SylarDean wrote:
I HAVE noticed with the repro-carts they tend to remove translator/hackers splash pages from their cart releases so whoever is reproducing these carts definitely has hacking
skills to remove these, so what i'm saying is your game will also eventually no doubt end up on a repro-cart immaterial of how your going to try and stop this happening. It's
just a damn shame that these repro-cart people just don't make some deal with the people writing the patches and offer a royalty or % of any takings the patches make to
you groups who work hard at them for each cart/game sold using your translation.
This would still be illegal. While there may be a case for the translation patch itself being copyrighted by the creators, the original work is not, and the patch is furthermore a derivative work. The only way for your scenario to be legal is for copyright law to be changed. While hacking games is not strictly legal to start with, the scene traditionally has worked hard to separate fan work from original work, and avoid any kind of money exchange. As soon as money enters the picture, reasons for suing beyond regular defending of copyright/tradmark come in to play. Basically, it ups the ante. I for one am in no way interested in some a**hole combining our work with the original copyrighted code/assets, and selling that for money, even if, or
ESPECIALLY if I got a cut of it. That would make me
fully complicit in their crime. I don't care if people make their own repros or whatever, but I'd like the ability to determine for myself if and how I break the law.
True, i was unsure if the patch material would be sueable under law as repro carts are illegal if your patch was used. SO this brings me to my other thought i mention.. there is NOTHING that can be done to stop your material being used other than short of stop doing what you love doing.. but why should you? you love releasing your patches and why stop what you love doing cos of these repro-cart idiots and the trolls on other sites? unfortunately, it seems nothing can be done about the cart problem
but seems Romhacking.net are finally screening the PM comments board.. they've removed all those NASTY comments from the comments list.