales of Phantasia, with its questioning of how one defines good against evil (a very timely issue for us) in the same category.

Now how does this figure into copyright? Simply put, academic study is at risk due to the intuitive principle (if one would call it that) of non-repetitive themes. Let me put it into context: Final Fantasy VI looks awesome compared to IV, but less so to five. Add in say, which was published by a different company altogether, and you end up with what is on closer inspection a bridge between V and VI with regard to their overworld engines at least. Everything is following everything else in what is in fact the next logical step: logic is shared on the scale of available fact, and the entire group which shares that fact base will automatically and unconsciously develop the same line of logic. There is thus a huge discussion going across the entire noosphere, to be blunt, with the curious prevalence of themes not repeating across cultures. (except in very incomplex "archetypal" cases) When you consider that the fact base is always evolving and information ever changing, the non-repetition seems a little less mysterious: the noosphere is, by presumably some swarm characteristic, "thinking" that it is senseless to repeat that which has already been done. If you notice, search engine databases are reinforcing the pursuit of that very thing, the avoidance of repeated intellectual energies. That's what makes it so imperative to have information access across cultures, that we don't end up repeating the same intellectual searches; or worse, find ourselves endlessly puzzling over gaps created by the lack of information exchange. (ask any socionics enthusiast and they will tell you, the information gap is a huge academic problem). Beyond that I'll only say that the more you know about the subject, the severe the problem appears to be.

[Deathlike2]

Eh I'll just link to my blog: http://tcaudilllg.wordpress.com/

That should make my motives clear enough.

There is, to my mind, value in the study of any plausibly realistic depiction of character. (that is, realistic enough that we accept the presented as mind) Japanese RPGs are unique in that most of them have a central theme, one which in my experience is never directly repeated once it is expressed once already. You look at the U.S. RPG tradition, and its story details are all but vapid: there is no underlying theme because the aim is realism. Even DQ has profound allusions to human nature inherent in its use of archetypal themes. (the ball of light which banishes all darkness and "restores peace", for example) The situation begins to take more global scope because action titles like Devil May Cry also have substantial character development, if only for a few participants. I found the end of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, whereupon the protagonist realizes he is Dracula, particularly insightful.

You're looking too hard into who created what, which has little or no impact to why I don't care. How about those script writers are just simply good at what they do? It has zero to do with location of the game's origin. You could argue where more of them come from, but that's not the point. If you are creative enough, people will actually be interested in the story/world that the script writer is telling.

Perhaps what I'm saying is, access to intellectual work is important not only for academic study, but also to understand the context of the academic work thereby produced. I learned a lot from, but only because I had created a theoretical context under which to interpret the game. (thus it didn't seem cliche, because I was capable of studying the actual system underlying the story). I think byuu also saw something of the same (if only intuitively), or else he probably wouldn't have suggested everyone should play Der Langrisser. (I could be wrong, and I would like to know why specifically he made that statement on his blog). I would put Tales of Phantasia, with its questioning of how one defines good against evil (a very timely issue for us) in the same category.

byuu promotes Der Langrisser most likely because he was involved in that translation. There's no mystery to this (he has probably other reasons), but self-promotion of something one is involved in is not a new concept.

Now how does this figure into copyright? Simply put, academic study is at risk due to the intuitive principle (if one would call it that) of non-repetitive themes. Let me put it into context: Final Fantasy VI looks awesome compared to IV, but less so to five. Add in say, which was published by a different company altogether, and you end up with what is on closer inspection a bridge between V and VI with regard to their overworld engines at least. Everything is following everything else in what is in fact the next logical step: logic is shared on the scale of available fact, and the entire group which shares that fact base will automatically and unconsciously develop the same line of logic. There is thus a huge discussion going across the entire noosphere, to be blunt, with the curious prevalence of themes not repeating across cultures. (except in very incomplex "archetypal" cases) When you consider that the fact base is always evolving and information ever changing, the non-repetition seems a little less mysterious: the noosphere is, by presumably some swarm characteristic, "thinking" that it is senseless to repeat that which has already been done. If you notice, search engine databases are reinforcing the pursuit of that very thing, the avoidance of repeated intellectual energies. That's what makes it so imperative to have information access across cultures, that we don't end up repeating the same intellectual searches; or worse, find ourselves endlessly puzzling over gaps created by the lack of information exchange. (ask any socionics enthusiast and they will tell you, the information gap is a huge academic problem). Beyond that I'll only say that the more you know about the subject, the severe the problem appears to be.

Gee, FF5 is visually better than FF4, and FF6 is visually better than FF4 and FF5. Wow, insight that any idiot can see, congrats.

I'm locking this thread because this I don't need Capt. Clobvious (Clueless+Obvious) to explain FF4, FF5, FF6 to this SNES FF fan.

I also do not want to hear stupid tangents and complete ignorance to the topic at hand since you obviously think you're right and everyone's wrong.

The fact that this thread eventually devolved into justifying piracy is simply wrong.

Future topics that repeat this stupidity will be locked.

[grinvader]

You cannot possibly lock this thread before this:





HITLER

Thanks for reading.