No, not really. Square, the ruthless mega corporation, has the support of international laws against freedom fighters like Cid Gid. Using words like "legal", "illegal" and "stealing" makes sense here. Fan translations can't be "intellectual property", since it wasn't the fan's property to begin with. Same with "copyright" - it doesn't exist. People just use these words to hide that fact, and to give the scene rules more weight. It's really two different things. People supporting the etiquette support cooperation, not legality.

Also, everybody is different. I do support giving credit & fan translations, but for the reason that information should flow free.
(Therefore I also support crappy fan translations and emulator forking (users are responsible for their choices). People who buy carts with fan translations are just pathetic; they should research a bit more. People not giving credit / claiming to have done the work of others are just annoying since they muddle information.)



Not me. My original work will still be available, and it's generally so crappy that I'm honoured somebody took some interest in it. Besides, it's not entirely my work either; I also copied some code snippets etc from somewhere else. Demanding protection for it would feel strange indeed to me.



Because others would associate the result with you, and you lose control over this perceived image?

ah a paradox. if it were not so, we would not exist in this way, very profound Nightcrawler. Yeah, I mean we can all be as technical as we want about it, but I mean if you actually go bases on what you KNOW people think, it really comes down to respect. If someone spent the time to do something, it's their work. We ignore the companies because there is absolutely no reasoning with them, but within the community there is a great amount of communication, no? in this way people can talk without fear of legal problems, and know that for the most part their offers are being considered, unlike dealing with a game company.

I don't rom-hack, per se, but I'm not far from the spectrum of the discussion (plug), and honestly, we've had a couple of people come to us asking to use our releases as a base for their "other" language version.

So far, the official group answer has been: Sure, if they've asked, and that they keep our original credits/credit us. Of course, there's not a lot we can do if they choose to ignore that simple request, since we're still in the same legal grey area. (Yes, it's illegal, but when was the last real lawsuit? Worst my side gets is a C&D letter.)

Being the one that does the grunt work, if they asked, I'd probably give them my source files, too, save them all the work I had to do to do it, which would end up saving them hours. Since they'd only have to replace text over an already redrawn and cleaned raw.

I think the main reason the community is special over the companies is this: simply, they're people. Not faceless over-arching, lawyer-happy conglomerates. It's a lot harder to screw someone over when you know that someone and have spoken to them, even as impersonally as across the Internet. It's a lot easier to just shrug off a company as just another brand, something to consume and forget about.

well put, I totally agree.

I guess I'm speaking more for myself than for many other people then.


That's been more or less my view. Personal respect or spite could be thrown in as a factor to use or not use someone's work, but making something that people will say "I'm glad someone did that" about is usually my main objective.

But I don't need to defend anything. If I thought it'd be handy to use some code Gideon made, I probably would. I'd even credit his work I used, even if he told me *not* to use it at all - because that's essentially the same thing I do when I hack Nintendo's games.
Although, I admit I don't really know Gideon. We've responded to eachother once or twice on message boards, but that's it. If I knew him better and understood why he doesn't want me to use his code, I'd be more likely not to use it out of personal respect - though I'd be annoyed at him for it.

um. This is all hypothetical of course - I haven't used anyone's work (aside from Nintendo's) without permission. And hopefully this post won't get me in trouble. <_<

I have a slightly different twist on it, but I agree with much of what has been said.

Byuu's core question boils down to this: "Why should we respect fellow hackers' requests not to tamper with the source, but yet our entire community is based on doing just that--tampering with source material without permission?"
 My answer: I paid for the original image, and, although the DMCA doesn't support me, I feel I have the right to inspect and even tweak any software that I have stored on my system. If I tweak it, that's mine to do with as I please. I can't legally charge for it, since it is a derivative work, but what I can do is share it freely, with my friends, the "community". If anyone else wants to use it in their personal project, I do not mind explaining what I did or helping someone to integrate it into their existing code to have the same feature. Likewise, if someone else has a feature that I find interesting, I would ask their permission before using it in my own work (unless it was outright stated that they did not mind), or for help understanding it if I couldn't figure it out. The problem arises when something freely given is defaced, used without permission, or used without credit. It's not just that something was defaced, used without permission, or used without credit--it's the fact that it was free, (and most likely intended as an enhancement, bug fix, or other improvement on the original), and that the free gift was basically "stolen". That is, we don't get money for our work, but we do get credit, and to have *that* stolen is a low blow.

And as it has been said, even if someone had some special feature that they created and released, and did not give permission to use it when asked, I may still use it if I felt it was essential, but I would credit the creator, just as you credit the game company who made the original work.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. If I'm not around to ask about using my work anymore, my only wish would be that I was credited for using my work. If somebody puts out some crap using my work as a result, so be it. I'm not around/available anymore to care about, ask or protect my work anymore for whatever reason/s.

If someone used my work and passed it off as their own without credit, I'd ALWAYS have a problem with that regardless of circumstances. We don't even do that to the game companies.