That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!

[HercTNT]

When anyone resorts to the lowest of personal attacks, especially involving someones family, it speaks more to the quality of that person than the point they think they are trying to make. People who do this are used to getting their way and pushing others around. Its not "getting a little carried away", it's who they really are. Cjames bit off more than he could chew and is paying the price. Professor is a good friend and I appreciate the support you all have given on this matter. Obviously he does not need my cheerleading, but in my opinion Cjames was trying to take advantage of the tobias situation to benefit himself and was more than willing to step on another man and his family to do so. Knowing the Professor as I do I just wanted to throw in my two cents.

[PCEngineHell]

Everyone has their bad moments, I know I have, and things can get personal depending on the circumstance or how long the feud has been going on. The thing with James however, well, nothing said prior between him and I gave any justification to attack ones family status. He was a bit too quick to resort to that, especially considering there is very little of any history even involved between us.

It was, all things considered, a rather clean argument compared to some that have happened here, but James couldn't handle it I guess and wanted to make it personal. Desperate people do desperate things, and he didn't have much to work with on his side of the argument. Maybe James is just a very emotional person perhaps? Maybe its that time of the month for him? Maybe his JO crystal has burned out. Don't know, don't really care. Still waiting for the awesome cjameslv raffle 3.0 to happen though. Anyway, I gotta hit bed. Guess I will check back on this thread later, see if something new has happened. Till then...

[MotherGunner]

As a father of three and someone who calls Mike a friend, bringing his kids into it was totally unacceptable.

He is the epitome of manning up and dealing with the hand dealt.

Life is too short for this...

[ParanoiaDragon]

Personally, I feel if Tobias steals my work, I'll be mad, but I'll keep doing my music.  I've been working on a complimentary redbook soundtrack for Tom's Mega Man for a year & a half.  I enjoy doing it(for the most part, as each song has its own challenges), so, whether Tobias rips it or not, ultimately, it's what I want to do regardless.  I'm sure he'll come up with some sort of explanation for a second run of Mega Man.  "SUPER DUPER updated beta of the PC Engine Mega Man, I purchased it from a former Capcom employee!"  Then, when Fragmare finishes the gfx, he'll do a 3rd run! 

To be sure, I'm not telling Sam what to do, just giving my own perspective.  I enjoy doing this kind of stuff for the Turbob, whether my work gets ripped off or not.  I suppose, if anything, I try to keep my music limited to a few, until the entire thing is done.  I might share the soundtrack on youtube or something as well just for kicks.  However, I like the sound of the Stupid Card limiting Tobias, so maybe Tom would consider recoding it with that in mind?  The only bummer, is that those not a part of the community probably would never have access to the Stupid Card.  Like Mega Ran/Random.  I've told him about the soundtrack(as well as my contemplating doing a PCE Jackal soundtrack), & he's excited, but, I know he's an NES guy.  Don't know if he's played the Turbo much.  Still, I think I'd rather it be limited for Tobias sake.

[o.pwuaioc]

If your music is 100% your own, I will donate money to help cover lawyer fees to sue the fuck out of him. I know a bit of German, too. Not that I think that'd help, but...still...

[esteban]

If your music is 100% your own, I will donate money to help cover lawyer fees to sue the fuck out of him. I know a bit of German, too. Not that I think that'd help, but...still...

Paranoia's songs are based upon known MegaMan tunes...which is what makes them awesome

[cjameslv]

Cjames did seem to take it a bit far. My guess is that it was booze fueled or intentionally hyperbolic. To be fair, prof prof takes things pretty far, too.

In closing, my popcorn grows cold. Back to flamewars and tobias bashing, please.

Meh some dvx was involved on my last one but glad to see this thread back on track!

[o.pwuaioc]

Related FEKA: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?16539-Repro-Selling-on-Sega-16&p=723290&viewfull=1#post723290

[PCEngineHell]

I don't have any major issue with random repros being tossed around FS/FT threads as long as it is being done in a reasonable price range. Acting like you're Victor Ireland's second coming though, attempting to use the forum to prop your business up, and trying to sell the stuff off at $50-80 per game though just doesn't fly with me.

 I don't care if the game is on cart or pressed cd, paying that much for a repro is retarded, and asking that much for one is criminal unless you have some amazing package set up with tons of extras, and even then just depends. A repro should never ever exceed the price of a legit copy, no matter what is included as an extra. It's that kind of shit that has made the situation as bad as it is, people making the stuff, throwing in small extras, and asking such ridiculous prices.

[Gredler]

Guys, guys, it's fine. (Esteban, you have work to do!)

I don't have time to write up a good reply.

Illegal bootlegs are dangerous. I might like to get back into professional translation someday. The last thing I need is for potential clients to be able to draw a link between me and a counterfeiting operation.

Profiteering without compensating the original creators (I mean the Japanese devs) is morally repugnant. I think games are art, and I think it's for the greater good if I make translation patches to share that which cannot otherwise be shared. This is how I rationalize making patches even without the permission of the original devs. Dare I say, most original devs would probably not find that such a bad thing. However, I also think they that probably would abhor repro profiteering.

I'm not going to lie, seeing someone make money off of something I spent so much time making would burn a little, too. But I don't want to get involved in repro making myself for the above two reasons.

-------

It's a matter of either learning to live with those risks, getting around them with emulator-only hacks, or moving on to something like Playstation and Saturn games which don't have any of this.

Right now, I'm thinking that if the TED2 (or Stupid Card 4.0) works as a memory expansion, it should be a requirement for all future translation patches. That would at least cut the user base down.

Gotta go.

