Author Topic: Cease & Desist Letter  (Read 176909 times)

tapir3147

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #135 on: May 10, 2009, 06:00:14 pm »
I think you guys should at least try to start a dialogue with them about purchasing a fan license... I'm sure a lot of people reading this thread would consider donating for such a license or even paying SE a fee to play the game... I'm a random lurker and I could easily see myself putting $xxx to the cause...

MagusRogue

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #136 on: May 10, 2009, 06:02:51 pm »
Hard does not mean impossible, Snorlax. Vivendi is pretty much Sierra, and they're as huge as Square-Enix, or used to be anyhow. If a fan group like AGDI can succeed, I'm sure you guys can. CT has just as huge a fanbase, if not more, than the old Sierra games did.

MagusRogue

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #137 on: May 10, 2009, 06:16:50 pm »
Whelp I scourged AGDI's forums and looks like the legal battle thread was one of the ancient threads they deleted (remember, this was back in like 04 or 05, so we're talking four to five years ago..... gods I'm old), but I read thru a few of the more recent ones. The reason they didn't get shut down on KGI and KGII was they had an agreement with Vivendi before they even started. However, despite this agreement, it did not extend to the Quest for Glory IP, and when they rightlfully thought it did and started on it, they got a C&D. However, they immediately mailed them back and got into bout a week-long back-n-forth negotiating, until they finally got a go ahead, with the stipulation that it was Non-Profit and that Vivendi would review the final product before it was released for any errs to their IP. It doesn't help you guys that the Kings Quest and QFG remakes were built on another gaming platform entirely, although it definately does help that they were using copywrited material (including the AGS versions of sprites from old Sierra games). Due note also that they recieved this C&D a year after Sierra was disolved, thus it wasn't the original party but the owners of the original property. It should help you guys out that if you're using the SNES chrono trigger, that game and its engine is moved into the Obsolete Technology clause of copywrite laws (in that the technology is over 10, if not 15, years old, and thus the engine itself is no longer considered copywritten but a free-to-the-public property). While Square-Enix may still have some copywrite on the Chrono Trigger property itself, the rom falls under Obsolete laws.

hope that gives some hope to you guys. I'd love to see CE or something like it come back from the dead!

MagusRogue

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #138 on: May 10, 2009, 06:37:35 pm »
oh and as for the Kings Quest 9, they didn't get shut down. Tehy just changed names and sprites around a bit so they wouldn't use IP, but anyone playing it knows its Kings Quest 9.  :D

knuck

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #139 on: May 10, 2009, 06:53:29 pm »
Ok, I just want to understand something. You people know what SE does to chrono trigger fan projects. You have known that for 5 years.
Why in god's name are you making preview videos, screenshots, release dates or even telling the world you're making a fan game? That's like telling everyone you're about to kill someone and yelling "Catch me if you can!!!". It was not smart and you brought it upon yourselves.
You all know how copyright works in your amerikkka, don't be a retard and do it right next time.
/rant

Daniel Krispin

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #140 on: May 10, 2009, 06:59:12 pm »
Ok, I just want to understand something. You people know what SE does to chrono trigger fan projects. You have known that for 5 years.
Why in god's name are you making preview videos, screenshots, release dates or even telling the world you're making a fan game? That's like telling everyone you're about to kill someone and yelling "Catch me if you can!!!". It was not smart and you brought it upon yourselves.
You all know how copyright works in your amerikkka, don't be a retard and do it right next time.
/rant

They did it to allow SE the chance to do just what they did, so that they would not release what they had done and get into manifold more trouble after the fact. What they did was the only proper course of action. They were neither retarded nor stupid in their actions, but indeed acted in the only intelligent manner. Had they left things under the radar, and nonetheless released, as is now plain (but wasn't some time ago - they did consider the ROM hack to be something that would be ignored by SE, as opposed to more colourful remakes), they would have been beset with far worse troubles. In short, they did in fact do it right.

