Unofficial Mirror?

[Blue Lemma]

If there are people who like the games enough to want to mirror them, and are not unfair, will I really tell them that they can't because I want control over my download stats or harvest as many comments as I can for some reason? Or that my team wants to exercise their exclusivity rights just because they now actually have them?

Why not? It's your game, not theirs. I don't think that would be bad, if you wanted the control over that.

[mikey]

Why not? It's your game, not theirs. I don't think that would be bad, if you wanted the control over that.

No, it's not bad, in fact it feels really great when you get an official permission from someone who doesn't give it to just anyone - for RAA for instance this means the author thinks the site will respect the game. So surely, you can also view it from the angle that people who require others to ask before mirroring care about what happens to their work.

Still, personally I like the free approach more - interfering with what happens to the game only if absolutely necessary. Maybe it's because it means less monitoring, maybe I just didn't have enough bad experiences.

[Misuzu]

Just for the record, the reason why I want my files to stay on downloads.visualnews.net is the advanced tracking we do on that domain. downloads.visualnews is equipped with three tracking packages (and we'll probably add some more when we migrate the thing to its new domain and give all translator/contributers with access to that data).

Statistics are very important at least in the translation community, especially since we tend to feed this kind of information to distributors like the Payne Zaibatsu and Hirameki. It also helps judge the popularity of certain styles of games and stories.

[mikey]

Statistics are very important at least in the translation community, especially since we tend to feed this kind of information to distributors like the Payne Zaibatsu and Hirameki. It also helps judge the popularity of certain styles of games and stories.

But isn't it so that if a group translated a (free) hentai game with lots of graphics, downloads would go through the roof? Say a game called "Hentai Quest", surely (nevermind its quality) it would get more downloads simply because of the name and topic. And then feeding that to the Zaibatsu management, the results are predictable, more Slave Pageants for us.

But another note, if you have two games, one by a protective team that only lets VNN mirror the translation and one by a who-cares squad, both roughly the same quality, the VNN download figures will have to be misleading if you want to gauge the success/downloads of the game in general. For one you will have precise numbers, and for the other you won't. How do you see that kind of situation? Maybe it has not occured yet in a bigger extent, but still... several games were torrented and this could easily happen.

[Misuzu]

True, nothing is perfect but some data is more important than no data.

Another thing is we do data collecting for the translator themselves. mirror moon for example wants to know how many downloads of its patches have been distributed so they can compare that number against say, the new version of the Tsukihime patch to see an adopation ration (this was used between 1.0, and 1.1).

In Wind, Gip wanted to track how many downloads were made versus the amount of times the HongFire torrent for Wind was leeched after he released the patch.

I'm just trying to show that there are many reasons that you may want to restrict the mirroring of your files, especially in the translation scene when dealing with full patches, and sometimes doujin games too as I've heard of instances were the original doujin creator was interested to see how many downloads a file got too.

Unlike the creation scene, we don't own what we make, and I guess that is a big point of differance between the mirroring of an OEL and the mirroring of a translated game.

[mutio]

First of all I'd like to apologise myself for all caused problems.

I have removed all files from our server and all links were replaced. About the author issue, the author is unvisible in each dojin entry now, however for the list page I'm not able to remove the author (since it's an core element of our CMS). Therefore I changed the author into Administrator.

As PonyDash said law is a bit different here in Germany and moreover we have another definition of "free" articles.
I think there should be a clear thick written sentence on each Dojin page "Do not distribute without permission!". I would've never hosted those dojins if there'd have been such a clear statement on the frontpage.

As for the hosting, I've decided not to host dojin games, since I have no interest in getting a letter from some court.

The only interest I have is to spread those games and make them become more popular, and as long as there is a place people can download them from, a link and a small entry is more than enough.

[mikey]

As for the hosting, I've decided not to host dojin games, since I have no interest in getting a letter from some court.

In any case as I mentioned before, you can freely mirror any of the ATP releases if you'd like. Your page isn't offending, it's a normal VN fan page and if you want to, you can set up a mirror, that's fine by me.

True, nothing is perfect but some data is more important than no data.

Heh, as they say, statistics is a precise accounting of unprecise numbers.

Unlike the creation scene, we don't own what we make, and I guess that is a big point of differance between the mirroring of an OEL and the mirroring of a translated game.

