2019-03-15 08:28:06

Apparently, we were having this discussion before and then the forum shat the bed in spectacular fashion, disappearing over half the discussion and killing the entire thing. 
This forum's stance when it comes to cracks and copyrighted material is all over the place, at times being overly draconian for no reason and at other times being way... way too lenient. 
I'll further unpack this statement with links to forum threads to further underline these problems:
In post 52 of this thread, mahdi-abedi makes the observation that a lot of people in Iran choose to crack jaws.  They do not provide instructions on how to crack jaws and they do not give any encouragement to others to crack jaws. Making this observation got them a warning. 
Meanwhile over here on this thread devinprater links to instructions in post 12 that will allow you to download  from ***, who voluntarily disabled public access to their roms due to fear of action from Nintendo.  DaddySpice links directly to the script in post 15... and to this day no moderator action has been taken. 
I want to be perfectly clear here, this post isn't made to start something with any of the forum users I mentioned above, I just want to get the ball rolling again on the cracks/copyrighted material issue as it does not seem to be going anywhere and now users are being punished for stuff that is a borderline caution at best. 
So what's to be done about it?
I myself would suggest a bit of an edit to forum rule 3 that allows for the limited discussion of piracy and cracking, while keeping the parts about distributing and encouraging piracy intact. 

A couple of examples of what would be good under this edit rule are below:
1.
Fellow audio engineers, I found myself in back street studio 3 the other day and couldn't help noticing the plethora of cracked software they were running. They had ProTools running on OSX also, but the hardware was clearly a hp Z840. Anyway, That got me looking more at the other places I do work in and they're all at it! Is the piracy issue as rampant where you are?
2.
Everyone in my country cracks jaws, it has got to the point where it is almost a normal part of life.  Get computer, get pen drive from friend, install cracked jaws.  I think that fs should look into some alternative pricing structure for the users here, but they don't seem to care, thank god for NVDA!

Then to balance things out, The stuff that would not be allowed:
1.
I busted the DRM on AHC wide open last night and just had to share it here. 
Download it here
Don't forget to read the readme and give a thumbs up. Yarrrrr!
2.
Yeah, that guy is an ass hole and I recommend  not paying for any of his overpriced stuff.  If you must have his games, I've made an audio guide that will get you on the right path.
Listen to the guide here and save money.

This is the best time to be discussing this type of thing, as we're still in the process of hashing out the rules. Forum rule 3 as it currently stands seems to just be punishing people for all the wrong reasons, while
links to copyrighted content
are splashed
all over the forum.

Still with me here? Thank you for reading this far. I'd love to hear all your opinions on this, let's put this issue to bed.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2019-03-15 08:47:12

hi
about my comment and carters moderation, I agree with you: this rule should be deleted

2019-03-15 11:22:25

i compleatly agree with post 1

And as anyone who's gone mountain climbing knows ,The serene snow-covered peaks that look so tranquil from a bdistance, Are the deadliest
sound is my vision
i rarely check my private messages on the forum, so if you want to contact me please use my email, or dm me  at oussama40121 on tw

2019-03-15 13:16:00

@2, no no no, it should not be deleted. It should be heavily discussed and fixed.
The level of unfair moderations is all over the place.
The ones you mentioned @1, Ironcross's caution in the sbyw is going down topic, just... ug.

----------
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“You don’t tell me how to behave; you’re not my mother!”
“Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.” – Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

2019-03-15 13:35:43

Ironcross's caution was well merited given what he was doing and linking to.

I do happen to agree that we need to form a more cohesive stance regarding piracy. Discussing it in truly abstract terms shouldn't be hugely punishable, but encouraging it should be an issue.
It needs to be said, however, that a harder stance may be needed, in the sense that if you discuss stuff like this openly (i.e., in a way which, for instance, talks about how a whole pile of people crack Jaws), you may in fact encourage people to reach out privately to also crack Jaws, or god knows what else. Obviously, thoughtcrime isn't a thing here and I absolutely don't intend it to be, and we can't punish what we can't prove. But it's perhaps not quite so simple.
That said, a more unified front is absolutely essential, so I agree with that.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-03-15 15:08:15

when I sed we are cracking jaws, people can dont do it: I'v just sed what happen's here

2019-03-15 15:13:02

I agree with this topic. Obviously we can't have people providing cracks or instructions for cracking, or anything like that.