ZeaLitY is not a worker in darkness.

knuck

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #141 on: May 10, 2009, 07:05:16 pm »
They did it to allow SE the chance to do just what they did, so that they would not release what they had done and get into manifold more trouble after the fact.
SE wouldn't have done anything worse. They'd C&D and tell them to stop distrubuting the game. How many times has youtube been sued for copyright infringement? How many times has youtube simply taken down copyright-infringing videos and things stopped at that?
It's a romhack. If they cared, they'd have C&D'd the retranslation project. If they cared they'd have C&D'd every final fantasy romhack that's been out there since the early 2000s.

KebreI

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #142 on: May 10, 2009, 07:17:45 pm »
This is a game not a video if they released the game SE could actually sue the Compendium now. SE doesn't want us using there IP with out there consent, I say: A) see if there up to giving out there consent and want not(this is more of dream) and B) negotiate with them about still hosting TF and the hacking tools, that particular claim seems a little drastic. As I stated earlier in the thread there are several valid points for keeping them on the site.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2009, 07:19:47 pm by KebreI »

bloutz

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #143 on: May 10, 2009, 07:18:27 pm »
As i've said to Chrono'99, i'm very sad by such a news... it sucks... As all of you on this forum french fans are very disappointed.

 

FaustWolf

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #144 on: May 10, 2009, 07:28:23 pm »
Krispin has a good point, and that's why what was in the demo readme was in the demo readme I imagine. On top of that, let us be clear that Prophet's Guile was really the benchmark here. There were screenshots. There were preview videos. There was viral advertising. And for over a year after that modification's release, Square Enix said absolutely nothing. The CE team might have assumed that SE had given its implicit acquiescence to this fanbase-building activity - also an SE profit maximizing opportunity - just as it has given its implicit agreement to the various SNES-era Final Fantasy modifications released and taking shape at this very moment.

I think the thing that really changed the landscape here was the advent of CT:DS. Given SE's apparent concern with copyright protection, they may have thought CE was a modification of CT:DS, which it most certainly was not. Simple misunderstandings like that can cause huge problems that couldn't be solved unless Phoenix Wright himself materialized out of thin air to defend the Compendium's position. I imagine that there will be further communication (ZeaLitY has to reply to the C&D, for example), so let's see where this goes. It looks bleak, but not all hope is lost yet.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2009, 07:36:01 pm by FaustWolf »

ZeaLitY

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FaustWolf

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #146 on: May 10, 2009, 07:34:57 pm »
Duggit.

teaflower

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #147 on: May 10, 2009, 07:38:56 pm »
Dugged and Upvoted. Now what?

kuromadoshi

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #148 on: May 10, 2009, 07:40:33 pm »
Just throwing this out there, but I am almost 99% sure that in the United States, under federal law, it is legal to distribute rom modifications in the form of IPS patches, which do not include any of the original copyrighted material.

mav

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Re: Cease & Desist Letter
« Reply #149 on: May 10, 2009, 07:55:32 pm »
Oi, I've stayed away from this topic long enough...but I guess I might as well say what's on my mind: aren't ROM hacks derivative works? I've assumed that for a while now--and I figured that the legal precedent of derivative works is the reason you guys (and many other sites) allowed patches/hacks but never offered the original ROM.
Quote from: Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101
A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”.
That information is from this page.

§ 504, the section pointed out in the C&D letter, is also available for read on that page.

I feel kinda stupid to link to Wikipedia, but you guys might also want to read upon this, assuming you're interested in the concept of derivative works. It regards Nintendo trying to sue the makers of the Game Genie, since it "modified games" and the outcome of the case.


One of the reasons I didn't want to reply to this was because I have no background in law and I didn't want to raise people's hopes just to see them crushed again. Whatever, read up, as the more knowledge you have the better chances you have of preventing this from happening again. There are a crapload of reasons that I didn't want to reply, but none of 'em were as big as that.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2009, 08:00:45 pm by mav »