I have not read beyond this post. This has been a lot to read and I'm very busy starting a new job and having family visit, but I just wanted to bump this as I feel like it exposes the elphant in the room the best. Caught up

The original devs and publisher are not seeing a penny from these repros, which is wrong. The translations are done as  personal projects, not for commercial purposes. The fact anyone is selling these repros in this manner is repulsive, and goes against a lot that I believe in. I have worked on highly pirated projects before, and it never bothered me because I know that it means people are playing it. I don't, however, approve of someone selling those pirated copies for profit. The translators are in the same boat as the Japanese devs, profits being made both someone not involved in the project. The translators contributions to the final product were for personal reasons - not for profit. This whole subject sickens me, and I feel for devs dearly and it really surprises me that this is so highly profiled and so lightly addressed by the IP holders.


Edit: I should say, I also do not think repros are a horrible thing, especially cart based reproductions. I think that the enjoyable mechanics of playing a cartridge game warrants having hard to find or never ported games on actual cart. Aside from paying the person for their time to craft the cart and the materials necessary to make it, I agree that the cost of repros should reflect the effort and cost to make the cart not the actual game on the cart. I could see him charging a little for the materials and time to create these special editions, but their pricing obviously puts him in a position to make hand over fist profit on a product that can easily be reproduces by a laymen.

[Joe Redifer]

So far Game Sack is the only channel I've heard of which actually acknowledged Tobias' history. But that's not going to discourage the kinds of collectards who are piecing together sets of CIB repros.

Game Sack is also off the list of promo items. The last set that came out... the one with Might and Magic 3 or whatever... I know Happy Console Gamer automatically got a set and My Life in Gaming automatically got a set. We didn't get a set. I thought that was funny. He must have seen our video.

[PCEngineHell]

So far Game Sack is the only channel I've heard of which actually acknowledged Tobias' history. But that's not going to discourage the kinds of collectards who are piecing together sets of CIB repros.

Game Sack is also off the list of promo items. The last set that came out... the one with Might and Magic 3 or whatever... I know Happy Console Gamer automatically got a set and My Life in Gaming automatically got a set. We didn't get a set. I thought that was funny. He must have seen our video.

And no fucks were given by either of you @ Gamesack I'm sure, but in Tobias's mind he really punished you hardcore. Seriously though, if you do want a set, just follow my easy 7 step program for success:

1. Make fake email and new alias.
2. Contact Tobias and tell him you heard he does really awesome repros.
3. Tell Tobias about a new convention coming up and show him a link to a actual convention, and offer him a chance to promo his items at your exclusive Pc-Engine booth.
4. Tell him you will be showing Dino Force at said booth.
5. Provide an alternate mailing address so he knows it's not Game Sack.
6. ???
7. PROFIT!!!

[BigusSchmuck]

Probably doesn't help much some of the Facebook folk are bragging about buying his crap. Real cute guys.

[Tatsujin]

So far Game Sack is the only channel I've heard of which actually acknowledged Tobias' history. But that's not going to discourage the kinds of collectards who are piecing together sets of CIB repros.

Game Sack is also off the list of promo items. The last set that came out... the one with Might and Magic 3 or whatever... I know Happy Console Gamer automatically got a set and My Life in Gaming automatically got a set. We didn't get a set. I thought that was funny. He must have seen our video.

HAHAHA. that must had hurt him really hard.

[esteban]

So far Game Sack is the only channel I've heard of which actually acknowledged Tobias' history. But that's not going to discourage the kinds of collectards who are piecing together sets of CIB repros.

Game Sack is also off the list of promo items. The last set that came out... the one with Might and Magic 3 or whatever... I know Happy Console Gamer automatically got a set and My Life in Gaming automatically got a set. We didn't get a set. I thought that was funny. He must have seen our video.

HAHAHA. that must had hurt him really hard.

TATS!

[Tatsujin]

So far Game Sack is the only channel I've heard of which actually acknowledged Tobias' history. But that's not going to discourage the kinds of collectards who are piecing together sets of CIB repros.

Game Sack is also off the list of promo items. The last set that came out... the one with Might and Magic 3 or whatever... I know Happy Console Gamer automatically got a set and My Life in Gaming automatically got a set. We didn't get a set. I thought that was funny. He must have seen our video.

HAHAHA. that must had hurt him really hard.

TATS!

ESTY! where have you been?

NO!

where have I been? :p

[Opethian]

TATS! see what happens when you stray form the herd...

[NightWolve]

So a post of mine back in May just got responded to by a Tobias-defending shill today. That was the result of when this all got started and we were informing a few of the Youtube video channel guys who Tobias was.

If you couldn't persuade them on just the issue of taking the fan translation work, you at least had Tobias' past to inform them of, that is, the fact that he is a lying, criminal fraudster who started his bootleg operation with Sapphire CDs and tricked the public into believing that they were real by using a forged HudsonSoft document to bolster his claims...

So Jimmy did come here and indicate he wouldn't promote Tobias bootlegs in the future, but yeah, one of my posts to Jimmy just got responded to by this guy.

It's the usual, "STFU, or make your own repros. Don't like it, don't criticize it! I had my work repro'ed, I don't care, therefore NOBODY ELSE SHOULD CARE TOO! FEEL AS I SAY, BOY!" I believe toymachine uttered the same attitude earlier in this thread or I think it was another one, but basically it's a way to shut down criticism, much like how resellers are defended, "Don't like the price, just don't buy it, The End AKA STFU!"

Anyway, thought I'd add this clown to the thread. I'm suspicious of his claims, I almost wanna look up his name to see if he actually did mod work that was repro'd, or was he just a troll making the false claim just for the sake of argument to persuade me to "feel" the same way when it comes to hundreds or thousands of my f--king work hours...

+Kyle Pittman Here's my problem with that, and there are many.

