It seems another eroge company has decided to follow suit:
http://novelnews.net/2010/04/27/cuffs-c … #more-1518
Bye bye Yosuga no Sora, I hope you weren’t anywhere near as good as people said.
Never heard of it, and I think it’s for the best 
Honestly, I’m not really too bothered by the requests to stop translation projects; it’s their games, after all. What upsets me is being called a criminal and a pirate for supporting eroge companies by purchasing their games. It makes me feel like I shouldn’t even bother going to the legit route. If they consider me a pirate, maybe I should just be a pirate. Of course, I have morals, so that’s not going to happen.
I don’t understand; who is calling you a criminal or a pirate? Was there something I missed?
Basically, anyone who installs a minori game on their computer outside of Japan is supposedly breaking copyright and making an illegal replication. In other words, software piracy.
How unfortunate. Such goodness shouldn’t be restricted to those of us with the time/patience/talent to learn Japanese.
No. Just plain no. minori is full of crap here. From the UN enforced copyright guidelines:
In plain English? [color=red]If you acquired the software in another country, the laws of that country apply.[/color] Here’s what the law says in the US and here’s [b]some more of it[/b]. minori would be breaking the copyright laws in America if they tried pulling this. They can control the “public distribution” matters… what people do privately in their homes with legally bought copies - so long as it doesn’t infringe copyright - is a person’s own business.
Copyright has NOTHING to do with minori’s claim about this part.
What DOES apply in this situation, is the End User License Agreement. You see, in that scenario, the copyright is bypassed because the software is licensed and not owned. minori should have have lots of fun with that. Also it should be pointed out, that for minori to go the EULA route, their license must apply to EVERYONE who buys it. The US legal system looks down on ethnic discrimination.
I don’t think minori did serious research into the differences of the legal systems, or they’d be mentioning EULA and not copyrights. Also they have to specifically say in their EULA, that it can’t be used outside of Japan. You can’t grandfather something like that. So if I own a copy of a game, that doesn’t say I can’t use it outside of Japan, I can use it even if new copies do - I just can’t use those new copies outside of Japan.
This is fun drama. I hope it keeps going. 
There are, however, serious questions about the legality of EULAs on shrink-wrap software - the courts have had different findings each time. There’s also questions on the enforceability of such…
Yea… but I think those come second seat, to the ordeal of national sovereignty: is it possible for a Japanese company to directly dictate what American or British or Canadian or whatever foreign citizens, can and cannot do with goods bought from Japan? The answer to that, should be obvious to them… but it seems it isn’t.
Defending an IP is one thing. Dictating commerce regulation is another.
There is a serious argument to be made that permitting EULAs to have such restrictions is counter to public policy (which, generally, holds that more culture is better; this is the reason copyright exists, is to create more cultural works). Deliberately preventing spreading of a work that you have no intention of ever marketing weakens the culture as a whole, creating “walled gardens”. (This is the intent behind that seven-year-old compulsory-translation-license clause Narg found.)
That may be cause to invalidate said clause in the EULA. It depends. Invoking the “contrary to public policy” part of contract law is very complicated and difficult, and I’m not a lawyer, I just spend a lot of free time reading court papers on topics that interest me. But there is at least a chance that such a restriction would be declared void and unenforceable in court.
It may not apply to most people here, but I’m always amused to see how much people breaking the law (e.g. illegal download of games) are so uptight about companies strictly adhering to said laws when trying to enforce their legitimate rights. You know, “I knowingly and willingly consider that laws shouldn’t apply to me in order to punish me but they all should in order to protect me in case the people protected by the laws I break get back at me.”
lol… it’s so true.
Personally, I think minori has every right to shutdown the fanlations. First they have to wait 7 years, and after that, they have to submit the proper paperwork to the Japanese embassy. Then everything is fine and legal. minori is clearly in the right until then.
On the flipside though: I’m annoyed that minori thinks they can tell us non-Japanese gamers who aren’t in Japan, that we can’t install our 100% legit, untranslated, Japanese original games. On that, they can go stuff themselves, because they’re making up their own legislation. 
Of course. It’s pretty much the same as when if you ask people “Should the government balance the budget”, they always say ‘yeah’. But then when you ask about raising taxes, they say no. And when you ask about cutting spending, they say no.
Not really since your example is about opinions and don’t relate to any special knowledge whereas in the case I mentioned, people show a surprisingly deep knowledge and researching efforts about the laws they so easily break.
I don’t really understand minori and pixy soft’s position on this. I don’t think that DT or Tlwiki play the pirate there, since their patches can only be used on separately purchased games, and they don’t sell or give away the games.
On the other hand, there are other people who actually pirate (by this word I mean ‘make illegal copies available’) their games and damage their market. Now these, Ladies and Gentlemen, are the ones minori and pixy should aim to take down. That, provided the software houses can identify any.
lol… There’s a C&Dwiki now…
Won’t post a link, cause what they’re planning is illegal… but it’s gotten attention in Japan:
http://qiufen.bbspink.com/test/read.cgi … 1266163109
http://hevoluson.blog87.fc2.com/blog-entry-104.html
I knew it was inevitable… but I’m still amused nonetheless. Both sides are being overwhelmingly stupid on just about everything now.
:It’s easy to understand their position.
If, one day, they want to release English version of tehir game, the fact that a fan made translation already exist will just get in the way.
A good exemple it’s the Visual/Key’s game… If ever Clannad is officialy translated and released in English, you can be sure that it won’t sell as much because of the Fan Translation.
Now, i don’t think we will ever see a Minori or pixy game officialy transltaed in English (well its not a lost for Pixy for me… Since tentacle Rape with a lot of BDSM Dark Nukige are far from being my thing… In fact i don’t understand the success of Taimanin Asagi and Kangoku Senkan… Just because it’s Murakami who direct the Anime don’t make them good game)
As you say, it’s highly improbable in case of games like Taimanin Asagi…