Somebody is selling my game

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gravelstudios
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Somebody is selling my game

Post by gravelstudios »

I found something that I have mixed feelings about. This website is selling my game:

https://www.ocdreproductions.com/Get_It ... 21520.aspx

On one hand, I've been distributing the ROM online for free for a very long time. And I was totally thrilled at its inclusion in Action 53, which is a cart from which I will not receive any money.

On the other hand, these people selling carts of my game without even contacting me about it first feels...wrong.

I'm not even really sure what I'm asking in this post, I guess I just want feedback about this whole situation.
Joe
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by Joe »

If you haven't given them a license to distribute your copyrighted material, what they're doing is illegal.

They might be willing to talk about it though. You can try contacting them before you start getting lawyers involved.
calima
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by calima »

I would treat it as free advertising and let it be. You do have legal standing for a takedown, but not damages since you're offering the rom for free.
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gravelstudios
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by gravelstudios »

I think I'm just going to ignore it for now. I'm surprised anybody would be willing to pay $30 for such a simple game, especially when it's already available for free. the main reason it makes me nervous is that I'm currently finishing up my next game, and this one I do intend to release commercially. I don't like the idea setting a precedent that I don't care if people pirate my work, but I guess there's not much I can do about it. it's gonna happen anyway.
tepples
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by tepples »

I've seen ocdreproductions before. They're also selling 240p Test Suite, god knows which old version. I'd be willing to work with them to help them come into compliance with the GPL if I had the time, but I'm off to my day job.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by rainwarrior »

gravelstudios wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:13 pmOn one hand, I've been distributing the ROM online for free for a very long time. And I was totally thrilled at its inclusion in Action 53, which is a cart from which I will not receive any money.

On the other hand, these people selling carts of my game without even contacting me about it first feels...wrong.
Distributing the ROM for free yourself is not a license for others to do so. There's a huge difference between Action 53 including it with your permission, and OCDReproductions just making and selling their own.

Unless you left a license permitting this passively, they do not have a right to do this.

It would be very reasonable to demand a licensing fee in a situation like this. (Given past experiences, I'm pretty sure OCDReproductions would rather just take it down than pay any money to the people that actually make the stuff they sell, though.)
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Bregalad
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by Bregalad »

It's only half-surprising, and one of the reasons I began to be less interested in game development in the 1st place...
Distributing the ROM for free yourself is not a license for others to do so. There's a huge difference between Action 53 including it with your permission, and OCDReproductions just making and selling their own.
I agree. There's also a huge difference between distributing carts of your games and making the custommers just pay for the parts, or actually making profit out of it. Also you didn't have your say in how the cart, packaging, and the label was made.

I think people have sold some of my romhacks, but I care much less because it was mostly technical work playing with the creative work already made for the game, rather than creative work from myself.
Useless, lumbering half-wits don't scare us.
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gravelstudios
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by gravelstudios »

rainwarrior wrote: Fri Jun 18, 2021 10:10 am
gravelstudios wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:13 pmOn one hand, I've been distributing the ROM online for free for a very long time. And I was totally thrilled at its inclusion in Action 53, which is a cart from which I will not receive any money.

On the other hand, these people selling carts of my game without even contacting me about it first feels...wrong.
Distributing the ROM for free yourself is not a license for others to do so. There's a huge difference between Action 53 including it with your permission, and OCDReproductions just making and selling their own.

Unless you left a license permitting this passively, they do not have a right to do this.

It would be very reasonable to demand a licensing fee in a situation like this. (Given past experiences, I'm pretty sure OCDReproductions would rather just take it down than pay any money to the people that actually make the stuff they sell, though.)
I understand all of that, Rainwarrior. It wasn't my intention that my distributing the ROM for free on my website should be interpreted as blanket permission for OTHER people to sell it. As a professional composer and arranger, I have a very clear idea of how copyright works, and they are blatantly violating my copyright. that's a big part of why it bothers me. I never intended to make money off of that game (which was essentially a student project for a class I took), but it bothers me that somebody else is making money off of it.