1) I don't need reminders that I have no legal rights or on legality here and even if I had a translation license, it's not like it would be respected all that much by you and others that think like this... Nothing must stand in the way of your pretty piece of "collectible" plastic, after all! You're simply exploiting technical facts and making false equivalency comparisons (no legal ownership of the game, no licensing, pirating=fan translating, etc.) to excuse his disgusting moral behavior.

If it's the product of my work hours, if it had something to do with me, and he violated my [moral] terms-of-use (which were in the ReadMe), I CAN and WILL say something about it! The world is not gonna work according to Kyle where only positive or supportive comments are allowed because he wants his pretty piece of plastic... Sorry!

2) Just as you shared your opinion in defense of a known lying, criminal, bootlegging eBay fraudster, I too will share/advance my opinion on his actions at a moral or ethical level, most especially if it had something to do with me... I expand on the details of this in point (5).

3) Your demands for conformity are useless, unconvincing and self-serving obviously. Just because you did fan hacks that got repro'ed without your permission and YOU don't care, doesn't mean I shouldn't care also and never criticize it which is what you're demanding! How silly! In other words, just because YOU feel that way, doesn't mean I and everybody else should *feel* that way! "HEY MAN, I don't care, therefore YOU shouldn't care either!!! RAWWWRRR!!! Feel as I say!!!!" It's not your work hours, brah! You don't have a say on how I am gonna feel about it, positive or negative! And if I only had positive things to say, you'd welcome it!!

4) You say, if you don't like it, do it yourself or never release the work to the Internet. You didn't finish your sentence though, what you're really saying in the end is STFU! That's almost the same technique greedy resellers use to shut down negative comments or criticism: Don't like the price, don't buy it, otherwise STFU! Don't like your work being repro'd, don't release it, STFU, OR, make your own repro! Blah blah blah!

No, I'll choose another option which is protest: I will inform the public that he's a lying, criminal sneak cheat that snuck around, put my work hours on his pressed CD releases so he could make them more valuable, and that he contacted nobody so that he could pocket every last penny for himself 100%!!! People SHOULD know who they're doing business with despite defenders like yourself that would try to protect, defend, obfuscate, basically tell parties whose work he took to, "STFU, look the other way, too bad, it's the Internet, get over it! It's GONNA happen, so don't bother criticizing it, ever!"

5) Seriously, before you get in the tank to defend somebody, you might want to get your facts straight. Tobias/PCEWorks perpetrated fraud against the public and cost people hundreds of dollars when he started his repro/bootleg operations... He did this by 2 ways: a) He pressed CD-ROMs of a game called Sapphire designed to look as close to the original as possible and claimed they were authentic, b) He forged a document purported to be by Hudson Soft to bolster his claims they were real, the notion that they were some last official batch that was made, but wasn't released because of slight quality issues (his CD pressing company/plant screwed them up in reality).

Having created bootlegs and selling them on eBay, he evaded anti-counterfeit policies for a time and hundreds of people bought his copies under the belief that they were real! Just recently, somebody paid $600 or so for a sealed copy of Sapphire that he thought was real, only to open it and find out it was one of Tobias'/PCEWorks fakes! Both sellers and buyers were tricked and honest buyers had to sell them at a loss when realizing what had happened by choosing to tell the truth!

So, Tobias/PCEWorks made out like a bandit, hundreds of people got screwed, both sellers/stores and buyers alike, and Tobias got away with it, only to come back stronger than ever, continue bootlegging other games, minus the lying since he was eventually caught! Many people are still angry and wanna see him fall!

This man should've had a something of a class action lawsuit brought against him for fraud by all his victims: These were honest people doing business on eBay looking to a buy a real copy of Sapphire, but were defrauded by him... Now we see him promoted on Youtube channels like it was all hunky dory as if it never happened... That is a problem and to the extent I can speak and remind people of his past doings, I can and shall, so DEAL WITH IT!

6) Instead of defending him and other repro makers, gosh golly, I dunno, maybe levying criticism that sneaking around and taking other people's work and using it against their terms isn't the best way to do things, maybe telling people like Tobias that contacting the parties involved is the better route to go, instead of telling the fan groups to just shut up, let the people have their pretty plastic at his greedy premium pricing structure when he escaped licensing fees from NEC, the game publisher, as well as leaving the fan group out of any % cut he's making from his profiteering... What a novel idea, to actually criticize him, the bootlegger, instead of the fan group!

7) I hate to break it to you, but some fan translators are boycotting in protest and ceasing to release work because of bootleggers like Tobias, so the community then pays a price because of him, less free fan translations, but yeah, at least you got your pretty piece of plastic, right ?? Yaaaaay!!!!!

Now, for the record, I'm not one of those fan credo anti-profit type ideologues. Some are well meaning in that mindset, but there are the fanatical types and it is what it is. Some of it could be bluffing threats, some serious, but it is a position a % are taking!

I myself would love to do an Ys I-IV set, if I could get consent with my team, but it's a hard thing to do when you try to do it the right way, or at the very least, the better way... If everyone in your team agreed to press a CD from the very beginning, that's the best point to have talked business. Much harder later on or if you never considered the idea to being with.

Conclusion: You can get in the tank for a lying, criminal, sneak cheat fraudster like Tobias/PCEWorks, but don't expect me to respect your opinion or you... You have revealed your character as someone who supports/defends these guys sneaking around and taking other people's work without any kind of inclusion, contact, permission, etc. And that's the same thing that happened to me with my former criminal translators (Jeff Nussbaum and Thomas Lipschultz) and a company called +XSEED Games! People like that are disgusting and so are those who get in the tank for them as far as I'm concerned!

[CrackTiger]

If Kyle isn't just a troll, I'd point out that Tobias has marketed the translated games as the work of the PCEWorks "team of super fans". He isn't just profiting off of various companies' games and various translation teams' work, he's also taking credit for the translations and (surprise!), once again purposefully being very misleading with the marketing of his "products".

