Wow...A group is trying to rebuild Zelda: OoT in High Resolution

Job well done goes to those who worked on that project. Game looks crispier and makes me want to play OoT and Majoras Mask all over again.

 

I don't think GSL is defending the big guys or the elite, he is merely siding with the creators and copyright holders. Why should they not benefit from their creations, from their work? Why should they not be able to protect their property if they feel it is in danger? And while squashing fan projects may seem odd or harsh, it makes complete sense if you think about it. Firstly, they are against the law, and the thing with laws is that there is no way to only be breaking a law a little bit. Either you are breaking it or not, no grey area. Second, our judicial system is based on precedent. This means that if they do not excersise their rights and go after the "little guys", they will have a harder time if they have to go after a "big guy" that is infringing on their rights in a "larger" way.

Here are two things to take note of when you are arguing about the dissolution of copyright laws, which, whether you realize it or not, is exactly what you are doing:
First, years ago (I'm sorry, but I cannot remember exactly how many) France decided that they would get rid of all copyright laws as they thought this would make for a more free market. They thought it would make France more intellectually fertile. It did not work. A year later, copyright laws were reinstated.
Secondly, there is only, yes only one, intellectual property that has actually benifited from becoming apart of the public domain. It's a Wonderful Life was made in 1946 by Frank Capra and Republic Pictures. It was a succes when it was first released and did turn a profit. Years went by and Republic Pictures went out of business. People forgot about the film, and it slipped through the cracks and into the public domain when the copyright was failed to be renewed (as they needed to be back then). Then a tv station, in New York I believe, aired the film during Christmas as it cost them nothing. People responded well, and they played it again the next year. From there it slowly caught on. It became more popular than it had been when it was originally released. The film became a classic, and Frank Capra earned nothing from the sucess of the film that had now become his greatest work.

EDIT: Just so you know, I may be wrong with one or two small details, but the argument remains the same.

 

That was precisely my point. The 'little man vs. Evil Corporations' attitude is tiring at best, and wholly misses the intent of my original post. I'm not siding with the faceless Orwellian machine that's out there to squash all of our dreams, I'm siding with the guy who took the time and effort to create something on his own - be it a homebrew shooter created in somebody's spare time or a commercial game that came out of the labor of many people. I'm not speaking in favor of the big scary companies being able litigate into submission anything they deem to be a threat, but I am speaking in favor of the creator of a piece of work being able to dictate how their work is or is not to be used. Rockstar okays Grand Theftendo - that's their right. Square orders a cease-and-desist on Chrono Trigger Resurrection - that's their right as well. We don't own the properties in these games, no matter how many copies we've purchased in the past, and to expect to have free reign with someone else's creation and then get offended if the creator requests a project to stop is the height of arrogance.

Don't get me wrong - this is an awesome idea, and the screenshots look amazing. I'm not against this project at all; I'm merely very well aware that Nintendo has every right to axe this if they so choose.

Fabrizio, do you have any links to the Goldeneye project you mentioned? I'd like to have a look at that, as Goldeneye in higher resolution certainly has my interest piqued.

 

I guess legally they have the right to do so. I see your point and really, if the people were selling those ebay "OMG11! 9999 Nes Games on Your Computar! $29.99", I'd be all for the squashing of their projects. Stealing someone else's effort in programming and passing it as your own? Yeah, jail for those, too.
But stopping a Doujin game / tribute project... that's just going out of the way to be mean. I know they're protecting their properties Still, it's an attitude that puts profit over creativity, using the law. I'm not against the copyright laws. I don't think the guys doing resurrection were thinking "let's steal this Idea and make it pass as ours! that way we make MONEY!". If everything, I'd think the project would make people want to buy CT if they haven't. Stopping these projects just to sit on properties is quite legal, but it really makes the company look like complete assholes.
But hey, I guess that's business for you.
I can tell you something. You are NOT wrong, and neither am I. Slippery slope.

