icemann on 30/9/2017 at 11:37
Yesterday this particular article came to light on Kotaku:
(
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/09/atlus-files-copyright-strike-against-ps3-emulator-that-advertised-persona-5/)
In it, it was revealed that Atlas (makers of Persona 5) have filed a DMCA against the patreon page for RPCS3. RPCS3 is an emulator for the Playstation 3, which already has quite a few games (including Persona 5) at near 100% emulation.
The reason for the DMCA attempt was:
“The PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks; however, no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable”
As emulation was already fought through the courts (Sony vs BLEEM in 2000), it has already been ruled that emulation is a completely legal thing to do, which meant that Atlus did not have a legal leg to stand on. With this being the case, Patreon refused Atlus's request, to which Atlus responded:
“We kindly ask that you remove both for this reason - to make Persona 5 work on the emulator, the user has to circumvent our DRM protections. The following blog post provides specific instructions for “dumping the disc or PSN download”
In response to communications from Patreon, the makers of RPCS3 were advised to remove all mention of Persona 5 from their website and forums. Blacklisting of a game from working in an emulator is impossible (especially as RPCS3 is open source), so this seemed like the best respite.
I'm getting my info from here on this:
(
https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/72lo12/statement_atlus_usa_attempts_to_shut_down/) - Which was the RPCS3's dev's response and detailing of what had occurred.
So my question to the forum here is, should a games company have the right to be able to choose whether or not their games are made (legally) to work on a different system? And to be able to have the emulator of an entire platform be taken down just for emulation of said system, which happened to have their game on it?
I think not, as emulation was already deemed legal. And falls under the "Fair Use" category.
I also take point with a press release that Atlus put out on it's website:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ATLUS and Emulation
You might have heard earlier today that we issued a DMCA takedown notice involving emulation developer group RPCS3 and their Patreon page. Yes, it's true. We settled upon this action for two reasons:
1. We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don't want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen. We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don't have anything to announce today, we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.
2. We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences.
We want to continue having a dialogue about where and how you would like to play our games. Please let us know what you think.----------------------------------------------------------------------
So what they are essentially saying is that emulators are illegal and only promote piracy. Which is complete bullshit imo.
What's your opinions on this?
scumble on 30/9/2017 at 12:55
I'm not a fan of DRM so I'm not very impressed. It doesn't even have anything to do with people ripping off the game.
It highlights the problem with DMCA in that it can be abused by making vague legal claims and seeing if they can get something with it. Something similar happened with Craftbukkit, the minecraft server project that was taken down by a DMCA from someone not even associated with Mojang.
ATLUS is making a funny claim about quality which was probably calculated to make it not seem like it's just an arbitrary attack on emulation software as it might encourage piracy. So I don't think makes sense but companies try on all sorts of legal stuff to bully other people.
I personally don't understand the devotion to DRM when companies such as GOG keep proving that it doesn't help and is mainly an annoyance to customers who actually pay.
Nameless Voice on 30/9/2017 at 15:15
Anyone who makes console-exclusive games doesn't have a leg to stand on as far as I'm concerned. It's an evil practice and they should get nothing.
The whole concept is to try to use games as leverage to get people to buy a specific console that they wouldn't otherwise buy, rather than, say, making the console appealing in its own right.
Plus, that kind of nonsense leads to lots of issues with older games being completely unplayable as the consoles that they ran on are no longer available.
At least emulation might give those older games some chance to live on past the expiration date of the hardware that they were made for.
icemann on 30/9/2017 at 15:37
On the PC side of things, emulation is the only way possible for many older games to even run on more modern systems. The Tex Murphy games (not counting Overseer and now Tesla Effect) require dosbox to even run. Many old consoles are almost impossible to find (outside of Ebay), making emulation the only way to allow these platforms to live on.
Seeing emulation as the enemy, and a cause of only piracy is just plain wrong imo. Back when I played far more PS2 games, it was via images I'd made of my original DVDs that I'd payed for in stores. The games just run better via iso's rather than going via the DVD drives. Runs very counter to Atlus's argument.
If people buy their game, then make an iso of it and run it in RPCS3, then how are they losing any money? I don't get their argument. I get their assumption, but their wrong. Piracy has never been promoted by creators of emulators. Sure it happens. And in some cases piracy is the only way to be able to play certain games (eg games only released in Japan with no English localization, meaning that using fan translation hacks it the only way to play them in English).
Malleus on 30/9/2017 at 15:54
Oh yeah, this is the company who threatened streamers with content ID claim and account suspension if they streamed past a certain point back when the game was released, right? I guess they're just that kind of company.
scumble on 1/10/2017 at 10:19
Yes, I think we're dealing more with the daft behaviour of one company's legal department than a general trend.
icemann on 1/10/2017 at 11:30
Hope so
Renzatic on 1/10/2017 at 20:18
Yeah. Emulation being a protected practice has plenty of legal precedence behind it. Companies can sue all they want, but so long as the programmers aren't doing anything to run afoul of the DMCA (ie, providing ways to bypass DRM schemes and whatnot), there isn't a thing anyone can do against them.