However, another example comes to mind. A few months ago there was talk in the Developers' room about developing a DRM system which could be applied to various games. As far as I know nothing ever came of it, but in such a topic, people must be able to talk freely about how such a system might be cracked. If you're developing a DRM system and you can't discuss how someone might go about cracking it and get others' input on the subject, you're probably not going to end up with anything useful. Any discussion of security must include information about how that security might be broken. If you don't think about how someone might break your security, it's probably not going to be very secure. Anyone can write a security system he himself cannot break, etc.

2019-03-15 15:53:02

@1: Wait, where's your caution or warning for discussing cracks? Carter needs to come in here and smack you with a warning for discussing cracks! /sarcasm

The way that rule's worded, with *any* discussion, means, yeah, going by the very way this rule is written, this topic should be closed, and Exodus given a warning for discussing cracks since it's no different than Maadi saying people crack things. So, come on mods /sarcasm

Seriously. That rule needs to be reworked and reworded. Also the forum's copyright stance needs to tighten up *immensely* because you can't pick and choose what you punish.

That's like a cop pulling me over for speeding but letting me off waving  a gun at them. See where I'm going with this?

Now in the old topic I argued for a zero tolerance policy on links to *all* pirated content. I know, people would lose their precious audio described content. Well guess what? It's not yours to begin with. Unless, of course, you buy it. Even then.....you're not supposed to share it at all..and even if you buy it, you're just buying a license to it. I'm all in favor of a zero tolerance policy for all pirated content. Which includes

  • Sounds. Use a sound from a library you don't legally own? Yep, that game gets pulled down for using pirated content
    Linking to pirated content. Oh look there goes all the BMMV preservation topics
    Discussion of pirating content. Oh oops, there goes the BMMV preservation topics and links to stuff like the script in #1

Now. My argument is there is a huge difference between saying oh, X people crack Jaws, and saying X people crack jaws, go do X Y Z and go to X link and do this thi sthis and this. Fact is, People crack software. Like it or not, people do, People pirate software, sounds, files, et cetera. If you're going to warn for simply stating a fact, people crack software, that's a huge, slippery slope that starts with warning somebody for saying people in a less well off and more restrictive nation crack software, that may well be legal within those borders. So where does the slippery slope end exactly?

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-03-15 17:44:48

Post 8 makes a very good point. You can't have links to copies of audio described movies, and then say you don't tolerate piracy.

2019-03-16 19:12:54

Yeah... In no way am I advocating for the removal of the rule, I just think it needs to be put down clearly what's acceptable and what isn't.  If it's a zero tolerance rule, that's fine.
If that's going to be the case then I think a lot of links will have to be purged from the forum. 
Crazy party is loaded with copyrighted assets from other games (crock, pokemon, mario games).
The Pokemon crystal access archive contains a rom dump of Pokemon crystal.
There are hundreds of links to copyrighted described audio films and shows, these have usually been harvested from DVDs.
If all this stuff stays around, we're basically muddying the waters for any new users that sign up.  They'll sign up, read the rules, be told how uncool piracy is and then come across a plethora of links to pirated content.  It really is not a good look.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2019-03-16 20:05:07

I've endeavoured to clear up the rule's wording, and I don't think a hard zero-tolerance policy is going to work, but as I said before, it's clear this needs attention. I'm just glad Crazy Party is not trying to be a paid game, as that would not be appropriate at all.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-03-17 14:45:25

@Jade: From a pure legal standpoint though, it doesn't matter if Crazy Party is free or not. It is still breaking the law and isn't a good look. The myth that free stuff isn't infringing needs to die in a fire really.