Isn't taking credit for the work of others at least frowned upon within the translation/hacking community?

[elmer]

If Kyle isn't just a troll, I'd point out that Tobias has marketed the translated games as the work of the PCEWorks "team of super fans". He isn't just profiting off of various companies' games and various translation teams' work, he's also taking credit for the translations and (surprise!), once again purposefully being very misleading with the marketing of his "products".

Hahaha ... if you're a fan-translator doing a translation "For The Love Of It" ... doesn't that automatically make you a part of PCEWorks "team"? 

Tobias says "For The Love Of It" right on their front page! 

------------------------

Now ... just for the sake of argument. Let's consider the possibility that I take a look at helping out on one (or maybe two) PCE fan translations that people would love to see get finished.

I don't have any desire to see Tobias just turn everyone else's hard work into pretty, but expensive, "collectors" sets.

Is there anything that can seriously be done to avoid that?

A translation could easily be made to only work with a TED2 (or CD Stupid Card) ... but would that really change anything? 

Tobias seems to have gotten smart enough to just sell the original game in his boxed-sets, and then give away a matched looking "translated" CD to go in the same case.

WTF can I do to discourage that ... except to just not help with any PCE translations in the first-place?   

[CGQuarterly]

You guys seriously need to grow some balls.  Someone needs to just go to Tobias' house and beat him with a rubber hose.  Or the old "phone book & baseball bat" routine.

[NightWolve]

Tobias seems to have gotten smart enough to just sell the original game in his boxed-sets, and then give away a matched looking "translated" CD to go in the same case.

Yeah, you noticed his altered strategy - that's the beauty of how he can get away with it now, make a beautiful boxed set like he did with Dracula X which has a "special" 2nd empty CD spot and give out the fully patched version free (keep that open to everyone), and you still get sales on the boxed set while nobody can say he's directly profiting on the patched version per sale, etc. He neutralized that aspect.

[munchiaz]

Tobias seems to have gotten smart enough to just sell the original game in his boxed-sets, and then give away a matched looking "translated" CD to go in the same case.

Yeah, you noticed his altered strategy - that's the beauty of how he can get away with it now, make a beautiful boxed set like he did with Dracula X which has a "special" 2nd empty CD spot and give out the fully patched version free (keep that open to everyone), and you still get sales on the boxed set while nobody can say he's directly profiting on the patched version per sale, etc. He neutralized that aspect.

Such a POS man. I make sure to let it be known whenever i see people post his stuff.

[esteban]

You guys seriously need to grow some balls.  Someone needs to just go to Tobias' house and beat him with a rubber hose.  Or the old "phone book & baseball bat" routine.

I will ring bell, invite myself in and help myself to...

1) his computer (Dell laptop)
2) Sailor Moon lunchbox (aluminum)
3) 3 cases of Dracula-X energy drink
4) Full House (complete series on VHS)

[ultrageranium]

Now ... just for the sake of argument. Let's consider the possibility that I take a look at helping out on one (or maybe two) PCE fan translations that people would love to see get finished.

I don't have any desire to see Tobias just turn everyone else's hard work into pretty, but expensive, "collectors" sets.

Is there anything that can seriously be done to avoid that?

Not directly related but maybe helpful to the discussion:

Within free culture, that is to say the community of people who distribute their work under a free culture license (GPL for software, CC-BY-SA for media, etc, to simplify a bit), the question of commercial exploitation is even more problematic because there is unlike with fan translations, no grey zone at all. You use a license that provide unilateral permissions to anyone to do whatever they want with your work, as long as they follow the terms of the license. It means that the question of how to avoid being ripped off comes up fairly often. For instance if I release a music under CC-BY-SA and make it a free or paying download, whoever has it can resell it and not give me anything, as long as what is being sold still under the CC-BY-SA. Shit will happen and shit happens fairly often with such licensing. Recently Flickr started to sell printed version of the photos made by the users of the service: those who had chosen for a normal copyright protection when uploading would receive a fee (traditional commercial licensing of their intellectual property) but those who had chosen a free culture license like the CC-BY-SA when they uploaded their photo would not receive anything at all. Long story short, even though Flickr did not do anything illegal, it felt like a massive abuse given the pool of free culture licensed photos they have collected for years and could use to make an extra profit, a couple of days later, they stopped doing that because they felt public pressure.

However, similar situations happen all the time with such licensing, and with little consequences as it is done in a much smaller scale. Indeed, the last thing that Yahoo wants is to be perceived as some evil corporations ripping off the work of their users, but that's not the case when the abuse is done by smaller groups or commercial entities. So generally the ethos of free culture is to accept that no matter what you do and no matter how you protect yourself, you will get ripped off by someone, at some point. It is not a question if it can happen, but more when it will happen, and the reason why free culture licensing is chosen, so that for all the others with no unethical intentions, nothing will get in the way of both accessing, using and modifying the shared work.

Of course, this does not solve the problem of tracking ethics across the pool of all the people that might do something with your work. This is why an interesting experiment was done by Nina Paley, who when she released her free culture licensed animation "Sita sings the blues", and seeing the growing success of it, knew that even though she would get a lot of screenings in indie cinemas and art houses, she would not get anything at all in return, and as everyone knows here, donations/patron systems are rarely helping unless you are already a celebrity. So she decided to develop a program in which places who would give her a bit of money for showing her work would be allowed to use some sort of certification, or sponsoring label, like gold, silver and bronze. ON her website she would list only the screening where sponsoring existed, and via her project, the audience would be able to know, in a more transparent way if the ticket they would buy or had bought were only cashed by the venue or if some bit were sent in the direction of the animator.

All that to say, even if fan translations are in a grey area of intellectual property, there is some common struggle to be found here I think. Maybe a similar experiment could be done here.

