Site: Revised RHDN Policy

[InVerse]

...I said stop flaming him.

Where exactly is he flaming me in that post?

[I.S.T.]

He's passive aggressively calling you a selfish, impulsive twat who doesn't care what anyone else thinks, and someone who just wants to hurt the "community". At least, that's how I read it. If I'm wrong, I apologize.

[Szczepaniak]

Wow, now I understand what people meant when they said fan translating is full of drama.

I've only read a few things, but my iron-fisted totalitarian view is this:

If you make a translation patch and make it available anywhere online, then it's a free target for people to archive and collect it. RHDN should make its goal to seek out every translation patch, do a write up on it, host it online, and the rest be damned. None of this "it has to be submitted by the author" or "we need their permission", or "we'll host it until someone asks us not to". The site should aim to archive information in case it's lost. Other sites host this stuff and don't give a damn (several patches that RHDN doesn't carry are carried by Zophar, or pirate communities), so I find it strange that the central hub of the translation community is short-changing itself for ridiculous reasons. Do you think the national library archives remove books if the author asks? If you've made it public (as opposed to having only given to a select few friends privately), you should no longer have any rights over its distribution - with the caveat that it isn't changed from the original work. Rather than relying on authors to submit, staff should keep abreast of releases on authors private sites/forums, grab them, and put them up. 

And hell, if people start selling the patches privately, have a few insiders, a few crazy moles who buy the patches, maybe crack em or rip the identification code out of them to make it anonymous, and then distribute those for free, in effect undermining the whole notion of selling patches.

Take a hardline, uncompromising stance: You don't want us to host your patches for free? Then don't make patches. Or at least don't let them leave the space on your harddrives. If it's out there, we'll get it, host it for everyone to enjoy, and never lose it. Simple as. If it exists, we'll have it, regardless of people's whining.


I realise this would never work because the community would rip itself to shreds, and there'd be splintering, and maybe some people in their paranoia might not make patches anymore, so really it's just a utopian vision which exists in my mind. In which case, if it's not here, I'll just take what I want from the various reservoirs of illicitly stockpiled internet guff. 

Thank God for megaupload is what I say. Or Bhudda, if you're that way inclined.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Here's a solution: require takedown notices as specified by the DMCA; those are the only variety you're legally compelled to obey under current US law.

That involves lawyers. And money. And actually owning a copyright over the patch contents.

And it's been said that none of us have any copyright over the patches themselves, so we can't use the DMCA, or at least we shouldn't be able to.

[Gohanks]

Wow, now I understand what people meant when they said fan translating is full of drama.

Really, fan-anything is full of drama.  I'm surprised at the similarity of this to the MUGEN situation way back when, which was mentioned earlier in this very thread.  Hopefully things don't turn out as idiotically as they did there, with all the creators demanding their works only appear at their own homepages, and sometimes if they found their work elsewhere they'd take it off the web entirely!  Plenty of drama in all sorts of fan-communities, especially when the questionable legality of ROM translations and so on comes into play.

[Piotyr]

Wow, now I understand what people meant when they said fan translating is full of drama.

Really, fan-anything is full of drama.  I'm surprised at the similarity of this to the MUGEN situation way back when, which was mentioned earlier in this very thread.  Hopefully things don't turn out as idiotically as they did there, with all the creators demanding their works only appear at their own homepages, and sometimes if they found their work elsewhere they'd take it off the web entirely!  Plenty of drama in all sorts of fan-communities, especially when the questionable legality of ROM translations and so on comes into play.

This will never become as bad as mugen. I swear that is the worst set up ever.
Mugen could of been a great system too even without elecbyte.

Wow, now I understand what people meant when they said fan translating is full of drama.

I've only read a few things, but my iron-fisted totalitarian view is this:

If you make a translation patch and make it available anywhere online, then it's a free target for people to archive and collect it. RHDN should make its goal to seek out every translation patch, do a write up on it, host it online, and the rest be damned. None of this "it has to be submitted by the author" or "we need their permission", or "we'll host it until someone asks us not to". The site should aim to archive information in case it's lost. Other sites host this stuff and don't give a damn (several patches that RHDN doesn't carry are carried by Zophar, or pirate communities), so I find it strange that the central hub of the translation community is short-changing itself for ridiculous reasons. Do you think the national library archives remove books if the author asks? If you've made it public (as opposed to having only given to a select few friends privately), you should no longer have any rights over its distribution - with the caveat that it isn't changed from the original work. Rather than relying on authors to submit, staff should keep abreast of releases on authors private sites/forums, grab them, and put them up. 

And hell, if people start selling the patches privately, have a few insiders, a few crazy moles who buy the patches, maybe crack em or rip the identification code out of them to make it anonymous, and then distribute those for free, in effect undermining the whole notion of selling patches.

Take a hardline, uncompromising stance: You don't want us to host your patches for free? Then don't make patches. Or at least don't let them leave the space on your harddrives. If it's out there, we'll get it, host it for everyone to enjoy, and never lose it. Simple as. If it exists, we'll have it, regardless of people's whining.


I realise this would never work because the community would rip itself to shreds, and there'd be splintering, and maybe some people in their paranoia might not make patches anymore, so really it's just a utopian vision which exists in my mind. In which case, if it's not here, I'll just take what I want from the various reservoirs of illicitly stockpiled internet guff. 

Thank God for megaupload is what I say. Or Bhudda, if you're that way inclined.

The reason why the library doesn't take books out is because they are published books. Once you sell someone something they can do just about anything they want with the product beyond making a copy(And you can even do that if its for yourself only.)

Second of all this is not just a translation warehouse this is a community. People not only come here to get patches they also come here to talk about translations, get ideas, and help.
If we alienate either side of this community be it fans who use these patches or fans who make them we are ruining this site.
Without this site we wouldn't have a lot of patches or at least a lot of the patches as soon as we do because of this set up.

This site is truly the biggest success of the romhacking community and the fact it try's to please everybody equally (As in it try's to make compromises to make sure everyone is the same level of happy, I mean ya can't please both party's 100% of the time) is what makes it so great.

I have never seen a site so well run. The staff doesn't cater to elitism or peer pressure and it try's to keep everyone happy without making everyone else pissed.
I hope you don't take this as brown nosing but it took this topic to make me really understand how great this site is. Hats off to nightcrawler and crew.

[Szczepaniak]

I agree it's a great site - I love the RHDN community. I wasn't criticising, I just think the staff who run it are too nice, and I mean that in a complimentary way.

[Kiyoshi Aman]

Here's a solution: require takedown notices as specified by the DMCA; those are the only variety you're legally compelled to obey under current US law.

That involves lawyers. And money. And actually owning a copyright over the patch contents.

It does not require a lawyer or money, and copyright is automatically conferred to anything you create. You own the changes you've made, even if the modified ROM itself is not copyrightable. (Though, in the case of extensive hacks like DXOII, the modified ROM is also copyrightable; without the original authors' consent, however, you can't pursue legal remedies against unauthorised distribution (e.g., eBay'd cartridges).)

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

And it's been said that none of us have any copyright over the patches themselves, so we can't use the DMCA, or at least we shouldn't be able to.

Yes, you have copyright over the patches themselves. IPS patches only contain the data that has been changed, and copyright is clear (with source code, at least) that changes you make to a product are copyrightable.

[tc]

Don't changes have to be made by legal means for a copyright on them to be enforceable?

[Nightcrawler]

Back on topic please... Non compromising solutions from either side will not be entertained. So, please either discuss the proposed solutions or a new compromising solution.

It seems productive discussion is dying down here, so we'll probably move this to Site Talk with a community vote on which solution is desired.