Square-Enix squashes another another fan project.

[Toastburner B]

Originally Posted by Loyal

You want to protect your properties? Fine! That's all well and noble. But when you're guarding a piece of media that is long past its relevancy period with the same jealousy that you would guard a new invention, the very idea of "copyright protection" kinda loses its meaning.

Originally Posted by Demonlink2

Disney is actively, albeit not as well as previously, using Mickey Mouse. They continue to sell the Mouse, they continue to utilize him. Square has all but abandoned Chrono Trigger, using the DS remake as a pretty shortlived attempt at making a fanbase settle down.
...
Square wants to defend something they don't really want to do anything with, sorta like when your room is cluttered a bit and you don't need most of it but you won't part with any of it because it's your clutter.

I'm going to have to dispute this.

According to this website, Chrono Trigger DS (which came out less than six months ago) has sold more than 900,000 copies worldwide. This shows that Chrono Trigger is still a financially viable property for Square-Enix, not just some IP they're lording over just for old-times sake.

[EVILNess]

Originally Posted by Toastburner B

I'm going to have to dispute this.

According to this website, Chrono Trigger DS (which came out less than six months ago) has sold more than 900,000 copies worldwide. This shows that Chrono Trigger is still a financially viable property for Square-Enix, not just some IP they're lording over just for old-times sake.

That and it is no where near the end of even the "Creator's Life" part of the copyright law.

[Fifthfiend]

Square being legally priviledged to be tools doesn't change that Square are being tools.

Maybe I'd feel differently if Square had done anything even remotely worthwhile with this intellectual property they're so concerned about in the last fourteen motherloving years.

Also Blues, you do realize there's sort of a disconnect between some of these arguments that you are making, and the fact that you are making them here on this webforum for the website of a particular webcomic which I presume that you read and enjoy?

[Marc v4.0]

The difference being that technically Brian is slightly protected by the law from a great big fat lawsuit, and he's not really doing something horribly illegal.

Where as they weren't protected by the law, and knew they were breaking it and that this could happen.

That disconnect? Or was there another?

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Marc v1.0

The difference being that technically Brian is slightly protected by the law from a great big fat lawsuit, and he's not really doing something horribly illegal.

Where as they weren't protected by the law, and knew they were breaking it and that this could happen.

And that would be a meaningful distinction if being just to this side or that of what is technically legal came anywhere close to covering the scope of this issue or the arguments that Blues is making about it.

[Meister]

You'd think a team capable of creating "~35 hours of game play, 10 multiple endings, and 23 chapters" would be relatively easily also capable of making their own completely original game.

[Marc v4.0]

Ah, I see what your saying then.

[Seil]

EDIT

Originally Posted by Fifth

Square being legally priviledged to be tools doesn't change that Square are being tools.

I completely agree.

----

So, if you want to skip my wordy, badly written, repetitive post, by all means do so and read the big text:

Square-Enix owns the Chrono Trigger property. They own the code, the music, the characters, the whatever: They own Chrono Trigger.

A ROM is bad. It's stealing because you're taking something fron the company without compensation.

Square-Enix has the legal right to say "I am not okay with what you're doing with our game/code/music/whatever. Stop it." Technically because the source for the project is a ROM, which is stealing anyhow, but Chrono Trigger does not belong to them.

It may or may not devalue the game, it may or may not hurt profits, it may or may not stop pirating or slow it down. It doesn't matter. Square-Enix owns CT and said "We're not okay with you doing this. Please stop." And the Crimson Echoes team, despite all their hard work, went "Okay. We respect your decision."

Guys, guys guys -quiet, quiet, quiet. Here's what it boils down to:

In 1995, Square made Chrono Trigger for the SNES. It was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuuji Horii and Akira Toriyama. Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game. Masato Kato wrote most of the plot, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda scored most of the game before falling ill and deferring remaining tracks to Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. In 2003, Square merged with Enix and becamse Square-Enix, but they still held the rights to their games.

So SE owns Chrono Trigger. Square thought it up, made it and released it, to wide popular acclaim. It's theirs.

Now, Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes is a project using, in the home sites own words, "...a fan project modification of the Chrono Trigger ROM..." Okay. So we've established that it's made from a ROM. Well, what's a ROM? A ROM is a pirated version of a game made for distribution without compensation to the owning company. That basically means that people are distributing stolen property. That's a crime in and of itself.

So, these people are essentially using stolen property to create something using the characters, music, basic code and whatever else that doesn't belong to them. That's stealing. Square-Enix owns Chrono Trigger, remember? All that work that went into creating the game, all the money spent on their development teams, their musicians, their artists has been put on the internet for free. And before you say that "It's common, there's ROMS of everything." or "Pirating is un-policable because of the medium used to distribute pirated materials." or "This is just an attack from a corporate monster to squash something in hopes of getting money somehow."

A ROM is a piece of stolen property. It's something you took without paying for. It's stealing, taking money away from the corporation that could be used to make more games. No matter how you want to defend it, it's stealing. This game is available in North America and is easily found - even if it's not on the original system. There are millions - look up ROMS on Google - millions of web pages that will gladly let you download Chrono Trigger for free. Because there's a lot of places where you can find the ROM, it is hard to police.

You could say that Square-Enix is making a big move to stop pirating by shutting down a big project. They could shut down individual ROM sites one-by-one, but they'd get nowhere. This could be their big attempt to try to stop pirating - by doing something people will pay attention to, something that will make people take notice. Or it could be a move by a money-grubbing power hungry company. It doesn't matter. The game itself, Chrono Trigger, belongs to them. It's theirs. They have the power to say "Don't steal our stuff," and bring legal action into it. Because it's theirs.

