Retron 5 Woes?

Myrddin

Plagiarism ahoy Hyperkin

BGOllie

hu ho...

o1s1n

It's obviously wrong what they did. But then, it's kind of impossible to have such a device if you don't steal emulation code. They could hardly make all the emulators themselves.

Probably wouldn't have been able to release it either if they were bogged down by royalties for every emulator and every person who contributed to the emulator.

So legally, can a device like this really exist? Probably not.

the groutch

You know you really done ****ed it up when Alphaomegasin posts a video about you.

Tomo.Murphy

I had a feeling something like this would happen. I knew they weren't gonna take the time to write 4/5 emulators and a front end. Seems like they're playing stupid and hoping none of the original creators will go further. Bit silly really when all they had to do was ask permission. Then again, how many of the original creators would have agreed to have their emulators used in it?

The Last Bandit

Its easier to ask forgiveness then to get permission..

Retr0gamer

Wow what absolute scumbags for doing that. I wouldn't be surprised if this sinks the whole company because what they have done is totally illegal. This could have been easily avoided with a few phone calls and a few cheques for pittance.

richymcdermott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKfceBq-j9Y

Atavan-Halen

Yeah it'd be interesting to see if the emulator creators take legal action as some of the stuff they do can be a grey area legally and I'd imagine they wouldn't want to draw attention to that.

eddhorse

Apart from the legality of emulators, the fact you can only have one cartridge in at one time is meh !

Retr0gamer

Atavan-Halen wrote: »

Yeah it'd be interesting to see if the emulator creators take legal action as some of the stuff they do can be a grey area legally and I'd imagine they wouldn't want to draw attention to that.

Emulators are totally legal though. All the code is their own and it's not using any code from the console creators. They don't offer any roms meaning they are totally within the letter of the law. No copyright is broken. They have a very strong legal position, I'd go so far to say rock solid.

What the Retron 5 people did however was use open source code with a copyright that meant it is only open source if freely distributed meaning they blatantly broke copyright. It's as bad as any company stealing another companies code. It's pretty much on the same level as what Silicon Knights did with the Unreal code for Too Human and they got sued so badly they are only barely hanging on.

Atavan-Halen

In that case I'd say there'll definitely be some upcoming legal action so. I know there were some of ye wanting to get a retron 5, but just curious, has this put you off?

Retr0gamer

It would have put me off if I had any interest in it. These people that wrote those emulators wrote them in their free time and not only provided them for free but also all the source code and documentation for free so people could learn from them, improve them and port them to other devices for free. I'd say a few authors would have let them use their code for free, all they had to do was ask. They'd probably only look for a credit tucked away in the UI to say their code was used since it would look good in a portfolio or CV. Even then I'd say the authors would be looking for a very low fee or royalty. It's really low what they did and they were just hoping nobody would look too closely at their code and they would get away with it.

The Last Bandit

Totally wrong of Hyperkin alright for what they tried to pull, won't end well for them.

It's a bit ironic though that this was all uncovered as the device was being hacked so that roms could be loaded from SD cards.

o1s1n

To play devil's advocate a bit, isn't the games industry built on blatant plagiarism? Hundreds of games have lifted IP (non credited) from other industries, sure just look at the plagiarism in Snatcher and Halo for example.

Sure it goes all the way back to the start, Magnavox sued Atari saying Pong was a copy of one of their Odyssey's games.

Didn't Bubble Bobble (or was it Puzzle Bobble?) have MAME code lifted for the Saturn release?

Then we could move on to musical plagiarism which again, is so rampant you could probably write a thesis on it.

He who is without sin and all that.

Retr0gamer

I picked up on that Saturn version of bubble bobble rumour and spread it but that port came out before the first commercial release of MAME so my fault there. It had a few of the same emulation issues of the original MAME though.

It's harder to argue if something like Contra, Halo or Snatcher are homage or copyright theft but if you steal someone's source code it's pretty easy to prove. It's pretty much like having a book where a huge amount of the book is written identically to another. There's no real way of arguing it.

What these guys did is pretty much the same thing as if you released a game using the Unreal engine (which is freely available) and never paid Epic the copyright fee.

o1s1n

Oh legally you're spot on, I'm just addressing the apparent 'moral outrage' coming out of this.