Let's go back to our regular programming

 

wow looks pretty good, to bad that I dont really like the zelda games

 

See, you're arguing legality. I'm not. I don't think that's what it's about, I don't think that's what anything should be about. I'm arguing morality and really just common sense. Law is rarely in step with common sense as shown by the argument you have to make here. Why should companies have to be bullies and go after little guys in order for them to be able to go after people who are truely doing some wrong (not just illegal, but wrong)? That doesn't make sense in anything but a legalistic way. We've become a legalistic society, so maybe it makes sense to some people, but it never will to me.

Now, you also seem to be making the point that these laws are there to ensure that the creators of the games (or movies, music, or whatever) get their just share and that without them we might not be able to enjoy the creative work of these people anymore. I think that's a specious argument; wasn't there art and entetainment and creativity before copyright law? But even if you're right, I would personally gladly trade some of the corporate creativity and capitalist exploitation that we see so regularly for greater individual freedom from corporate and market interests. You see, it all ties together and you always have to look at the big picture, not just whatever's at stake for the moment or your own short-term interests.

Maybe you disagree, though.


...word is bondage...

 

I'm with Sweater Fish Deluxe on this one. The law is one thing, but predatory behaviour can be legal. Yes, we're a trigger-happy sue-ready society that always protects the big guys' interests because, yes, it's in the law.
Ah, the things that used to be, and STILL are in the law...
but let's stop the bickering. We are all right, even if right doesn't equal fair.
That's life for you.

 

There was art and entertainment before copyright law, but all those famous painters and musicians had a wealthy family (or the Church) that employed them. Everyone from di Vinci to Michalangelo to Bach to Shakespeare. Those who did not have a patron were most likely born weathy. It was much harder to make a name and a life for yourself as an artist of any kind unless you had someone with money backing you up. Gradually, society changed and people were able to make it on their own with their ideas. Copyright laws were born out of these times.
I believe it is both right and legal for a copyright holder to go after anyone violating their copyright if they so wish it. Some people may not care or even enjoy seeing other people take their work and modify it. Some people do not like seeing their creation messed with by anyone but themselves. Both types of people have every right to feel the way they do, and niether of them are wrong, legally or morally.
Copyright laws are not just based on turning a profit, you can also break them by distributing or using the work without the creator's permission. And it is not morally wrong for the creator to stop the unauthorized distribution or use of their work if they want to do so.
A creator has every moral and legal right to defend their copyright it they choose to do so.
Getting rid of copyright laws does not mean greater personal freedom, unless you mean greater freedom to steal someone elses ideas. Without copyright laws, creators are not guaranteed they they will be able to profit from their creation if it is a success. They have no guarantee that they will be able to protect their work and stop others from stealing it.
Copyright laws are not just for corporations, they are for anyone that creates, and they protect both the little and the big equally.
The fact is, copyright laws help you so you do not need a wealthy patron to take care of you if you are a creator, you have a much better chance of making a living for yourself on your terms (if you worked for a wealthy family, most of your creative output would be made to order). Allowing creators the ability to protect and control their intellectual property directly leads to an increase in intellectual and creative freedom.
Limiting what a person or corporation is able to create and protect has never lead to freedom.
My original argument was (at least meant to be) a legal, moral, and common sense approach.

And by the way, taking another's work and changing it is not creativity, but theft. Referancing anothers work, or expanding upon their world with their permission, within you own work can be creative. Modifying someone else's work because you want to change a few things is not creative.
I have no problem with what they are doing with Zelda, but I do not hold the rights. Maybe I would feel differently if I did own the rights. It is cool to see this game in a graphically better light, but just because you or I want to see it happen, does not give anyone other than the copyright holder the right to do it. You may want an updated version of a game, but just because you want something, does not mean the copyright holder has to give you one; and because they don't, you do not have the right to make one yourself. This does not stop anyone from trying to do it, but no one who does, including these Zelda guys, should be surprised if the copyright holder comes in and exercises their right and "squashes" the project.