That's true. It's probably also good to differentiate between translations with and without permission. The ones with permission are basically treated as an OEL/freeware release, the original creators decide. The ones without permission is a difficult question, since technically the first permission to translate wasn't there, so morally I'd see no obligation to adhere to any mirroring rules set by the translators. This doesn't mean that it's not their work and shouldn't be protected as such, of course. It's a bit complicated.

[Enerccio]

I have removed all files from our server and all links were replaced. About the author issue, the author is unvisible in each dojin entry now, however for the list page I'm not able to remove the author (since it's an core element of our CMS). Therefore I changed the author into Administrator.

In joomla you can change name of autor to other (without creating a new user) so that should not be problem ^_~
just enter name of real Author or company in Author Alias form and you are done

[mutio]

I have removed all files from our server and all links were replaced. About the author issue, the author is unvisible in each dojin entry now, however for the list page I'm not able to remove the author (since it's an core element of our CMS). Therefore I changed the author into Administrator.

In joomla you can change name of autor to other (without creating a new user) so that should not be problem ^_~
just enter name of real Author or company in Author Alias form and you are done

I know that, however as pointed out it just shows on the list page, so that's no problem.

In any case as I mentioned before, you can freely mirror any of the ATP releases if you'd like. Your page isn't offending, it's a normal VN fan page and if you want to, you can set up a mirror, that's fine by me.

I discussed the issue with my neighbour who is a judge and the whole internet right stuff is just too complicated. Maybe in 5 years when I have finished my right studies and know the material But thank you very much for your offer.

[lordcloudx]

Feel like letting off some steam today.
international law in a nutshell:

1. Laws of host state (state that has jurisdiction over the subject matter.) ALWAYS prevail unless the laws of the state itself says that its laws do not prevail over matters of international law this may result in what is known as the renvoi doctrine or international FIFA 2007 from the point of view of a third state.

2. Laws of other states on copyrights etc. can be recognized and applied by the host state depending on whether it has an incorporation clause or similar archaic doctrine. and if the law sought to be recognized is not contrary to law, public policy, public order, morals or good customs.

3. Treaties, international agreements etc. theoretically have the force of law and if not followed, the aggrieved state may resort to economic sanctions such as refusing to trade with the other state, cutting off friendly relations, crying, and sulking... the last resort is an agressive war.

[Adorya]

Correct me if I am wrong monele, but after the creation of the DADVSI law, aren't all free software considered as illegal in France?

[monele]

Mm... if so, I've missed something big (and utterly stupid, too). The last thing I heard was that you weren't allowed to create software that decodes DRMs and other copyright protection systems. But on the other hand, companies are supposed to never make any system that prevents their media from being played on any kind of player (I-Pod being very bad about this).

But yeah... I do remember something about free software... just not exactly what ^^;...

EDIT : made a quick search and it's a mix of my first paragraph and what you say apparently. Basically, the DADSVI was thought to mean : "it's forbidden to make software that allow exchange of data without an approved protection scheme". Litterally, this would mean you can't release any P2P software like eMule or BitTorrent... okay... but you can't release any chat program (you can exchange data... text, and even transfer files)... or a mail program (you can exchange text and files) or... etc, etc...
Basically, any program which *connects* to the Internet and without any DRM controls, would be illegal. Yeaaaah...
I don't know what was the last word on this but I'm pretty sure a lot of people are aware of the absurdity of this and are trying to make this change (most notably, some of our presidential candidates).

[mutio]

Internet right is just a mess, different in each country >.<
And the problem is also, that you can interpret right with a lot of different possibilities. I think there's no solution for this at all, unless there's really ONE internet right.
As for freeware, if you publish something under a license like the GNU open source there shouldn't be a problem.

[Adorya]

The fun thing about DADVSI is that according to its laws you are not allowed to publish software free of copyright on the internet. You have to secure it with any way because it's something you created so fall under personal copyright ownership. Even GNU is then tagged as an illegal licence, since it allow free use/mod/...

Of course it's absurd, but from the start DADVSI was created to protect intellectual property (and big companies), and covered everything else outside its boundary range...the free stuff.

[monele]

Adorya : just curious... I thought you were from France actually. Was I wrong? ^^;