Other: DMCA used to defend fan translation

 
I read that article about copyright and DMCA stuff. Not sure you can legally obtain a copyright for modfying someone's copyrighted work. Since you are talking about a product that is copyrighted, modifying that work w/o the owners permission is illegal. You are not permitted to file for w derivative work (like Nintendo USA did for Dragon Warrior) w/o the copyright owners consent.

So doing that not only violates the copyright but if it was filed under fraudulent terms it puts YOU at risk. I do NOT recommend going that route unless you have $$$ to pay an attorney and most people in the ROM hacking scene are in the same boat. What I reccomend is stopping the hack/trns from running on the real hardware (which I plan to do for future work) nothing is 100% but that is safer.

Sure you can copyright your font or code or whatever but no matter how you slice it, this is for "modified" work that is owned by someone else. Copyright means you *can't* copy it, modify it etc. no loop-holes there it's clear cut case. 

Stopping your translations and/or hacks from working on real hardware is a bad mistake... Emulators, as time goes by, get more accurate, not less. If you do that, chances are your stuff won't work on future emulators, and eventually the current ones will not longer work on future OSes...

What I am planning (for SNES) is to use the ASM Hardware check (which will display on BSNES & MESS no others will display it so will work on Wii) and when it is displayed have the user press and hold 2 buttons that would be impossible to do on a real SNES. Such as hold UP/DOWN or LEFT/RIGHT which can be done on a keyboard. I guess you could get around that by opening up the SNES controller, but the point is to stop these people from throwing it on an EPROM and selling it. I'll see about putting together an "Anti-Cart" kit for authors who want to use it. I think that would work OK? Maybe even have it set to use Controller 2 for people using GamePad.

You know, if you're going to suggest these ideas, it'd do to credit where they came from.

Oh yes it's Ryusui's ASM hack and his ideas  Wasn't trying to forget you just in the heat of the discussion