I don't know...it all makes sense to me...

 

I don't think CT Resurrection was really just a "modification" of the original. It was a tribute. They probably did the wrong thing not asking for permission first, I'll give you that. The intolerant way these corporations are acting is, of course, permitted and justified in the protection of profits- harsh as it may seem.
The point, however, is that the team that makes this HD Zelda, and the teams that make tributes are NOT STEALING. They are NOT trying to pass anyone's work as their own. They're simply making like Doujinshi and paying a tribute to someone's own, respectable, previous work. If that someone wants to royally snub their fans, I guess they have the legal right to do so - but that does not save them from being a royal asshole. A legal asshole, yes, but still an asshole.

And, yes, corporations are not the only ones Copyright laws work for. I should know. I'm a writer, and, therefore, a copyright holder. Probably my opinion doesn't count much - but if someone would, based upon my writing, make some sort of reference to my work on their own, I'd be proud more than mad. I'd probably violently maim anyone who took my work as their own (Stupid as that may be) - but as long as they give credit, I'd be seriously proud. We make work to improve the world we live in, and people should be able to use it how they see fit to make even more improvement. As long as everyone is given credit and no-one profits from someone else- I don't see it as wrong.
Maybe I see things differently. We all do. I have said it three times this thread. NONE OF US IS WRONG.

When you do research, like for a paper or a journal, you generally go through other people's works first. You are NOT stealing these works. You correctly cite them, give them credit, then you use them to make something new. I would have considered CT Resurrection (more than this upgrade to Zelda, which is more like a "plugin" for a comercial software, and, therefore, more far away from textual legality) more of a "citation" of the original Chrono material to build a newer work. Squaresoft was selfish, in their own right to be so, in stopping these people's tribute project to them. Who knows their motivation. It was most likely profit (they're doing business, they're not the Salvation Army).
These projects are not stealing - they are not made to make money and the creators are not passing the work as their own. There's a moral difference in this, is there not?
Sure, it's legal to stop them. But it's also close to arbitrary.
I have also said this before, but it's one end of the spectrum to make those "OMFG!!1 PLAY NES GAMES ON YOUR COMPUTOR" discs to sell on Ebay - and another very different one to base your work on someone else's previous one and give them credit. The previous ORIGINAL creation is not being in anyway sustituted, destroyed, or stolen. It's being cited in new work. It makes it even more legitimate.

The action of stealing is VERY different from the action of citing, morally. The law should not see them as the same.

 

Those people all lived within 200 years of each other and all in Europe. Humanity has been creating things for thousands of years and all across the globe. The patronage system was active at some times in some places, but not at all times. Expand your frame of reference.

You believe that. So does Xerdo as he has repeatedly said it. I disagree, however. I believe that people (I don't care if they're the work's original creator or some suit) who try to control a creative work after it has been released to the public are not only foolish (even if they have the law on their side), they're actually doing something wrong. Wrong for society and wrong for their souls.

This is exactly what I meant above when I said that the legalism has so permeated our society that some people just seem to naturally think that way. What you've said here is entirely circular, your use of the word "stealing" presupposes your own definition of copyright. "Stealing someone else's ideas" as you call it happens every day in all manner of ways and most often leads to great benefit for everyone involved, copyright law infringes that ability and therefore hinders society's benefit. It also hiners personal freedom, but that's really secondary.

This is exactly what I'm saying, too. Copyright laws limit what a person (or coropration, but who cares?) is able to create.

Again, this is circular. Where you're drawing the line between referencing/expanding and modifying is entirely determined by copyright law. If you want what you say here to be meaningful in your argument, you'll have to explain why one is creative and not the other without relying on copyright law for the distinction. I think you'll find that it's difficult to even draw the distinction clearly, let alone prove that one or the other is not creative.