[Koop]

Tobias seems to have gotten smart enough to just sell the original game in his boxed-sets, and then give away a matched looking "translated" CD to go in the same case.

Yeah, you noticed his altered strategy - that's the beauty of how he can get away with it now, make a beautiful boxed set like he did with Dracula X which has a "special" 2nd empty CD spot and give out the fully patched version free (keep that open to everyone), and you still get sales on the boxed set while nobody can say he's directly profiting on the patched version per sale, etc. He neutralized that aspect.

I assume the price of his boxset is still way more than the game itself sells for though?

[esteban]

Now ... just for the sake of argument. Let's consider the possibility that I take a look at helping out on one (or maybe two) PCE fan translations that people would love to see get finished.

I don't have any desire to see Tobias just turn everyone else's hard work into pretty, but expensive, "collectors" sets.

Is there anything that can seriously be done to avoid that?

Not directly related but maybe helpful to the discussion:

Within free culture, that is to say the community of people who distribute their work under a free culture license (GPL for software, CC-BY-SA for media, etc, to simplify a bit), the question of commercial exploitation is even more problematic because there is unlike with fan translations, no grey zone at all. You use a license that provide unilateral permissions to anyone to do whatever they want with your work, as long as they follow the terms of the license. It means that the question of how to avoid being ripped off comes up fairly often. For instance if I release a music under CC-BY-SA and make it a free or paying download, whoever has it can resell it and not give me anything, as long as what is being sold still under the CC-BY-SA. Shit will happen and shit happens fairly often with such licensing. Recently Flickr started to sell printed version of the photos made by the users of the service: those who had chosen for a normal copyright protection when uploading would receive a fee (traditional commercial licensing of their intellectual property) but those who had chosen a free culture license like the CC-BY-SA when they uploaded their photo would not receive anything at all. Long story short, even though Flickr did not do anything illegal, it felt like a massive abuse given the pool of free culture licensed photos they have collected for years and could use to make an extra profit, a couple of days later, they stopped doing that because they felt public pressure.

However, similar situations happen all the time with such licensing, and with little consequences as it is done in a much smaller scale. Indeed, the last thing that Yahoo wants is to be perceived as some evil corporations ripping off the work of their users, but that's not the case when the abuse is done by smaller groups or commercial entities. So generally the ethos of free culture is to accept that no matter what you do and no matter how you protect yourself, you will get ripped off by someone, at some point. It is not a question if it can happen, but more when it will happen, and the reason why free culture licensing is chosen, so that for all the others with no unethical intentions, nothing will get in the way of both accessing, using and modifying the shared work.

Of course, this does not solve the problem of tracking ethics across the pool of all the people that might do something with your work. This is why an interesting experiment was done by Nina Paley, who when she released her free culture licensed animation "Sita sings the blues", and seeing the growing success of it, knew that even though she would get a lot of screenings in indie cinemas and art houses, she would not get anything at all in return, and as everyone knows here, donations/patron systems are rarely helping unless you are already a celebrity. So she decided to develop a program in which places who would give her a bit of money for showing her work would be allowed to use some sort of certification, or sponsoring label, like gold, silver and bronze. ON her website she would list only the screening where sponsoring existed, and via her project, the audience would be able to know, in a more transparent way if the ticket they would buy or had bought were only cashed by the venue or if some bit were sent in the direction of the animator.

All that to say, even if fan translations are in a grey area of intellectual property, there is some common struggle to be found here I think. Maybe a similar experiment could be done here.

Interesting! I did not know about Nona Paley.

TANGENT:
Well, it wouldn't solve our fan translation issue, but for most folks who create stuff...

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

...Allows folks to build and transform your stuff, but not for commercial profit, so, slimy websites with ads that just scrape content from others are technically/ethically wrong. 

Not that it is easy to enforce this sort of thing. My friend is a photographer and he doesn't have the manpower to enforce everyone who takes his photos—he has to go after large orgs/companies that take his work.bod course, he doesn't offer his stuff under by-nc-sa

[CGQuarterly]

3) 3 cases of Dracula-X energy drink

At this point, I am more interested in this energy drink than I am anything else.  What is it?  Where did he get it?  Was he able to somehow buy blank cans of something and have something new printed on them?  Is there some kind of custom sleeve over the original can?

[NightWolve]

3) 3 cases of Dracula-X energy drink

At this point, I am more interested in this energy drink than I am anything else.  What is it?  Where did he get it?  Was he able to somehow buy blank cans of something and have something new printed on them?  Is there some kind of custom sleeve over the original can?

Like elmer was saying, he is a smart SOB. That really was a great idea to "sweeten" the deal.

I wondered about those (if HE had them made), but Mike says they were preexisting and the guy just got a hold of some.

[esteban]

3) 3 cases of Dracula-X energy drink

At this point, I am more interested in this energy drink than I am anything else.  What is it?  Where did he get it?  Was he able to somehow buy blank cans of something and have something new printed on them?  Is there some kind of custom sleeve over the original can?

A lot of products are available as "white labels" and, yes, you slap whatever you want on them. 

I didn't think energy drinks were popular enough to warrant this, but, clearly, they must be popular enough.

[elmer]

Well, it wouldn't solve our fan translation issue, but for most folks who create stuff...

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

As I said in the Zeroigar thread ... I don't have a lot of faith in that Creative Commons license.

It looks like it was written by lawyers, for-the-benefit-of lawyers.

I've read enough contracts and licenses, and paid for enough "professsional" advice (which usually totally missed the really significant loopholes), to be very wary of a license that claims to protect the author from someone else's "intent" to make a profit.

Proving "intent" is something that would require an expensive argument in court. 


