"grey area piracy" and the hypocrisy (was report t

"This guy even puts the Nintendo seal of quality on the labels!"

Actually that would be me. I make the labels for fun, and put them out for free use. Not making any money off of anyone, and have turned down offers of cash payment from those making and selling reproductions using my labels. Basically I just make labels for games that never got released, and try to make them look as if they were made by the right company at the right period of time. Yes, I get bored a lot, and photoshop is my friend. :-D

 

I do belive thats why they state that "newer code" and "reproductions" because the only people who would purchase these know where they are from and know how they are made. They are not stupid. The site clearly states that these are not legit prototypes/real carts.

 

I own several unreleased prototypes. I had a hard time selling one of them for $400, and this was a game where there was no roms released.

As for the question at hand in regards to the reproductions. First off, I consider $35 or $40 to be a fair price. I know many people which you could not pay even $200 to make one of these cartridges. Let's face it, the parts are expensive, and the labor is boring and tedius.

 

Hmm, you've got a point there and I was the one who made the covers. no money was made from it though or at least not on my part. ASSEMber wasn't the main site however we were one of three sites.

Yakumo

 

Well then you guys are just as guilty. Someone report these people to sega! =P

 

Not really since we didn't sell any for $$$ on ebay or offered them on any websites we are not just as guilty, were guilty yes but not as guilty as someone selling of illigal stuff for a profit.

 

Ah right, so there's degrees of guilt now is there? And of course, you're all on the right side of this non-existent line? :roll:
Given that this forum is largely dedicated to unreleased and prototype hardware/software, none of which should strictly speaking be in collector's hands, the stench of hipocrasy in this thread is overpowering.

FYI, leonk doesn't sell these on eBay, he provides a low-key service for people who want to play unreleased games on actual hardware. Is that so much of a crime?
Yes, it's equally possible to d/l them and play via an emulator, but for a variety of reasons some people prefer not to.
They are clearly sold as reproductions, and IIRC, the circuit board is sprayed green so that there's no chance of them being re-sold as ultra-rare protos or similar.

At the price he's selling them at, the profit margins involved are barely existent since it's a hobby and a service to fellow gamers rather than a money-spinning business.
How come there wasn't a similar outcry in the recent thread about a German seller offering SNES repros on eBay? That's surely much worse since he was selling them on eBay, neglecting to mention that they were repros and also included released games like Chrono Trigger & FFIII.

Can I assume that one of you lot was responsible for the barely-literate complaint that was sent to his ISP? (re: the thread at DP).
If so, I'd suggest at least using a spell checker and utilising basic grammar rules the next time you pose as NoA representatives while trying to police the internet. :smt042

And before anyone claims it, no I'm not related to leonk in any way, other than being a member of a forum where he also posts. I just couldn't pass over this gross display of petty hipocrasy without commenting. Feel free to flame away...

 

I have stayed out of this, but I have to agree with a few of anagrama's points. Especially as kyuusaku has done exactly the same thing he is condemning this guy for.

 

How can you insist he made a profit? Have you asked him?
And why is something MORE illegal if you profit from it?

 

Tachikoma is right. We've all done something that's not legal in our time. If it be making copies to drink driving. We've all done something. I think that this guy is providing a good service as long as he's not raking in the cash from it. He's making it possible for gamers to play games they way they should have been played. I did the same with PA. Made copies with covers for those who wanted them all for the cost of the CD, printing (on photo quality paper by the way) and postage. Didn't make any money from it and I knew it wasn't legal but I was providing others with the chance to play something that they would otherwise have never had the chance to. So either they bought a great looking replica by someone who made nothing from it or they bought a cheap looking CDR from some wanker on EBay who's trying to make a fast buck on someone else's work.

I say leave the guy in peace and let that be the end of it. All he's doing is helping out gamers and isn't that what we all want? I'm sure the day will come when something you want so badly was never available then along comes the chance to have that thing. I'm sure you'll take that chance to have it, legal or not. I'm sure I would.

