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

Difference being, you would have made the music. If this guy made NES fan games using his own code and sprites, and was selling them, nobody here would have a problem (though maybe Nintendo would). He isn't - to use your analogy, he's downloading Billy Joel's unreleased albums, burning, and selling them to people who don't have access.

There's two issues here: legality and morality. What this guy is doing is illegal, there's no doubt about that. Morally, it's up to the individual; I don't really have an issue with it, obviously some of you do.

 

I just knew someone would say that. Fact is, you can spin it however you want and call it "contributions" but at the end of the day everyone who paid their $20 was expecting to get a copy of the game in return.
Does it cost $20 to burn a CD and print covers? No, so there was profit made in it somewhere (a larger margin than with leonk's repros).

And if it was purely "contributions", then why did certain parties *cough*idrepublix*cough* kick up one almighty fuss (and threaten to publish his address on the net amongst many other things) when it looked like they weren't getting their limited-edition pirate copies?

Yes it's a legal grey-area, and I personally have nothing against either situation, but to crap on one while condoning the other is entirely ridiculous.
As far as I can tell, the only difference is that leonk actually follows through on his orders instead of vanishing with other people's "contributions".

Anyway, that's my lot for this thread.

 

I for one was not involved in the PA thing So don't judge EVERYONE on this board.

 

I'Personally the best thing I've gotten out of this is the idea of TRM04 singing Billy Joel songs and giving the cd's to people for christmas. Struck me as funny.

 

Well he definately get points for good musical taste... :smt023

I guess the PA thing was looked at it differently by different people - I know some who were perfectly happy with knowing their contribution went to the successful release of a game otherwise destined to die in obscurity. Sure, it would have been nice to have got the extras, but such is life I suppose.

However, just because the PA release occurred does NOT justify any similar actions by other parties, which is a point everyone seems to be missing. The issue came up rather quickly, and has pretty much served to draw attention away from the blatant illegality of the NES reproductions site. I could list all sorts of minor points that make the PA release different than what is going on here, but I know they would all be ignored, as the majority of people in this topic now have blinders on and are stuck with the idea that "Well, since someone else did it, there's nothing wrong with this."

Regardless, it's now a rather moot point with the redesign of the website in question (although done in a less than mature manner at some part, but whatever). The bottom line here was that the site in its previous form, was 100% illegal, from selling pirated games to faking the Nintendo Seal Of Quality, to making what looked to be a decent profit when going from Kyuusaku's parts list. And just for those of you who can't get past this, yes, the release and distribution of PA was also illegal. I'll leave it up to you, in the comfort of your own minds, to weigh whether the free release of an unreleased game with no pretentions as to authenticity or the selling of released games in a manner as to imitate a legitimate release is more illegal.