Posted by Strider on 6/5/2009, 8:56 am, in reply to "Re: Because then a C&D letter will give way to an actual lawsuit."
: Wouldn't a prepatched rom not require such
: a thing? You'd just be downloading a
: completely different game, the original
: wouldn't even be accessible. I guess Square
: didn't even consider that, though, in their
: rush to prove how badass they are and
: oppress the little man.
If you're distributing a patched ROM, a corporate lawyer sees you distributing a game including large swaths of their copyrighted graphics, music, and source code for free, which is more commonly referred to as "copyright infringement". Furthermore, it is being distributed in a form which looks like the actual Chrono Trigger, sounds like the actual Chrono Trigger, plays like the actual Chrono Trigger, in all likelyhood has Square's name plastered across the title screen, is listed next to the actal Chrono Trigger on ROM sites, and is yet not created by Square and is completely out of Square's editoral control. If the game is bad, that will reflect poorly on Square in the eyes of many gamers- I'm sure you will scoff at this concept, but it's true. Note also that the game industry as a whole is regularly held responsible for content of games which it had no part in creating- in the admittedly very unlikely case that one arose over this, Square's image would suffer.
You've claimed that only a handful of people will play this- but a huge ROM hack on a popular game is exactly the sort of story that gets mentioned on big nerd news sites, places like Slashdot and Penny Arcade that get daily hit counts in the five and six digits. Again, you will probably downplay this with some hand-waving and a sarcastic pronouncement, but it's all but certain that a fan-remade Chrono Trigger would be mentioned on at least one of them.
I look at these actions, and I simply can't see the malevolent entity behind them that many of you here seem to be attributing this letter to- I see a company which is, sadly, growing more conservative in defense of their properties and revenue streams- as all companies of a certain size do.
- HC