At this point I actually have a grudging respect and admiration for Tobias, he's a very, very good parasite.

He knows just how to attract his customers, and he learns from his mistakes.

I don't think that there's much that we can do to make him go away, he's found a nice warm host to feed off, and it's so docile that he's unlikely to do anything egregious enough to stir it into action.

At this point, I'm more curious if people think that making a translation dependent upon a 3rd-party card like the TED2 would actually deter his customers from buying a pretty box-set?

[Psycho Punch]

Why the fuck would anyone think that a can of energy drink with blank label straight from the movie Repo Man, with Dracula X art printed over it, would somehow justify paying hundreds for a bootleg of a 1990's video game.

Why has god abandoned us.

[esteban]

Why the fuck would anyone think that a can of energy drink with blank label straight from the movie Repo Man, with Dracula X art printed over it, would somehow justify paying hundreds for a bootleg of a 1990's video game.

Why has god abandoned us.

I like the novelty of ingesting a mysterious beverage.

Then again, I have a history of finding old stuff and eating it.

[NightWolve]

Why the fuck would anyone think that a can of energy drink with blank label straight from the movie Repo Man, with Dracula X art printed over it, would somehow justify paying hundreds for a bootleg of a 1990's video game.

Why has god abandoned us.

It's just a little extra something - he really is trying to mimic Working Designs with the stakes, crosses, keychain cards, and the drinks he found, but even without all that, you look at just the whole boxed package below, it IS attractive as all f--k!!! With or without the extra "sweeteners" to the deal, he's gonna cash in bigtime with it!

https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/belmont-survival-kit/
https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/gems_bundle/






I really don't think anyone would try to drink any of those, but whatever. ; )

[esteban]

I will absolutely drink. Dracula-X beverage. Even if it is a few years from now, when I get one from you guys, I will make a video opening,  savoring and finishing it.

[BigusSchmuck]

Why the fuck would anyone think that a can of energy drink with blank label straight from the movie Repo Man, with Dracula X art printed over it, would somehow justify paying hundreds for a bootleg of a 1990's video game.

Why has god abandoned us.

It's just a little extra something - he really is trying to mimic Working Designs with the stakes, crosses, keychain cards, and the drinks he found, but even without all that, you look at just the whole boxed package below, it IS attractive as all f--k!!! With or without the extra "sweeteners" to the deal, he's gonna cash in bigtime with it!

https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/belmont-survival-kit/
https://pceworks.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/gems_bundle/






I really don't think anyone would try to drink any of those, but whatever. ; )

It's probably pigs blood or urine or something stupid like that.

[ultrageranium]

TANGENT:
Well, it wouldn't solve our fan translation issue, but for most folks who create stuff...

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

...Allows folks to build and transform your stuff, but not for commercial profit, so, slimy websites with ads that just scrape content from others are technically/ethically wrong.

NC type licenses have a very bad reputation within free culture circles. Usually it can be summed up like:

• False sense of security, this is a license, not a contract, so it is much more difficult to track and enforce
• It is very difficult to define what is a commercial activity, there will be loopholes to be exploited for those willing to abuse it and there will be severe limitations put on the audience supposed to benefit from it when the work is used as part of an economic activity not directly related to the exploitation of the work but relying on it, making such audience avoiding using the work by precaution
• Going to court costs a lot of money and a lot of energy, it is not worth the trouble in most cases to test the license validity and its potential abuse on your own. In the rare cases where it was tested in the past against big corporations which were abusing NC licensed works from individuals, the outcome was quit disappointing, as even if successful the compensations from suing were symbolical and the process to get it long and tedious.

As I said in the Zeroigar thread ... I don't have a lot of faith in that Creative Commons license.

It looks like it was written by lawyers, for-the-benefit-of lawyers.

I've read enough contracts and licenses, and paid for enough "professsional" advice (which usually totally missed the really significant loopholes), to be very wary of a license that claims to protect the author from someone else's "intent" to make a profit.

CC has been founded by Lawrence Lessig, an open content activist, law scholar and constitutionalist. So yes, CC licenses are biased in the way that they try to respond to the problem of intellectual property in the network society from the perspective of the law. This is different from GPL or BSD licenses that, even though are also legal documents, are rooted in the practice of software development, and more particularly the idea of software freedom and so called hacker ethics to refer to collaborative practices within commercial and academic computational culture in the 60s and 70s.

But to come back to my initial comment on Nina Paley, I find it particularly inspiring because it bypasses the regular mechanism of terms-permissions-enforcement-punishment, it does not rely on intellectual property laws for that, and it does not try to implement such a disciplinary system in the medium used (like DRM or any other copy protection system). Instead it reaches out to the public and offers in a transparent way, a choice that they can make by informing on how the project has been put, that it costs time and money and that there are some ways to consume the final product in which a bit of financial compensation will flow back to the project initiator.

[escarioth]

Why the fuck would anyone think that a can of energy drink with blank label straight from the movie Repo Man, with Dracula X art printed over it, would somehow justify paying hundreds for a bootleg of a 1990's video game.

oooh i totally forgot about working designs and their nice bundles. there was a time when they were the only ones doing nice stuff like that. The design and all of Tobias is interesting.. but i'm being sour about him taking advantage of translations projects to make money even if little at all out of them. So if something ever interest me at some point ill simply donate to the right guys 

[esteban]

Ultrageranium, I am intrigued with everything you have shared. As presented, I agree with your sentiments.

My post below is in the spirit of clarifying points/understanding full implications of of IP, compensation, licensing, contracts, etc.

I realize I have to investigate these issues more fully on my own, since there probably have been many developments in last decade that I am unaware of.

• False sense of security, this is a license, not a contract, so it is much more difficult to track and enforce

I agree that an examination of license vs. contract probably reveals major shortcomings in CC. But, even more damning is how the mere   *suspicion* that CC is problematic can taint the entire endeavor (artists/creators don't want to touch it).

