Pirate games and Sonic the Hedgehog 4

[C. V. Reynolds]

What is No-Intro's current policy on pirate games? I had heard before that pirate games would be included if they contained original content (and I did see some games added to the database recently that contained a "Pirate" descriptor instead of the usual "Unl"). That does not explain, however, how "Sonic the Hedgehog 4" was added and retained in the SNES database. It is a hack of Speedy Gonzales - Los Gatos Bandidos, and changes nothing but some of the graphics and sound effects, though not all of these things even. Should it really be in the database when things such as the NES Super Mario World pirate, which is more original, are not?

Second: Super Noah's Ark 3D. It's just a graphical hack of Wolfenstein 3D, isn't it? Being released by Wisdom Tree, does it have enough value to be retained in the database as well?

[hydr0x]

Super Noah's Ark 3D is not an illegal hack. Wisdom Tree purchased a license from id Software, so there's nothing illegal about it. It's not licensed by Nintendo, that's all.

Now, about Sonic 4, I agree. Either we include these kind of things or not. Imho, what we should really do is create dedicated pirate DATs. These should include all games that infringe copyrights in any way but were released as carts. The official DAT on the other hand should include all carts that do not infringe copyrights, licensed or not. The arbitrary differentiation between "Pirate Originals" and "Unlicensed" is nonsense, both are original games that do not infringe any copyrights but are not licensed by Nintendo (or Sega or whatever). I'd also still argue to allow inclusion of any betas of unreleased games, even if they were not dumped from an actual cart. Preserving them has priority in those cases imho.

[arromdee]

Putting all games in a second list because they use copyrighted content--in any amount--opens a can of worms. Consider:

Tengen Tetris. Judged to be a copyright violation in a court.
Revenge of Shinobi. Early releases had enemies resembling Spider-Man, Batman, and Godzilla. Batman and Godzilla were removed in later releases because Sega didn't have the rights... in other words the early releases were copyright violations.
Barver Battle Saga and many other Taiwanese unlicensed games copied various amounts of graphics and assets from other games. This is bad enough that it actually prevents many of them from getting American releases like Beggar Prince did.
Earthbound: One suspected reason for this game never being rereleased (such as on Virtual Console) is rights issues, which include such things as samples of Beatles songs that definitely violate copyright.

[hydr0x]

Putting all games in a second list because they use copyrighted content--in any amount--opens a can of worms. Consider:

All good examples but irrelevant. You just have to change "games that infringe copyrights" into "unlicensed games that infringe copyrights"

[arromdee]

Tengen Tetris and Barver Battle Saga are unlicensed.

[C. V. Reynolds]

My original point, however, was that Sonic the Hedgehog 4 contains nearly nothing original. It is literally just Speedy Gonzalez with a few of the graphics and sounds changed to Sonic stuff ripped from Sonic games. I really don't see the value in retaining it any more than I would any hack. For Noah's Ark, Wisdom Tree at least got permission from the Wolfenstein makers on their game, as Hydr0x pointed out.

I don't think any unlicensed game should be booted besides Sonic the Hedgehog 4. That, or other pirated games should be allowed in. Though, then I wonder where the line will be drawn...

[arromdee]

Slightly OT for this thread but not too much: I downloaded some Gameboy translation patches off of romhacking.net and one was for a pirate/unlicensed game called "The Battle of Vietnam 2001". It turned out that the game is not in the No-Intro set. Is this because it falls under the category of a hack of another game, rather than merely swiping graphics and sound from other games like Barver Battle Saga does? (Or is it just not dumped?)

[eke-eke]

Regarding Mega Drive unlicensed games that use copyrigted content (either code/data from licensed games or unauthorized license like popular movies, animes etc), the fact is that they existed as REAL cartridges in Taiwan,HK,etc... Most of them use a majority of original contents (generally, they just ripped some sprites or sound engine) and had some quantitative work putted in (I am not including all those licensed games hacks that just changed some sprites or title screen, which are for me in the same category as those Sonic hacks that pop up from time to time). That's why I think proper dump of these unlicensed games should be archived as well (and only hacks/pirates copy of existing Mega Drive games ignored).