And Regulus?

Why should a fan community be refraining itself from paying homage to a company's work?

Because it's theirs. They don't want other people using their property.

but that it is absolutely backwards insane to actively ban fans from enjoying themselves when they lose nothing in return.

How many people would actively go out and buy something like Chrono Trigger DS if they can get the game for free? They don't have to drive to the store, they don't have to deal with annoying game store staff, they don't have to already own a DS - they can just get the game ASAP. True, Square-Enix may miss out on the $49.95, or however much it costs for CTDS, but still. It's not like they're losing anything.

In what way are these guys "stealing" Square's property? By modifying a ROM of a cartridge they've long since bought? They are not selling the hack at any cost either, so there's no potential market being sucked from Square. If anything, these guys are keeping alive a franchise Square has long since been neglecting.

The ROM they're using itself is stolen property. It's something taken from the company without compensation. It also doesn't matter that they're not selling it, whether or not anything is being done with the property:

It's not theirs. It doesn't belong to them.

The difficulty here is that, essentially, you're looking at the equivalent of fan-fiction: unauthorized derivative works that do not meaningfully compete with the original project and which are produced solely as labors of love by legitimate, income-generating fans.

Oh god, I think policing ROMS sites are hard. Could you imagine policing fan-fiction? Oh, god.

Also, you're arguing against Blues "Intellectual Property" arguments. I'm arguing that these people are taking the physical property of Square - the code, the music, everything that was put into the game, then stolen and put freely on the interweb. There's a difference atwixt taking something that you like and writing a story about Chrono's hot burning manlust for Magus, and actually taking the coding from the game itself to do what you want with.

Originally Posted by H4x

Or you know, since there not selling it, not claiming it as their own, and leaving all your rights intact, you could just accept the free publicity. I mean if its a really good game it gets people interested in the official product drums up support for your franchise and conjures up interest in your project without you spending a dime or lifting a finger. If its bad it dies, no one remembers it, anyone who ask about it gets told to buy your product because the fan-made one is crap.

Actually, their rights are not intact - Imma say it again: Square-Enix owns Chrono Trigger. It's theirs. They have the legal right to say "No, we're not okay with you doing this." And for whatever reason, they aren't.

Originally Posted by Bitvyper

Chrono Trigger's getting pretty old. The only manner in which Square is still profiting from it is through progressively crummier re-releases. A fan-made game is not going to impact the profits of something that happened well over a decade ago, nor is it going to affect the ability of Square to profit on making something new in the CT franchise. Someone taking a picture you drew, or a story you wrote thirteen years ago and making a fanfic based on it doesn't devalue your work.

It doesn't matter whether or not it affects SE's profits, their publicity, their ideals, their religion, their choice of meal at the local McDonalds, their choice of baby name: it's theirs. It belongs to them.

[ZeaLitY]

First, thanks for the timely add.

Originally Posted by Meister

You'd think a team capable of creating "~35 hours of game play, 10 multiple endings, and 23 chapters" would be relatively easily also capable of making their own completely original game.

We had Temporal Flux, which simplifies things, and we also used existing game code, several locations, and almost all the existing art assets. It was only 3 of us (although really more like one person).

As for the other stuff, yes, Square Enix has perfect legal capacity to do this. But this is still understating the positives of fan communities and ROM hacking. Anyone who says ROM hacking is a net negative and "bad" is ignorant of fan translation, which is the only way we've been able to play things like Final Fantasy V, Radical Dreamers, Mother 3, and a bevy of PSX J-RPGs. The kind of ROM hacking we were doing -- creating a new fan-game -- is also of such benignity (and is arguably free marketing) that no ROM hack for an 8-bit or 16-bit game before Crimson Echoes received a C&D letter.

These things are community builders, and the ROM hack we were making could be considered interactive fan art and fan fiction for a dated game, not something akin to Chrono Trigger: Resurrection, which posed a real threat to Square's IP. This was something that a lot of people probably might have agreed sucked since we basically reused all of Chrono Trigger's original art assets, and considering we're amateurs at game-making. But it would have drummed up a ton of support for the franchise, and the Chrono Compendium itself has been hellaciously telling people to buy Chrono Trigger DS since it was announced in 2008 and supporting a community that, apart from the Compendium, has no other active fan site.

Yes, it's still illegal, but there's a reason most companies let ROM hacks, fan fiction, fan art, and fan remixes fly: it's a net positive. It just seems like Square is unduly protective of the Chrono franchise, and a lot of people feel incredibly alienated right now because this is the third C&D of a Chrono fan project. They aren't C&Ding Final Fantasy ROM hacks, like the expansive Tactics hacks, Pandora's Box (the huge FF6 improvement hack), or all the extensive research going on at Qhimm. So why must the Chrono fan-base get raped like this?

[Krylo]

Seil:

Two things:

Firstly--ROMs are a legal gray area if you own a copy of the game itself. Video game companies will say it's illegal, lawyers will say it's a fair use gray area--much like creating mix-tapes back in the day, and ROM sites will tell you it's perfectly legal. As that these people are huge fans, I find it very hard to believe they don't own a copy of the SNES cart, PS disc, and/or DS remake. Therefore, the ROM, itself, is not theft.


Secondly--Brian is using sprites from the Squaresoft game Final Fantasy. You just defined this as theft. Care to comment?


Zeality:

I think Square actually hates Chrono fans.

As proof I present Chrono Cross, the obviously unfinished but released anyways piece of trash that so obviously could have been great had they actually given two shits about it.