But the whole reason I found this out is because I saw a picture of the cart on the r/nes subreddit. If somebody liked that game enough to actually buy a copy of it, I'm having a hard time bringing myself to take any action about it. I just can't imagine they're selling very many copies of it. I'm still sort of surprised anybody would actually buy it.

I think, if I ever intend to release it physically myself, I'll send them a takedown notice. I don't know, I'll need to think more about it.
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Ben Boldt
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by Ben Boldt »

It has always really bothered me to see people take this passionate hobby and get greedy with it. I can totally understand charging some amount to cover expenses. If you are selling a cartridge, you ought to charge whatever it took to print the PCB, chips inside, plastic shell, web hosting, shipping. Offering as a kit vs. some fee to assemble is a nice option. Maybe that does add up to $20-$30 in low quantity... All the costs that it took to give a copy of your work, totally OK. But taking the next step to make profit from it kind of sours the whole thing for me and makes me lose a lot of respect for those folks that try to do that. Your passion alone should be enough to drive the project, and if not, it's not a very passionate project. If someone needs to pay you to write 6502 code instead of watching TV after work, that's not going to be a very genuine or charming outcome. That's my opinion, and I know that not everyone will obviously agree with it. If Sunsoft came back around, we would be pretty happy to pay them some profits. Where do you draw the line between an individual and a company? Should Jobs and Wozniac not have made any profits from their garage? Difficult questions.

On the flip side, we rather have something than nothing if that's the only alternative. If we write software with no monetary reward, it might be easier to give up when things get hard. Knowing there are some dollars depending on getting through the tough spots can be helpful. I have mixed feelings about profits from hobbies but in general don't like it and I do get pretty crabby about it.

Releasing your ROM for free was a great thing to do and highly respectable, please don't regret that or underestimate how much we appreciate it.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by rainwarrior »

gravelstudios wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:03 amI never intended to make money off of that game (which was essentially a student project for a class I took), but it bothers me that somebody else is making money off of it.

But the whole reason I found this out is because I saw a picture of the cart on the r/nes subreddit. If somebody liked that game enough to actually buy a copy of it, I'm having a hard time bringing myself to take any action about it. I just can't imagine they're selling very many copies of it. I'm still sort of surprised anybody would actually buy it.

I think, if I ever intend to release it physically myself, I'll send them a takedown notice. I don't know, I'll need to think more about it.
In general if I want something to be freely redistributed, I'll put an explicit license on it saying so (often CC BY). That way it's clear that this kind of reuse is permitted, but also I think it gives me a little bit of peace of mind when stuff like this comes up. At least, I think it's a bit easier for me to see it when I've decided ahead of time that something like this is OK.

When I haven't, though, I feel very differently. In general I'm very happy if someone wants to privately make a repro for themself. I'd also be happy if someone contacted a reproduction house to do it custom. Putting it in a catalog like this crosses a line for me, though. That is where it goes from helping a fan have something they might treasure, to just exploitation, at least in my view. I dunno if others feel that's a worthwhile distinction.

OCDReproductions is a repeat offender in this category. Aside from all the straight-up pirate repros, many times I've seen them pick up NES homebrew stuff, take flak for it, then take it down. They don't ever ask, they just quietly try and see what they can get away with. The fact that you weren't asked is the big red flag here.

ROMhacks like translations they tend to have an easier time getting away with, because people who do these things rarely seem to feel they can assert copyright on their part of the work... even though they absolutely do have ownership of their contribution. Of course if someone making repros is already willing to break the copyright on the base ROM, I don't see why they would respect a copyright on the hack either. :P You can make a ROMhack and decide you're okay with people profiting from repros of it, too... but it seems rare that anyone bothers to state that out loud, or conversely it seems rare that anyone making repros would seek permission. If you make ROMhacks, you should probably expect that this will happen, whether or not you want it to.