On that matter, I can say that most unlicensed games dumped so far have been modified by the dumper so they run on emulators: they generally made use of extra hardware on the cartridge for copy-protection, which need to be emulated as well (and this is starting to be in a few emulators). Those games would need to be redumped correctly but, considering how hard it is to get them, I understand that some people could be reluctant in including them into no-intro dats

[Gary_Oak]

Taking the officially sold unlicensed games out of context. I believe it would be truly wise of an idea to create a separate DAT for pirate/unlicensed games that infringe copyrights. That way, everyone gets to be happy imho.

For example, there are dozens if not hundreds of unlicensed Famicom games that violate copyright, yet, their nature as games makes them commendable preservation material. For all intents and purposes, these are bound to not last forever like every other game in existence, and their status as obscure are rare products, licensed or not, makes them even more worthy of achieving a preservation treatment, even if on a DAT entirely dedicated to them.

Not counting Sonic 4 for at least, these games are, for the most part, original products that make illegal use of licensed proprieties. But the fact that they physically exist and are physically sold makes them no less of a game than any other that's officially for sale. And again, this is also something that justifies their preservation, and the importance of it.

If the No-Intro moderators decide not to preserve these, I'll respect that decision. The only thing I ask is for some good consideration regarding the matter before showing no care for these.

Just to make myself clear, this is no rant. Its just an opinion like any other.

[hydr0x]

I agree, pirates etc. should be preserved as well. The problem I think is that No-Intro currently lacks the manpower to do so. They need more volunteers to do thinks like that. Cah4e3 who is registered here too would be a very good candidate for doing such a DAT, see http://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/

[arromdee]

We all know that No-Intro isn't going to exclude Revenge of Shinobi just because it contains Batman and Godzilla. So instead of a database excluding original cartridges that contain a few copyrighted assets, you end up with a database that mostly excludes such things but occasionally includes one when it's famous enough. That doesn't really make a lot of sense.

It also seems to me that if No-Intro doesn't have the manpower to add such ROMs, they also don't have the manpower to sort the ROMs to see which ones really do use copyrighted assets and which ones don't. So they'll miss some completely legitimate unlicensed games.

[etabeta]

this whole discussion reminds me the reason why for MESS xml lists we have taken a simpler rule: if it was sold by a real company in a real cart, we include it.
otherwise, I think it is really hard to clearly mark the separation line for some megadrive and famicom games: you always end up with some items which only partially match your requirements, and that you don't know how to handle.

e.g. for NES/Famicom we include all Chinese real carts made by Nanjing or Waixing or Henggendianzi, because they were real, no matter if they were brand new games or translation of Japanese releases (first carts by Waixing were professional RPG translations in Chinese) or graphical hacks (e.g. the Pokemon pirate games which are Felix the Cat with changed sprites)
OTOH, we exclude the games ripped out from multicarts, because they were not on a cart in that form. A partial exception is done if the multicart dump is not available: in this case, we include the rip but we add in the description that the file has been ripped from an undumped cart.

While of course I fully respect the different approach chosen by nointro guys, let me say that if they ever change the rules for inclusions, they can take whatever info from nes.xml (and any other xml list) to fill the possible gaps in their dats
For sure, pirate carts are better documented in our xml than in the current (very outdated) GoodNES or in cah4e3's website (where a few hacked pirate dumps, containing the dumper signature, are marked as [!])

[C. V. Reynolds]

I agree with etabeta's post above. "If it was sold by a real company in a real cart" seems like a good place to draw the line. As long as some games aren't excluded for being pirates while others are included despite being pirates, then I think it'll be okay.

Somebody needs to redump that Sonic 4 cart, though.

[crocomire]

If we keep Sonic 4 in the SNES dat, we need to add the pirate Super Mario World to the Genesis/Mega Drive dat too...