Yakumo

PS: When I say Not Legal, by no means I I suggesting robbing someone's house to get what you want or anything drastic like that.

 

Kyuusaku = owned :smt043

 

This isn't GameFaqs, no more of that.

I think it's really funny that we have all these obvious warez kiddies coming out of the woodwork with one, two posts just to protest the stance of some of us against software piracy. :smt043

Pull your head out of your ass. Do you really think someone is going to do something like this just to break even, or even at a loss? To think that a process that time consuming would be done without any return for the effort is just silly and naieve. And in case you're not up on things, profiting from someone else's intellectual property is obviously "more illegal" than merely owning a copy of said property. Either one deprives the intellectual property owner of a profit (in theory, anyways, we won't get started on the whole RIAA/MP3 thing) but one of them involves you illicitly taking a profit from their work as well.

Not to start a mod war or anything Yakumo, but you say we let this fellow be - does that mean you want us to ignore all the gits on eBay selling copies of Half-Life or PA as well? It's the same thing, and you can't attempt to hold on to any sort of integrity when you condemn one and turn a blind eye to the other.

Bottom line is the sale of pirated software is wrong, no matter what purpose it's serving. It's wrong on a legal level, and it's also wrong on an ethical level for those of you who choose to subscribe to that - it's the making money off of something you did fuck all to create.

By the way, for all you people that are screaming foul over the alleged Propeller Arena thing, here's how it worked. The unreleased beta was a multiple-board purchase headed up by one member, and people would contribute money to help him offset the cost of the purchase, TECHNICALLY meaning that the contributors all have a small joint ownership in the unreleased disc. The money helped to produce professional quality printed material and cover shipping costs as a way of saying thank you to the people that helped make the purchase possible. The fact that we all got screwed on it is a moot point. The point is that rather than the game being sold, it was a joint purchase by a group of people that decided to celebrate by having manuals, etc. printed up for themselves. While it is indeed illegal to have distributed the game period, the ethical side of that is up for debate. For those involved in the project, it was not a moneymaking venture, and there was never any attempt made to profit or even make small amounts of money from it - far different from the $20 eBay auctions using Yakumo's cover art that have since cropped up. Learn the facts so you know what you're talking about before you go pointing your finger at people and looking like an arse.

 

Well, that all depends upon him making money out of this operation or not. If he just breakes even then let him be. On the other hand if he's raking in loads of cash like the arses on Ebay then that's a different matter because he's not doing it for the fans at all but for the money.

Yakumo

 

FIRST THERE WAS ASSEMBLER VS. NEO GEO.com (started by Kyuusaku)
NOW THERE IS ASSEMBLER VS. DIGITAL PRESS! (guess who started this one, too?) :-D

Also LEONK edited his site.
it now reads
"And i raise my middle finger to the folks at assembler. better safe than sorry"

 

*locks and loads M14*

Lets git 'em damn commie scum! :smt067

 

THen its official. Momos is LEONK :smt043 :smt043 :smt043

 

..wait, whats this about now?

Everything always happens when I'm gone :\

Also, who renamed my thread? This is the second time!

 

Actually, I talk to ServiceGames on AIM and he just didnt have it work out the way he wanted so he had to cancel the send outs. He would do the same type of contribution thingy for something like Take the Bullet but would make sure no one leacked it early.

 

Yes. Some people are willing to do this sort of thing, not for profit but for the love of whatever they are doing (in this case it would be videogames and tech projects). If I play Billy Joel songs on my keyboard, sing, record cds, and then give them to people for the cost of the CD-ROM and case, would I be making a killing (money wise) off of such efforts? No. Sure, I do not have the rights to be recording those songs, making it illegal to sell. However, I would not be selling the music, just charging for the cd-rom and case, which would be perfectly legal. Same thing with Leonk. He is charging for parts, nothing else.

 

that was me. Sorry Kyuusaku. I thought this would be a much better title since the topic has moved on from that Nintendo guy to the hypocrisy of pirating software.

Yakumo