If they'd thrown all of the emulators on a disc and sold it on then clearly they added nothing - but they made a whole console. So there's a decent, usable product for the gaming community which wouldn't exist without their plagiarism.

If they were to go about it the correct way (IE, make their own emulators from scratch or try to contact all the necessary people to get the current ones licensed) then I don't reckon it would have been possible to make this device.

On the subject of provable plagiarism in games, how many revisions are there of The Revenge of Shinobi? :pac:

Retr0gamer

Well I'd say they are more along the lines of homage than copyright theft but stuff like Batman and Spiderman, as innocent as they were, were enough to get Sega in trouble. This on the other hand is like releasing a film where about 90%+ of the film is the same footage from a different movie. It's not like they used the available source code help in coding their own emulator they just outright used it. If you have done coding yourself you'd know how wrong this is and also how insulting to the people that wrote it in the first place and were good enough to offer the source code for non commercial use.

o1s1n

'Homage' can just be a nice, roundabout way of saying 'plagiarized' though - they both boil down to the same thing, using IP which belongs to someone else. The main big difference between the words is legal, that's it really.

Snatcher is an amazing example of it. It has multiple 'homages', down to the point where almost everything from the premise to the artwork could be contributed to another person's IP. Bladerunner, The Terminator, Akira, it's all there plain to see.

Perhaps this console is just a 'homage' to the coding in those emulators? Maybe they're such big fans of the emulators that they decided to make a dedicated piece of hardware which plays them all?

I know what you're saying about code and I'm sure it took many many hours to create that (and ripping it off is really a ****e thing to do) but maybe people who created all those IPs which have been 'homaged' (and money made from these 'homages') should feel slighted too? (I'm sure some do)

I dunno, I just find it somewhat odd when people who enjoy media which lets face it, contains numerous examples of people using other people's ideas without credit, suddenly gets on a moral high horse about this.

Retr0gamer

If they used the source code as a basis to code their own emulator then it would be more like a homage and something the creators would be fine with sine that's why they put the source code out there, so people can learn from it.

However they used the source code which means it's basically the exact same code used. It would be like if Snatcher was literally just Blade Runner the film but played on the Mega CD under a different name.

This isn't reuse of ideas or concepts it's flat out theft. They aren't in trouble because they are selling the concept of a SNES emulator, they are in trouble because they are selling SNES9x, pretty much in the same league as a dodgy market stall seller selling dodgy DVDs but on a massive scale.

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

they are in trouble because they are selling SNES9x, pretty much in the same league as a dodgy market stall seller selling dodgy DVDs but on a massive scale.

The Retron 5 product isn't just code though, it's also a piece of hardware.

They're not selling SNES9X (or a dodgy market stall DVD), they're selling the source code, the console PCB hardware designs, the console's aesthetic designs, the consoles material designs, etc. The source code is but one component of the product.

I don't see how that's any different than large components of Snatcher being made up of lifted parts from other people's IPs.

Without the lifted parts, the Retron 5 wouldn't exist.
Without the lifted parts, Snatcher wouldn't exist.

Both 'stolen ideas' are key components to the operation of the product.

In this case, I believe both are wrong. (I'm not trying to argue the Retron 5 hasn't done anything wrong, far from it) - but many of the 'homages' I've seen in Snatcher and other games are far beyond the line and I reckon the IP holders could probably have a good case if they wanted to push it.

In summary kids, plagiarism is wrong. Don't be stealing people's ideas. :pac:

Retr0gamer

But you aren't getting it. They aren't stealing the ideas behind SNES9x or other emulators on the machine. They are stealing it outright. The source code is the program and not even a copy of the program, the program. If you are to think of it in terms of film or literature they are basically stealing the entire work wholesale and selling it under a different name at a profit. Even that analogy isn't perfect, it's more like stealing and selling the original 40mm print of a film or ink prints of a book so you can manufacture more.

As for the product they are selling not being just the source code that's kind of like saying it's not illegal that I'm selling copied games because I'm actually selling a R4 with 25 games loaded on it, or I'm selling a DVD with a bunch of copied films.

This analogy is wrong:

Without the lifted parts, the Retron 5 wouldn't exist.
Without the lifted parts, Snatcher wouldn't exist.

Both 'stolen ideas' are key components to the operation of the product.

