Homebrew a true utopian society?

[shinysuitman]

Utopia is a myth like the lock-ness monster or a girlfriend that doesnt suck money... anywho, its sad to say that while it does cause the inevitable instance of sending the psp homebrew scene into underground. like yin and yang, every scene will have its downside. learn to use the scene for what you want while its like you want it and hope for the best

[the one and only]

nice article, shadowprophet

[DrNicket]

In my opinion, a truly Utopian society would be where every essential is provided free of charge. Anything above that would be acquired/accomplished via a form of the barter system. Services for services mostly.

I believe that society started out with barter and developed a barter pool where each put in and each could take out, but where the trouble likely began is too many people were either taking out too much or not enough were putting in. Supply no longer met demand. So money came along to keep track of it all and show who had what worth... promissary notes in lieu of genuine product or service. What caused that? Greed. As long as greed gets the better of the majority of us... we'll never grow out of the need for money.

Homebrew is a fine example of Barter (albeit a simple and somewhat lopsided example). The Devs create a game and give it freely, and the community gives/pays back in the form of compliments and constructive criticism. The bad/lopside, being the sad and pathetic flames at developers that "aren't fast enough" or don't accomplish miraculous feats in the space it takes to change a tire or any of a numerous list of dumb reasons to put down a hardworking dev for no reason but to put them down. The only reason Sony or any other company would have any reason to complain about the homebrew scene is the hit to the wallet the illegal homebrew activity produces.

I'll admit I'm no angel, but I believe in a fair and just world. I've downloaded music I didn't own, but I treated them like a demo. I either bought the CD shortly thereafter or deleted the related files. There were times where I could not afford to buy, so I saved up and bought anyway... just later. The only exception being where there was no commercial (or earthly available; moratorium, etc.) release and no way of me paying for the product (rather gray I know). I currently own over 300 DVDs, every one of them legally mine (given that I only own the material it's on and not the original rights to the films). I either paid, won or was given every single one of those discs. My main reason for coming back to DCEmu was ZX-81. He ported my favorite homebrew: PSPInt: Intellivision Emulator for PSP. I own 3 (or more) Intellivisions and at least one of every official commercial accessory and almost all of the official and 3rd party games (I haven't gone through them all and compared them to a checklist yet). The only thing I lack is the ability to acquire my ROMs directly from my cartridges (I would if I could, but I still need to learn how). Then I would be 100% legal with Intellivision emulation (as far as I know anyway).

Some people trash Metallica for being so hard against music downloads... but listen... Aren't/Weren't they one of the bands that encourage/supported bootleg recording of live performances? They just didn't/don't condone piracy of commercial releases. They understand that not everyone could see every concert even if money and time were no object. So, 'let the world hear our unique sound at this event'. When most anyone with $20 (ballpark) can buy a particular CD nearly anywhere, only restricted by the number of available CDs, there's no reason to steal it.

Shadowprophet, I salute you.

[NoQuarter]

I guess we're gonna be stuck in this grey area until open source turns the tide and make copyright laws obselete.It makes no since countries outwardly oppose monopolies but yet they'll issue a patent or copyright on intellectual property which has the potential to ensure a monopoly.Really we need the coporations to change their business models.Competition is good and market control is bad.I wonder if metallica still maintains the same stance on bootlegging at their concerts.Market control is one the reasons we still use oil

[PSPdemon]

Hmmm.... i have to thought of this to shades...

It hurts to see people do things they know that are wrong.....and continue doing them.....( yall might say... how can only 1 person hurt the company by downloading the iso's.... well...it can.... )

also.... after my own problem with a company ( microsoft...wont go any further ).... i decided that after all these games i have worked on that take ideas from others........after i read this article...i am going to make games that are of my own ideas.....and no longer make games that are from someone elses ideas.... i think its better anyway to have something unique than to have somthing that is taken from another....

another thing is.....that with all these people making iso loaders.... its just hurting the scene more than helping it....

and as you said

In closing I would like to say, I wrote this article to wake people up. Not that everyone needs wakening up. We have many good honest people in this scene. But there are still those out there who would cheat our scene and harm us, by seeking or distributing stolen commercial property.
And in the long run they cheat more then the scene, they cheat there selves... By damaging a scene you love your only hurting yourself..

I think you may have awakened in me a start to a couple of projects i have on paper....that i might make into games

anyway,

Thanks Shades,
PSPdemon

[NoQuarter]

The fact that this scene has gotten so big is a move in the right direction.It's us the internet users that are moving things toward a true free market.props to you pspdemon I admire your attitude,but isn't their a difference between homage and piracy

[shadowprophet]

The fact that this scene has gotten so big is a move in the right direction.It's us the internet users that are moving things toward a true free market.props to you pspdemon I admire your attitude,but isn't their a difference between homage and piracy

But see this is where the fine line comes in.
Some people,(unaware that it was even illegal)
Will take sprites and music and artifacts, that where ripped straight from commercial property..