But, to play Devil's Advocate:

I would counter that contracts are just as ineffectual at our level (that is, the level of an average person, who has no time/resources/expertise to enforce a license, contract, or handshake).

Everything you said (which I agree with) is applicable to all licenses/contracts:
1. The selfish/powerful will exploit opportunities (in this case, IP)
2. If it comes to litigation, the IP holder can't match resources (legal or otherwise)
3. Any penalties, if there are any, are a pittance
4. The offender knows that they will most likely gain a net positive, even in a worst-case scenario.

So, what I am asking is: is the real issue "license vs contract" or "powerful vs. weak"?

Sure, I know they all interact with each other and are not mutually exclusive. What I am sincerely wondering, though, is if the barrier to entry (into the legal system) is simply too high for common folks.

Correct me if I am wrong, but no license/contract is capable of actually addressing (b) below:

A) The political/philosophical crafting of a fair IP system that can protect all entities, weak and powerful
B) Creating something that is enforceable by the "weak" / Acknowledging realities   (how power/resources win out over "justice")

But to come back to my initial comment on Nina Paley, I find it particularly inspiring because it bypasses the regular mechanism of terms-permissions-enforcement-punishment, it does not rely on intellectual property laws for that, and it does not try to implement such a disciplinary system in the medium used (like DRM or any other copy protection system). Instead it reaches out to the public and offers in a transparent way, a choice that they can make by informing on how the project has been put, that it costs time and money and that there are some ways to consume the final product in which a bit of financial compensation will flow back to the project initiator.

I am so glad it worked for her. As I said in my earlier post, her case study intrigues me.

I give her (and anyone who helped her) full credit for a creative solution..I am sure it required a lot of work, skill, negotiation, perseverance.

Some random thoughts...

NOVELTY WILL WEAR OFF?
How much of her success is due to the novelty of the situation? Will others replicate her success? I suspect that the challenge is to CONTINUALLY devise unique solutions to unique problems...which leads to...

EXISTING AUDIENCE WILLING TO PAY?
How much of her success is due to the unique nature of the medium (screening an art film) where a niche audience exists who are willing to pay (art house culture)? Do we have an equivalent in software? Video games?


I'll stop.

[NecroPhile]

At this point, I'm more curious if people think that making a translation dependent upon a 3rd-party card like the TED2 would actually deter his customers from buying a pretty box-set?

Not even a little bit.  People that're buying his stuff are more interested in pretty dust collectors, so whether or not the game works isn't much of a factor.  Besides, there's nothing stopping them from buying a TED.

[CrackTiger]

That clown who would rather pay over $100 to play a bootleg spine card than a free cdr game reminded me of one of Tobias' key offenses for which there is no excuse.

After my Saphire bootleg guide was used by eBay sellers of legit copies of the game, Tobias had another batch made, in an attempt to fix the most noticeable flaws (like her purple suit appearing blue), so that people wouldn't be able to tell from photos if they were fake.

This was after he'd given up on his previous stories of official 2nd print runs and confirmation of autheticity from current day Hudson Soft. He wasn't making a cheap functional copy for fans to play. He put extra effort to once again pass off his copies as authentic. This was after he'd already made tens of thousands of dollars from the first run.

I don't think he's stopped making or selling them either. I believe that he's returned to his original plan of low cost/time + high profit margin and is just slowly trickling them out on auction sites.

For the love of it.

[xcrement5x]

That clown who would rather pay over $100 to play a bootleg spine card than a free cdr game reminded me of one of Tobias' key offenses for which there is no excuse.

After my Saphire bootleg guide was used by eBay sellers of legit copies of the game, Tobias had another batch made, in an attempt to fix the most noticeable flaws (like her purple suit appearing blue), so that people wouldn't be able to tell from photos if they were fake.

This was after he'd given up on his previous stories of official 2nd print runs and confirmation of autheticity from current day Hudson Soft. He wasn't making a cheap functional copy for fans to play. He put extra effort to once again pass off his copies as authentic. This was after he'd already made tens of thousands of dollars from the first run.

I don't think he's stopped making or selling them either. I believe that he's returned to his original plan of low cost/time + high profit margin and is just slowly trickling them out on auction sites.

For the love of it.

At least he can't fake the inner ring part....yet.

[esteban]

Damn.

[esteban]

It's official, we need to flood the market with thousands of Sapphire, Renny Blaster, Dracula X bootlegs made of chocolate.

[esteban]

Bittersweet chocolate.

[esteban]

Bitter. Bitter.
Sweet.

[BlueBMW]

Om nom nom nom

[shonenx]

i can't imagine myself in the 90s ever thinking this hobby would become this crazy with bootlegs being remade using the very guides that were created to protect us or items like this Castlevainia box that is just a custom bootleg item sold as a Limited collectible. its nuts that Bootlegs can now be called Limited Editions. I've always loved my Famicom Bootlegs but part of that is the price tag of 1-3 bucks and its campiness. And btw I'm one of the original suckers that sadly bought the old sapphire fake years ago.

[ultrageranium]

But, to play Devil's Advocate:

I would counter that contracts are just as ineffectual at our level (that is, the level of an average person, who has no time/resources/expertise to enforce a license, contract, or handshake).

Everything you said (which I agree with) is applicable to all licenses/contracts:
1. The selfish/powerful will exploit opportunities (in this case, IP)
2. If it comes to litigation, the IP holder can't match resources (legal or otherwise)
3. Any penalties, if there are any, are a pittance
4. The offender knows that they will most likely gain a net positive, even in a worst-case scenario.

So, what I am asking is: is the real issue "license vs contract" or "powerful vs. weak"?