Actually, I personally have no interest in this Zelda hack. As I said before, this sort of decision should have nothing to do with one's own short-term interests.

Oh, it all makes sense to me, too.


...word is bondage...

 

I guess I didn't intend for this to become such a debate on the validity of copyrights. The big point I was initially trying to make was that it is well within an intellectual property creator's rights to order cease and desists on tribute projects.

Now, I wholeheartedly agree with every one of you that these projects do not hurt the original property, and often serve to raise awareness of or attachment to the original project in the process. Yes, I think it is controlling and plain mean for companies like Squaresoft to kill off the CT:R project. However, at the start of the thread, there were several people complaining about that action in what I thought was a ridiculous manner, and THAT was what I was addressing in my original post. But yes, I do agree that corporations do have far too much influence in dictating what constitutes fair use of their properties.

Personally, I wish the American market could be more like the Japanese market in this respect. Doujin games featuring characters and scenarios from commercial properties are not only commonplace, but are sometimes even encouraged by the creators of the initial properties. Plus, many of these derivative works are sold, legally even! One of my favorite fighting games, as a single example, is a PC game called Eternal Fighter Zero. The game is of extremely professional quality, and plays very similar in mechanics to Guilty Gear, but the important thing here is that all the characters were taken from games by the visual novel developer Key. And yet this is sold commercially, and is quite popular to boot. I wish there was some way that fan-made products were as widely accepted here.

Then again, with as rampant as piracy and blatant ripoffs are here, the natural distrust the larger corporations have towards anything unlicensed is certainly understandable, to a certain extent.

 

I'm glad we have reached an agreement, GSL.
Piracy is wrong, even if there's many interesting products to get in the black market - I feel the same way about the project, and corporations - and the american or japanese markets.

We are all right!
Yay! hooray for peace. I'd make a comment about agreement, peace, and nipples, but I'll simply state I'm happy for the outcome of this thread.

 

Woah woah woah, I didn't mean to start a arguement about who is right or wrong when it comes to mods and how legal it is. As long as you are in agreement, that is fine.

 

Dammit man, there you go with the nipples again!

 

hmmmmm i have bootloads of bootleg CD´s with remixes on them and live CD´s too and no i don´t see it as piracy either since i am a bootleg remixer myself but since all this "slam you are sued motherfucker for bootleg remixing" , then i am just tired of the big companies .

and second the danish antipirate group can kiss my royal behind of all i know since they use methods that are illegal in Denmark too and almost mafia like.(no joke it has been on TV in the news )

and here is a strange tale i got from Daniel Barrassi (the webmaster on www.depechemode.com) his remixing name is Bratt and his socalled "mastermixes" was stolen from him and was released on many bootlegs.

but he is an asshole since he was mad at the person who has www.uselink.dk (he has also www.depechemode.dk now ) and he said that Jesper Lakman had stolen the pictures he was using from his site and he had not stole a single picture from the official site , and second Depeche Mode (the members) said they were not the persons who asked Bratt for this "attack" on him, so the war went on and on.

 

People have to realize that it's okay to have heated discussions and even arguments. It's not a sign that the world is about to end if people disagree, it's a sign that there's intelligence and conviction present.

The rush to cover up any argument and come to a quick pseudo-agreement over non-essential points without really talking about the root problems is extremely harmful. How will we ever get anywhere as a society if we never confront our problems and diverging goals?


...word is bondage...

 

This is one diverse topic:

Part 1: Enhancing N64 games
Part 2: Intelectual property and copyright holder, what rights do they have?
Part 3: Why arguing is a good/bad thing, and what it would mean if it wasn't present in society

 

How many people that don't own will download it just for this? Not enough for Nintendo to give a shit. I'm not saying that makes it right, but I'm saying it's beside the point. With technology where it is, the whole piracy issue resides on a personal level. The irony of the situation is, the new demograph that game companies are aiming at (dickhead white kids with chips on their shoulders) are the most likely to pirate their games.