Snatcher lifts a few ideas from other sources sure but it doesn't actual lift the entire source.

BGOllie

yes. it's not just lifted parts. It's a theft of the entire core.
Inspiration and plagiarism are just different degrees of the same thing, but both involve a rework and there are strict consideration as to how much needs to be re-worked along with, sometimes, licensing fees to incur.

but there, it seems they've just taken the source code and pasted in inside a shiny box .
Imagine a thief saying "Well without the cars I stole I wouldn't have been able to open my racing car shop"

Myrddin

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Snatcher lifts a few ideas from other sources sure but it doesn't actual lift the entire source.

Agreed. While Snatcher for example might take heavy inspiration from similar sources, it has a different story, a different name, & nothing is an exact match. What Hyperkin have done, is covertly use someone elses exact work, down to the code, & profited off of it. It'd be like Kojima instead of making Snatcher, making a game called Bladerunner, use the exact same story as Bladerunner, the music, the characters, the art etc all the same...& call it his own.

o1s1n

You make good points lads, consider me educated :pac:

I still find some of the rip offs in games hard to stomach though, especially Snatcher. (not that it isn't an amazing game mind you)

I steal your code, and use it in a piece of hardware (a la the Retron 5), you'll be mighty pissed off.
You steal my art and designs and use them in a game without my permission, I'd be equally as pissed off.

Snatcher hasn't just lifted 'ideas', it's straight lifted artwork and designs. Which, if I were the creator of the original artwork and designs, I'd be extremely annoyed and possibly seek legal action.

Retr0gamer

Well both are wrong. Talking about videogame plagiarism have you seen this:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

Videogames were largely ignored in the early days which is why you see such plagiarism in early games you would never get away with today.

Source code and it's protection is very important. Most companies will keep it under lock and key and backed up like crazy and when I was making that iOS game the company I made it for were making damn sure I handed them over the source code.

Unfortunately a lot of games companies early on didn't look after their source code so a lot of it is largely gone and why Panzer Dragoon Saga having it's source code destroyed is such a big blow to that game.

Andrew76

o1s1n wrote: »

Snatcher hasn't just lifted 'ideas', it's straight lifted artwork and designs. Which, if I were the creator of the original artwork and designs, I'd be extremely annoyed and possibly seek legal action.

I've never played Snatcher (only seen a few screenshots), but it's used the exact same images/sprites as some other game? If not then it's apples and oranges compared to the RetroN5 issue.

And to be honest, it would be no big loss if Hyperkin stopped producing the thing. :pac:

Retr0gamer

Andrew76 wrote: »

I've never played Snatcher (only seen a few screenshots), but it's used the exact same images/sprites as some other game? If not then it's apples and oranges compared to the RetroN5 issue.

Just Konami games which is fine. However a lot of the art is heavily based on art from Akira and Blade Runner, it's near identical without being digitised pictures.

Myrddin

Andrew76 wrote: »

I've never played Snatcher (only seen a few screenshots), but it's used the exact same images/sprites as some other game? If not then it's apples and oranges compared to the RetroN5 issue.

I wouldn't say exact, but there are elements of story & artwork that take a very, very 'inspiration' from other sources like Terminator & Bladerunner. Amazing game btw (I'm still ******* fuming I sold it along with my US Genesis/CD/32X back yonder)

Myrddin

Some Snatcher goodness

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Talking about videogame plagiarism have you seen this:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tracing/tracing.htm

.

Yep, it's a fantastic article and pretty much sums up what I was getting at.

I was really interested in putting an article together about lifted artwork and designs from Akira in videogames. They're fairly rampant but don't seem to be that well documented. That article had one I'd never seen before (KOF 94 Neo Tokyo background)

Found another one recently in the title screen from the Arcade PCB Silent Dragon. (actually I'm pretty sure it's an amalgamation of two scenes from the film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqVU4J2SAwU

Anyway, I'm probably dragging this way off topic so that's enough of that from me!

Does anyone here actually have a Retron 5? I've heard a lot of mention but don't think I've heard anyone here give a first hand account?

Tomo.Murphy

I had thought about getting one, still putting it off to see what the support is like and what comes of it. Pat the NES Punk did a good video of it though, mostly testing what sort of games work in it.