Official Nintendo position concerning Homebrews ?

[freddix]

Hi All,

I'm new here and, I'd like to get some informations before jumping in the development of Homebrews on the Nintendo DS.

I'd like to know the official nintendo position concerning Homebrews ?
Are they, officially legal ?, tolerated ?, Illegal ?

Can a small company develop Homebrews and resell them ? Will nintendo accept this ?

Regards,
Freddix

[JKKDARK]

They really don't care if you use homebrew or not.

[Eviltaco64]

They dont mind Homebrew, they just hate piracy.

[freddix]

Homebrew is not piracy.
M3/G6 and other Linker are not illegal ... it's the use of copyrighted roms that is illegal.
SDK are not illegal if they don't contain copy of official copyrighted files ...
Nothing in the homebrew is illegal ...

That's was to know exactly what they thing about this if a company develop homebrew to resell them ...

[Akoi Meexx]

Homebrew is not piracy.
M3/G6 and other Linker are not illegal ... it's the use of copyrighted roms that is illegal.
SDK are not illegal if they don't contain copy of official copyrighted files ...
Nothing in the homebrew is illegal ...

That's was to know exactly what they thing about this if a company develop homebrew to resell them ...

http://www.monroeworld.com/myfaq/ind...106&artlang=en

Wrong! Even the linkers are illegal: In order to run homebrew, you have to bypass the anti-piracy protection on the DS. Doing so is illegal and that's where Nintendo has precedence to make claims against linkers.
Edit: I would like to point out that I don't agree with this line of thinking, but that's where things stand right now.

[freddix]

@Akoi : with which line of thinking do you disagree ? Nintendo or mine ?

[Akoi Meexx]

@Akoi : with which line of thinking do you disagree ? Nintendo or mine ?

Nintendos; I'd like to see official homebrew support, as I think it'd really spark the imaginations of companies to make better games.

[freddix]

@Akoi : I agree with you

[hwanghoon]

http://www.monroeworld.com/myfaq/ind...106&artlang=en

Wrong! Even the linkers are illegal: In order to run homebrew, you have to bypass the anti-piracy protection on the DS. Doing so is illegal and that's where Nintendo has precedence to make claims against linkers.
Edit: I would like to point out that I don't agree with this line of thinking, but that's where things stand right now.

lol... funny website with no knowledge of law behind it... The person just read one legislation out of many legislations about copyright.

DMCA is cool and all but there is matter of international and state law in USA.

Here is copy of reasons for reverse engineering in USA. Skip ahead if you do not want to read because I'll explain it.

From http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.pdf
A website about copyright law

(f) Reverse Engineering. — (1) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and that have not previously been readily available to the person engaging in the circumvention, to the extent any such acts of identification and analysis do not constitute infringement under this title.

(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.

(3) The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section.

Wow... that is fat text, this is why America has stupid law system, American laws are hard ass to read, no wonder Literacy is at 0.5% =_= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educati..._United_States (If you want to argue that it's because there are foreign ppl -->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Australia). Here's the translation in English from other countries. (don't worry the copryright legislation is same for all countries who agree and abide international law)

USA law, The Copyright Act of 1976, Chapter 12 (f)(2)
Australian law, COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 - SECT 47D
German law, Article 69e Decompilation
You can reverse engineer, edit so it can link to any other indepedent program.

USA law, The Copyright Act of 1976, Chapter 12 (f)(3)
Australian law, COPYRIGHT ACT 1968 - SECT 47H
German law, Article 69f Infringement of Rights
If you reverse engineered to link to another program they cannot say it's illegal even it's written or verbal agreement upon purchase.

Australian worded the international law so people can actually understand.
"An agreement, or a provision of an agreement, that excludes or limits, or has the effect of excluding or limiting, the operation of subsection 47B(3), or section 47C, 47D, 47E or 47F, has no effect. "
SECT 47D: operation linking to other programs.

It means even there was an agreement that you can't make a program or system to link homebrew program was written in my pants (or anywhere), it would not be a lawful agreement.

As for

Section 1201.a.2 of the DMCA says:

No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that —

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

That protects making DS into a piano, homing missiles or nukes. It does not intervene with purpose of DS, playing applications, applications being mostly games.
When looking at a legislation, you must also look at the intention of the legislation not just translate literally. (though most cases "literal apporoach" works)
It must extend to the modified NDS being no longer a NDS. A good example would be private servers (pirate) for MMORPG games.
http://www.massively.com/2008/05/25/...ver-operators/
http://loadstart.wordpress.com/2007/...l-for-3-years/

EDIT: forgot to add... homebrews as long as you do not copy any copyrighted materials it's not illegal. It's just compiled code, independent program. No I'm not saying linkers are legal just yet... This case must be over first... I'll just quitely laugh when Nintendo loses.
EDIT2: didn't answer the intial question. Nintendo does not like homebrew ^_^

[Darksaviour69]

At the moment bypass the anti-piracy protection on the DS would/could be "fair use" in the eyes of the law for runing homebrew. Console homebrew legality is based the court case sega vs accolade, we accolade reverse engineered the mega drive/genesis and published a game without a license from sega. Accolade won, as the judge deemed it "fair use"

more info about the case

The dreamcast has now 5 (and more coming soon) commercial homebrew games for it (the first released being Feet of fury. But these were release after sega discontinued the DC.

So while it's legal, I think nintendo will most likely sue anyway, the same way sony sued Bleemcast. Sony never won a case in court, but they kept sueing bleemcast until they could not pay the legal fees (it was also alleged that sony threatened retailers that sold Bleem!) and went out of business
more info

So basicly, legally you should be fine, be prepared for a rough ride from nintendo.