If Nintendo found out about Pokemon Crystal Access having a full ROM dump, they'd have every right to come after the forum for hosting it or linking to it (see what happened to emulation sites that allowed free access). From a purely legal standpoint, the infringing links need to go also to keep the host in the clear though also.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-03-18 18:21:32

And yet, how many legal notices has this forum received? If we're talking about things such as crazy party, I'd say just see if anyone comes nocking with a dmca takedown request. Just because a site is hosting pirated content does not mean it's suddenly taken down. Doesn't the dmca apply here? I have no idea. Doing some searching only gave me this:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal- … wn-example
Take reddit as another example. They have an entire subreddit dedicated to piracy. They just don't allow sharing of links I beleive, but you can describe how to find the infringing material, and they're still around. I'm not saying that we should tolerate any form of piracy because we might be able to get away with it, but we can probably set our standards without worrying too much about what's legal and what isn't. This will allow us to at least let crazy party through. If it were my desision, we can tolerate pirated material  that can't be accessed legally like *some* tv shows and things like pokemon cristal access. Free games which contain sounds of questionable legality like cp could also be tolerated. It'll be hard to verify where a game's sounds came from, so I'm not sure what we can do about payed games which steal sounds. Maybe just wait and see if a dmca is received, we can't know if sound libraries are bought or pirated, we can only have our suspitions. And with tolerated I don't mean explisitly stated in the rules; more like not mensioned / acted upon. Having a 0-tolerance policy on pirated material in games will cause many new releases to happen off-forum.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-03-18 19:38:01

Hi,
Lets be honest here, nobody gives a fig about some small forum hosting or talking about piracy or some free game using copyrighted sounds.
Its nothing but fearmongering or I don't really know what to call it by a certain section of the members who already either have everything given to them or have access to things which the rest of the world does not. I am pretty sure they would be singing a different tune if their government / organizations weren't providing them with shit. $$. I realise that this may have come across as a tad bit rude, for that I apologise, but people need to understand that its these small things that you take for granted are not so easy for the rest of us. I am sure if people were capable of it they would have been buying movies, books tv shows what have you and a situation like the current one would not arise. It maybe a little difficult for some to understand things such as not having money to eat proper meals at times much less for leasure such as audiobooks audio described stuff. and for many ADV isn't a thing they even have access to even if they had the capability to purchase them.
So it is hipocritical to say that we don't allow cracks of games here but to have audio described movies or whatever takes your fansy I.E games that are not payed using sounds from other sources, even for payed games though its not likely to be a problem but obviously we wouldn't want to encourage such a thing, butt I digress, so it is hipocritical yes, but nobody specially the corporations are going to give a shit.
Since how many years has the bmmv been around? and how many cases companys corporations do you see cracking down on them? same goes for this forum. How many members were turned away by seeing people talking about audio description, having links to them, crazy party having sounds from other sources, pokeymon crystal and so on?
  in short, all I will say is, let things be as they were, don't let this turn in to a den of pirates where all you see are cracked pirated softwares games etc, however on the other hand don't be as heavy handed as to hammer down people saying that (insert software name here) is cracked all the time.
What users think and what they do as long as its off the forums shouldn't be a concern of the moderators here as long as no instructions or cracks are linked to.
  I have had my say, and the rest is up to whoever.
Cheers and thanks
Grryf

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.
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2019-03-18 19:49:46

I'm well aware of the illegality of a game like Crazy Party on technical grounds. manamon would probably result in a lawsuit if the wrong person got wind of it, owing to how heavily it borrows from the original source material. The whole movie and show-hosting bit? Same deal.
I agree in practice that the larger groups really don't care. On a moral standpoint I'm pretty gentle on this. The issue is legal, not moral, though. That's where I'm really having trouble here. And obviously I am not the sole or foremost authority on this point.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2019-03-18 21:19:18

Is it legal? no. Is the forum responsable for content people post? most likely not (dmca?) I'm not a law expert. So I'd say let things as they are and if there's ever a dmca takedown notice (which I doubt will ever happen) then we can work out what to do. No use creating hypithetical situations. And I don't think it's hypocritical to not allow software piracy, but to allow tv shows anyway *if and only if* you can not get them audio described elsewhere. Using the only pirated incase of inaccessibility criteria would disallow any software cracks, whilst allowing old game roms and audio described content, really what we've got. But making it an official rule might not be a good idea.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-03-18 23:32:02

Can we prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that other games besides Crazy Party do not use pirated sounds? No? Didn't think so. It's well-known around here that Crazy Party is my favorite game, but that's not why I'm defending it, it's because we honestly have no idea whether every single game in this database is squeaky clean. Trying to figure that out would be a hell of a thing, and would absolutely lead to false accusations and even more false positives, alienating devs and making tensions rise even more which is exactly what we don't need.