I myself didn't know that was illegal until recently,
Its an issue that hasn't been widely publicized. So how are people expected to know..

But that's where the fine line is drawn.
And that fine line itself is confusingly thin, The difference between software piracy and fan ware. is almost indistinguishable at times. and copy right laws can be confusing.

But the real true golden rule of homebrew is. Any piece of homebrew must be completely homemade ,, be it art music textures special effects. that's not to say that one person has to make the entire thing, there are many many legal fan reproductions of music and art that may legally be used to claim the title (fan ware) which is perfectly legal.

[Pico]

while our homebrew scene is frowned upon by corporation console developers. We protect our scene by keeping it legal, Meaning that every piece of homebrew we serve is completely (Homemade) without a trace of commercial intellectual property contained within.

Well thats an outright lie, you (shadowprophet) regulary post news about that dude who mods turrican and im pretty sure he dont hold any copyrights stateing he owns the franchise or has any permission from who holds the copyright for use of turrican in any way. But look at the games section on psp news any you'll see plenty more examples of this, best example's include psp milionaire, super turbo turky puncher (from doom3), Super Mini Mario, Super Mini Sonic, Bomberman Arena (you can get a few psp bomberman games on import), Bejeweled (it's been removed but not due to DCEmu's high moral standard of what legal hombrew is, but by the people who made it

Today ive been informed by Kojote that he and the Bejeweled coder The Grey Matter were sent emails asking for the game to be taken down.

It seems that the owners of the Bejeweled game are to release a PSP version of the game and that by using the name Bejeweled it will harm sales of the game, also the homebrew game uses ripped graphics and they will need to be took off future releases of the homebrew game if renamed.

Discuss this news here

Sadly the last example realy happend but at the time i cant remember anyone calling them lazy, talentless thiefs for stealing part's of a game and the game as well. And then there the unofficial sdk, while im no expert on what its compiled of i'll bet it contains libarys that could be be deemed commercial intellectual property (Microsoft shut down a xbox port of mame because it contained some xbox only libarys). The sad thing is if you ask for permission to use content such as old games not available via retail anymore or a game character (they can count as trademarks as well, and most spirte rips are right out). Intellectual property rights last a long time so stealing people's property from "original" work's should be frowned upon, but its not and as a consequence people make attempt to work on a port of some GBA emu and get praised for there work. As far i know GBA's are still a big seller commercialy, but here there's no opposition to making a GBA emu that will exclusively be used for playing "warez" for no good reason, also how often have you seen gba game's outselling psp game's. The one good thing you could say about umd iso's pirates is that they got a spine based on the fact they blatently just steal a game (well would they have brought a game they downloaded anyway,proberly not and that means no lost sales), unlike all the uber moral "Legal homebrewer's" who just steal content and claim it as there own almost.

Good topic by the way

[PSPdemon]

there is a diference between it........

some people choose to accept it....and some people choose to think of it as a cheap way out......

piracy has been the closing point for all console's....with homebrew that is.... and it just seem like people dont want to think of originality anymore or uniqueness qualities.... they just think that if they "improvise" on a already out game...it will be a hit.... but the thing is....."i have seen it, i have done it....and i want to do somthing new"

i paid homage to halo.....but at the same time i was crossing there ip....

we arnt all made to be perfect angles....we all have done somthing bad....we cant change the past....but we can change the future....

if we make umd emulation that doesnt do ISO's... and if we stop crossing the line with making games like "Starcraft Lua" and such where the sprites and tiles are all ripped from the accual games....we might get somewhere where people will stop...

its an idealest dream.....but its what i wish for...

this is why i am glad to be a part of dcemu.....they try to set a equal opporunity for everyone...and also make sure that nothing illegal or harmful to the scene is brought out...

also....dcemu has nice members who dont go flaming people and bring down coders who are trying there best at bring free games.....

Many things i have wondered....like "whats gonna happen to the homebrew scene" and "will the company's really close down homebrew scenes because of its actions to use loaders and illegal use of material?"

i know that i maybe just spitting out words and rambling on like an old man.... but i hate to see such great things go down because of illegal homebrew that promote illegal use...

anyway....

Thanks to Everyone
PSPdemon

( PS - its really late.....sorry for anything that doesnt make sense )

[ExcruciationX]

Very well written article, shadowprophet! It's not saying that the homebrew scene will die soon, it's just saying, that if we post the ISO version of Device Hook here, we could get shutdown.