It's kinda weird, like nobody will take them to task for e.g. violating Sunsoft's copyright, but reproductions seem to exist in a space where people know and interact with homebrew developers, so I guess they feel some social pressure on the homebrew front. It'd be nice if there were some sort of homebrew repro service that could afford to make on-demand cartridges of games like this, maybe with a proper licensing fee to the developers (i.e. "teespring" but for NES games)... but I guess the market is too small to make a real business out of that. Mostly stuck with reproduction places that are outright bootlegging, and on the other end of the spectrum you have InfiniteNESLives, 6502 Collective, or Broke Studio making runs of games that can sell enough copies, but I don't know that they could afford to run an on-demand / one-off kind of service? :S
tepples
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by tepples »

Ben Boldt wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 8:49 amBut taking the next step to make profit from it kind of sours the whole thing for me and makes me lose a lot of respect for those folks that try to do that. Your passion alone should be enough to drive the project, and if not, it's not a very passionate project. If someone needs to pay you to write 6502 code instead of watching TV after work, that's not going to be a very genuine or charming outcome.
Say I apply for several programming jobs and get four interviews with the following respective outcomes:
  1. "I'm sorry, we don't have a job for you because you lack experience with the exact technology stack we use. Though you have some experience in client-side Unobtrusive JavaScript, we were looking for someone with specific experience building single-page applications with MongoDB, Express, Angular, and Node.js."
  2. "I'm sorry, we don't have a job for you because you lack experience with the exact technology stack we use. Though you have several years of experience building web apps in PHP and MySQL and an acquaintance with Magento, were were looking for someone with more experience with PHP, Magento, and Visual Basic 6."
  3. "I'm sorry, we don't have a job for you because our client wanting Python work canceled on us because of the pandemic."
  4. "Yes! We'll hire you to program an NES game for us!"
Am I a problematic person for having taken job offer D with Retrotainment Games?
Drag
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by Drag »

No, because there's a distinction between (A) supporting your hobbies and (B) having no interest in something unless you're being paid to do it.

(A) lets you quit your job to spend more time on it.
(B) is the job you're quitting for (A). :P
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gravelstudios
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by gravelstudios »

At first, I didn't really intend to sell my current game either. It started out as a sort of SMB style NROM sidescroller. I figured I'd be done in less than a year, enter it in one of the Homebrew competitions here, and that would be it. But as I've worked on it, it's expanded into a pretty massive UNROM project. I kept adding MetroidVania elements to it, and now I've been working on it for 2.5 years, and I'm just hoping to have it done by the end of this year. I'm having a blast with it, it's been a lot of fun, but I feel the amount of work (and, not to toot my own horn, the quality of it) warrants some kind of compensation. I have a career that I have no intention of quitting to attempt game dev full time. It's a hobby. But I don't think I can bring myself to just put this one out there for free. Especially since I know how the internet works. it's an NES game. people are going to pirate it first, and then pay for it if they like it (maybe). I'm not giving any tacit approval of that, just a recognition that it's reality.
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Ben Boldt
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by Ben Boldt »

tepples wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 7:12 pm Say I apply for several programming jobs and get four interviews with the following respective outcomes:

D. "Yes! We'll hire you to program an NES game for us!"

Am I a problematic person for having taken job offer D with Retrotainment Games?
No, I'm just grouchy. I would be happy for you and quite jealous TBH.
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aquasnake
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Re: Somebody is selling my game

Post by aquasnake »

If I offer others free of charge, they must be limited to free personal use. If someone used(or is using) it for business, he broke this rule.

Because the user broke the rule first, the same treaty of my free release is no longer binding on my free release at this time, and I have the right to retain recourse against the profiteer.

Under the framework that free works cannot be officially sold, crowdfunding and donation modes are completely legal under another distribution system
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