Giri Giri free once again?

[Hawq]

Well its not quite that simple really or is it? it seems Sega only copyrighted up to last year, in a quote from an email:
'At this time, Sega no longer recognizes the GiriGiri emulator. The GiriGiri team author Shinya Miyamoto is the original Copyright holder of 2001. After he left the project and Sega took over, the emulator was short lived. Sega took over the copyrights up to 2003 and never renewed them after the theft of the unlock code to the commercial release and the project was canned.

Sega does not have any future plans for GiriGiri at this time, and as you point out, the recent take over of Sega, will not likely even consider emulation, as Sammy will be focusing on arcade systems.'
You can read the full mail at emufanatics here in light of this theres people working on reverse engineering it and making it open source, will this be the start of free & legal Saturn emulation with which you can play games? time will tell

[Hola]

I know this isnt really on topic but I know a coder that has done much reverse enginering to GiriGiri Comerical and added several new features.

The list includes

Video CD support(Now you can play Lunar weee)
2d Support ( Fix's 98% of all 2d games that GiriGiri had problems with )
Save state ( very buggy )
Auto Frame Skipping ( Makes games fun much smoother )
Optimization for Geforce 4 video cards.

Ohh and if you dont believe me I could post videos and/or pictures of these things.

[Saoshyant]

I think people would prefer a link to the cracked emu Hola than mere videos, but that's just me.

[Hola]

It would be illegal to post a link to a comerically avaliable emulator for download for free.

[Hawq]

Time is telling it seems and the emu sites are being slightly split, though the better ones recognise the dodgyness and aren't havin it up or posting about it. Emufabnatics have a large thread in their boards about it & even the forums of the people that have done the hack have a thread about it, though its full of glaring dodgyness, an extract from it:

This is Team Cassini's present disclaimer:
Legal Disclaimer:

1. You may not sell or in any way finacially profit from this project.

2. GiriGiri is no longer supported by Sega. It is considered "Abandonware". While Sega may no longer exist as it has been bought out by Sammy, and they did not renew their copyrights, and the laws are those of Japan, it is still unclear as to the actual legal condtions of GiriGiri. As such, to avoid potential legal issues, I have taken the project down a differnet path. Having changed over 40% of the code and at least 3 major features, this project is now known as "Cassini". Cassini is an exploritory probe of Saturn From here on the people working on this project will be referred to as: "Team Cassini"

3. You can not distribute any games, or bios with this emulator.

4. You must own a Sega Saturn to legally posses a Saturn BIOS. We do NOT distribute BIOSes UNDER ANY CONDITION, so please don't ask.....

5. At this time, all rights to this project are held by Team Cassini. However, as many people contributed to get it this far, and as much more help will be needed, anyone may contribute.

So right from the start they're on shaky ground as 'abandonware' doesnt exist & is just another name for warez, later on they also say:

Now, as to the claims of it being "just another illegal hack"...

1. Some of the sites launching complains about Cassini had no trouble hosting GiriGiri [hacked], so really, is this about your morality, or being biasly trendy?

2. Hacked... even the US congress can not yet agree entirely upon how to definatively declair what is or is not a "hack".
Many countries have no laws pertaining to computers or software.
To my knowledge, the original GiriGiri final commercial release (which is what is typicaly being refered to when used in conjunction with "GiriGiri Hack", was not itself modified. Rather, a loader was made that allows it to run without the "need" for a code.
Since the first law went into effect making it illegal for a person to gain entry to ones home by entering a door without permission, burglers used the window, as it was not technically illegal. (not saying it was moral mind you) Point being, a loader is itself, not considered illegal. That isn't to saying using GiriGiri without paying for it isn't illegal. Of course, have you tried to pay for GiriGiri lately? Of course not, you can't.

3. No, this is not an original work, and it is based heavily on GiriGiri, no doubt about it.
And, from that perspective, yes, it is a modification of GiriGiri.

So they admit its a hack of the commercial one, & apparantly try to refute it at the same time very odd, it all ends on this highly dubious tone:

So, article II, subsection 4, sub paragraph iii is what needs be looked at in detail.
My interpretation (and mind you I am no legal eagle, but it seems clear enough)
is that (if such laws apply to you) the release of a program that has 3 major changes and at least 30% of its code altered, and still give original credit, IS LEGAL.

So with that logic I can take the latest Spiderman game change the music & hack some gfx maybe add a new sound effect to the webs & its a legal new product. These people surely will get darwin awards at some point in the future

[Ghaleon_EME]

NO WAREZ REQUESTS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

[Alexvrb]

It's illegal. There's no question about it. It shouldn't be discussed. Asking for it is no better than asking for ROMs (or Saturn ISOs to feed this warez :).

[guymelef]

I found the whole article through a link on zophar.net it was concerning the new saturn emulator. you should still see it on the main news page for zophar.net. interesting stuff. and as far as legality goes. the zophar team is top notch when it comes to not overstepping it's boundaries. but they will never host the giri giri emu because of the legal concerns but have no problem hosting all the other emus no bios of course. if haven't check out zophar then you need to.

[quzar]

its not a new emulator. its a hack of girigiri. as far as im concerned, this is just as illegal as the first hacks of the commercial emulator. If they were reverse engineered hacks of the original free emulator then it might be ok, but this is just warez.

[curt_grymala]

[quote author=quzar link=board=off;num=1089220698;start=0#8 date=07/17/04 at 15:55:57]its not a new emulator. its a hack of girigiri. as far as im concerned, this is just as illegal as the first hacks of the commercial emulator. If they were reverse engineered hacks of the original free emulator then it might be ok, but this is just warez.[/quote]

I think that guymelef was referring to BlueCrab's emu when he said "new saturn emu". I may be wrong, but that's the way I read it.