Legality Question

[GamerSJD2002]

Is it legal to sell homebrew? Do you need a license for the system you intend to release the app/game on? Even if you had a license, would it be legal?

Just curious. ^^

[Wally]

if the homebrew is licensed for GPL (open source) then yes its illegal

Otherwise if the developer decides to make it commercial, then by all means unless it still follows the GPL then its illegal.

So the answer you are after is, no its not legal.

[Eviltaco64]

I believe it's only if the author decides to sell it or gives someone permission to sell their product.

[dangee]

some homebrew is distributed via a website with 'donate via PayPal' on it.
that's OK I think.

[GamerSJD2002]

According to this site:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney

...you can charge a fee but anyone who purchases the app can distribute it for free(which would defeat the purpose anyways).

[Darksaviour69]

Is it legal to sell homebrew? depends, but the dreamcast has 5 Homebrew commercial games (legal)

[yaustar]

if the homebrew is licensed for GPL (open source) then yes its illegal
No it isn't. Check the GPL license.

It is legal to sell homebrew but only if the platform owner (e.g Sony for the PSP) allows it.

There are some grey areas in terms such as the case with the Dreamcast.

[Darksaviour69]

yaustar, are you sure you have to seek permission from the platform manufacture? The reason why normal game developers pay a license is because they used the SDK, but if you don't use the SDKs then its legal to release without a license, in the US a least, eg. sega vs accolade. I know the GPL licensee has changed since the last time I read about it (i thinkit was gpl 2, now its gpl 3), so maybe some thing has been added since.

[GamerSJD2002]

The reason why normal game developers pay a license is because they used the SDK, but if you don't use the SDKs then its legal to release without a license

So for example, if I made something for the DS using Palib, I could sell it?

[dangee]

Reading the GPL quickly makes me want to chill out with
18 holes of Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 instead, so it's
only my opinion that:
The Console Producer would have good grounds for a claim against
any money charged for distributed software that relies on their
platform, on the basis of the investment made on design/development etc.
The software copyright,& intellectual property rights to the
concept & design, though ,would usually be immune and could be
legally traded by the homebrew developer

[GamerSJD2002]

Basically I'm wanting to develop a website to allow amateur game developers to come together as a community and work on projects together. Project leaders would be able to set prices and how they'd like to distribute their money (to the programmers, level designers, artists, etc.) The site would focus around homebrew for all systems, pc included. But I need to work out the legal aspects. If I were to create this website as a business and obtain a licenses for consoles, would the developers on the site be able use my license so to speak? Would that even make it legal to distribute games intended for a console in "rom" form?

[Darksaviour69]

I think you will find the licensing cost for big platform will be huge, + the manufactures approve the games them selfs, and can (and have) not allowed games to be release because they are not good enough.

If you look at sega vs accolade, accolade won because they backwards engineered the megadrive and did not use the SDK. But being legally right is not always good enough eg. Sony sued Bleem out of business even thought sony never won in court.

[Eviltaco64]

You might as well just have a PayPal donation type of thing.

You avoid all the legality crap and still get a little something in return. ;)

[yaustar]

yaustar, are you sure you have to seek permission from the platform manufacture? The reason why normal game developers pay a license is because they used the SDK, but if you don't use the SDKs then its legal to release without a license, in the US a least, eg. sega vs accolade. I know the GPL licensee has changed since the last time I read about it (i thinkit was gpl 2, now its gpl 3), so maybe some thing has been added since.

Hmm. Not 100% sure thinking about it. I do wonder if running unsigned code does break an agreement somewhere.