Sure, I know they all interact with each other and are not mutually exclusive. What I am sincerely wondering, though, is if the barrier to entry (into the legal system) is simply too high for common folks.

Of course, you are completely right. IP is something out of the reach of the people. These days these are essentially the tools of corporations, which are the only entities able to access and navigate this field at their advantage. This is also the reason why there was 10 years ago, so much hope put in the concept of free culture (or any new social movements related to cultural environmentalism) as it gave the impression of giving control back into the hand of the people. To some extent this is still perceived strongly in South America and Southern Europe where the idea of commons is still tightly linked to social empowerment.

But...

Correct me if I am wrong, but no license/contract is capable of actually addressing (b) below:

A) The political/philosophical crafting of a fair IP system that can protect all entities, weak and powerful
B) Creating something that is enforceable by the "weak" / Acknowledging realities   (how power/resources win out over "justice")

These are unsolvable issues, although there has been some attempts to make, in the case of licensing, a stronger link with some ideological intention. For instance there exists a so-called Peer Production License (PPL), which is a fork of the CC BY-NC-SA (if I remember correctly) that prevents commercial exploitation of the licensed work by corporations, unless it's a worker owned corporation or cooperative. Unfortunately these forms of IP hacks are so niche that they never take off.

As for your point B, and the notions of enforcement and access, most of the time, these institutions are only the reflection, implementations, and manifestation of a dominant ideology or a dominant set of neighbouring ideologies. So all these things only exist to reinforce whoever/whatever has access to power.

But to come back to my initial comment on Nina Paley, I find it particularly inspiring because it bypasses the regular mechanism of terms-permissions-enforcement-punishment, it does not rely on intellectual property laws for that, and it does not try to implement such a disciplinary system in the medium used (like DRM or any other copy protection system). Instead it reaches out to the public and offers in a transparent way, a choice that they can make by informing on how the project has been put, that it costs time and money and that there are some ways to consume the final product in which a bit of financial compensation will flow back to the project initiator.

I am so glad it worked for her. As I said in my earlier post, her case study intrigues me.

I give her (and anyone who helped her) full credit for a creative solution..I am sure it required a lot of work, skill, negotiation, perseverance.

Yes, and that's sadly enough the reason why she won't do it again for her next big project. The time and energy it took was way too much, and somehow demonstrating the reason why there are such things as collecting societies (the organisations which deals with artists' work exploitation, licensing and royalties). However, it showed that collecting societies do not have to be opaque and revolve around a celebrity system. Maybe something like what she did could scale up given some visible and already established artists would be up for operating differently, which might not happen given the fact that it would mean giving up on a well known scheme for easy incomes.

Some random thoughts...

NOVELTY WILL WEAR OFF?
How much of her success is due to the novelty of the situation? Will others replicate her success? I suspect that the challenge is to CONTINUALLY devise unique solutions to unique problems

I don't think it will wear off, actually it is already in place in the form of consumer capitalism and the way the market is manipulated by the use of all sorts labels and classification of goods based on morales and ethics. For instance Fair-Trade, Organic, Green, etc. In a way her approach is similar in the sense that she sorted establishments based on a moral system (they gave me some money so they're nice) and let the customers decide whether they wanted to reward the nice people or be cheap. The difference is that her system was simple, transparent and singular, so the manipulation was limited (in my opinion).

...which leads to...

EXISTING AUDIENCE WILLING TO PAY?
How much of her success is due to the unique nature of the medium (screening an art film) where a niche audience exists who are willing to pay (art house culture)? Do we have an equivalent in software? Video games?

That I don't know. I guess for the translation/repros issue, the best way to figure out if there is an audience for a more ethical approach would simply to try setting up such a list and agreement with a handful repro makers. Anyone up for it?

[esteban]

Some random thoughts...

NOVELTY WILL WEAR OFF?
How much of her success is due to the novelty of the situation? Will others replicate her success? I suspect that the challenge is to CONTINUALLY devise unique solutions to unique problems

I don't think it will wear off, actually it is already in place in the form of consumer capitalism and the way the market is manipulated by the use of all sorts labels and classification of goods based on morales and ethics. For instance Fair-Trade, Organic, Green, etc. In a way her approach is similar in the sense that she sorted establishments based on a moral system (they gave me some money so they're nice) and let the customers decide whether they wanted to reward the nice people or be cheap. The difference is that her system was simple, transparent and singular, so the manipulation was limited (in my opinion).

Yes, I think limiting manipulation...or, rather, making any attempt to manipulate plainly visible—this is the key to building trust and credibility. As you said, a simple, clear path to support.

...which leads to...

EXISTING AUDIENCE WILLING TO PAY?
How much of her success is due to the unique nature of the medium (screening an art film) where a niche audience exists who are willing to pay (art house culture)? Do we have an equivalent in software? Video games?

That I don't know. I guess for the translation/repros issue, the best way to figure out if there is an audience for a more ethical approach would simply to try setting up such a list and agreement with a handful repro makers. Anyone up for it?

This is the hard work.

Also, I simply don't trust (ha!) the existing repromakers.

Of course, I also feel that we need a multi-thronged approach:

(1) Public education/enlightenment about the issue (getting the word out there, using various tactics: PSAs, outreach to "opinion-shapers" (I hate this term, but, whatever...folks with clout on YouTube)

(2) Building relationships with repromakers (I can't help but feel that this is the weak link...how do I even trust these folks? What would it take, outside of personally befriending them on a local level and having access to financial records?)

(3) Generating our own data/projections (determining actual costs for repros—including economies of scale—versus profit margins).

(4) Some folks would not want certain projects to EVER be handled by a bootlegger/repromaker...so, we would have to help educate folks on good, old-fashioned D.I.Y. (Guides on how to easily create your own reproductions).