Going back to Crazy Party, how many people have streamed/played it on Youtube? I believe the answer is several, yet those videos are still happily absorbing views and likes every day. Even Manamon has had its moments in the sun on that platform. Youtube didn't take them down, even though they have a famously aggressive anti-piracy stance. One of my favorite channel hosts has a running gag about that, in fact, where he plays a few seconds of a song while demonstrating some audio tech or other he's found, then talking about whether it will generate any content matches.

So, honestly, let's calm down about this whole Game X uses stolen sounds crap, it's not going to lead to anything productive.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-03-19 00:09:31 (edited by Ethin 2019-03-19 00:21:48)

The US Copyright Office has a good analysis of the DMCA and what it means over at https://www.copyright.gov/reports/studi … utive.html. Additionally I found, of course, this article on Wikipedia. I'll edit this post if I find any more good summaries of the law (its pretty complicated...).
Edit: the link above seems like the reasoning behind the DMCA; this seems like a better resource for general information.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
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2019-03-19 01:48:59

O wait this forum is hosted on a dutch isp isn't it? US laws don't apply in that case, so no dmca.
I took a quick look at the procedure, apparently it's much more friendly to the websites hosting the alledged infringing material. Here's a link to how you would write such a request:
https://dmcahelp.wordpress.com/2017/02/ … utch-isps/
interesting point is it is customary to include proof of failed attemts trying to reach the webmasters. So by some small chanse if such a notice is ever received we can just get rid of said topic. I beleive this is also how big game companies operate, first ask for something to be taken down directly by the authors of said content, if they refuse go to court. Am too lazy to search for examples.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-03-19 01:58:55 (edited by Pineapple Pizza 2019-03-19 01:59:42)

Yes, add to that, things like crazy party aren't from the u s.

I would rather listen to someone who can actually play the harmonica than someone who somehow managed to lose seven of them. Me, 2019.

2019-03-19 08:37:28

The thing is, you can ant fuck the legality issue six ways from Sunday, but it isn't an issue until it is. If the forum gets a take down request from a company, take down the offending topic and do your best to remove all links resulting from topic and links in other topics, etc. Once done, simply just move on about your day. It's a bit absurd to say game A has these copyrighted assets in it, game B has these, etc. Also, knowing it and proving it are two different things. Also, yes, this forum isn't bound by U.S. law, it's bound by Dutch law. I really think this could be put to bed, as there's not much more to be done if the rule is clear enough now.

Facts with Tom MacDonald, Adam Calhoun, and Dax
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Become united

2019-03-19 10:12:26

@Iron: EU law. Not Dutch law. EU law trumps Dutch copyright law. however, the EU is if anything more restrictive than US law. Plus the EU is cracking down on copyright (se Article 13).

You might think it's absurd to say game A has copyrighted assets, but that's the reality of it, Iron and how things work, there's been cases in the game industry of developers being caught stealing assets from other games.

Also, you say knowing it and proving it are two different things. Not really if you know how to prove it.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2019-03-19 13:35:59

small quote from wikipedia about article 13:
Article 13's provisions target commercial web hosts which "store and give the public access to a large amount of works or other subject-matter uploaded by its users which [they] organise and promote for profit-making purposes".
Does this site make any substantial profet? most likely not. So we're fine, until told otherweise.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2019-03-25 06:15:34

Allot of good points here and some things I had not considered before.
Thanks to those like roelvdwal who actually bothered to do the deeper research, and Ethin who provided summaries.


I think a zero tolerance policy is unrealistic for many reasons, so just a better clarified rule as has apparently already been done by Jade, and the understanding that if a link gets flagged, it will be removed at least and the topic deleted at most.

2019-03-31 18:23:05

Allow discussions of the politics of cracking downloading etc imho. Philosophical sociological legal discussions.  I think links or detailed instructions should be removed as they can probably get the sight in trouble. But cracking down on discussion is basicly creating a thought crime. Moreover, I think it should not be the mods' business what is done outside the forum.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."