Your movie commentary track works without the movie. Considering the amount of Youtube react vids, it seems legal to do that for money.
Your emulator might be legal, the ROMs for them aren’t. Because one is recreating some functionality with different means, the other is an infringement of a developer’s copyright.
As far as the ROM patch fixes go … yes, selling those is technically not allowed. You can ask for donations, but the patch itself must be freely distributed. Sometimes there is no rights holder left, or they don’t care to pursue the case, but they are in their right to challenge paid patches if they wanted to.
This mod, though, is a product that provides a new experience (Cyberpunk VR) by using someone else’s work. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1 yearly subscription, you must pay to get it, so it’s legally a commercial product. And that product relies on other people’s work to deliver its advertised experience, which makes it illegal in the vast majority of courts in this world.
Specifically, this mod is not universal, it only works on Cyberpunk and its functionality is directly related to that game. If it worked on all games, you could call it a VR emulator, but it doesn’t, so you can’t.
Considering the amount of Youtube react vids, it seems legal to do that for money.
Actually if anything those are illegal considering they usually contain the entire video with some moron’s face in the corner. You could argue that they fall under fair use for criticism and analysis, though I don’t think you’d be able to do so successfully given the amount of original content included and the insubstantial nature of the commentary. Its more like these videos usually copy work from creators that don’t have the resources to put up a fight.
Your emulator might be legal, the ROMs for them aren’t.
Yeah, that’s what I just said.
As far as the ROM patch fixes go … yes, selling those is technically not allowed. You can ask for donations, but the patch itself must be freely distributed.
I’m really sorry to tell you this but IP law doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about whether or not you’re making money from something. It might aggravate a company’s lawyers into action more readily than if you are not, but a company is fully within their rights to shut you down whether you’re violating IP law to make money or if you’re doing it to help underprivileged kids with cancer.
And that product relies on other people’s work to deliver its advertised experience
Copyright laws, as the name suggests, govern who has the right to make copies of a particular piece of IP. If you are not making and distributing copies of something in some way then copyright law doesn’t apply.
You are effectively arguing that I shouldn’t be able to make and distribute lists of songs I think are good to listen to together unless I get the permission of all the song creators. That is ridiculous.
If companies are able to exert legal control over anything that relies on their IP to function, not just copies of their IP, the implications would be far reaching and disastrous. For one, custom phone ROMs, even completely original ones, are usually specific to specific models of phone because they rely on interfacing with firmware that is different from phone to phone. Currently it is legal for consumers to modify phones they own (which is something that had to be fought for, by the way), but under that standard a manufacturer could DMCA ROM developers. Nvidia would be able to DMCA the developers of the Nouveau driver since it relies on their GPU firmware in order to function.
Something everyone here needs to understand is that law in general, but IP law especially, is not a set of platonic ideals handed down by god. It’s very very fuzzy and what flies and what doesn’t relies heavily on precedent. There are things that were common practice in the 1960s that would get you sued now even though the law hasn’t changed. Companies constantly try to push to expand the scope of their control while consumers try to push back. Yes I know “I like free mods, I like wholesome CD Projekt because they ran GOG, I think this is a good thing”, but you need to think of the broader implications of things like this. I don’t give a shit about this specific developer or whether they “deserve” to charge for their mod or whatever, the precedent that game companies are able to exert legal control over, and set standards for, mods of their game is very very bad. Even if you think daddy CD Projekt would be a good steward I can assure you other companies would not be.
Arguably …
Your movie commentary track works without the movie. Considering the amount of Youtube react vids, it seems legal to do that for money.
Your emulator might be legal, the ROMs for them aren’t. Because one is recreating some functionality with different means, the other is an infringement of a developer’s copyright.
As far as the ROM patch fixes go … yes, selling those is technically not allowed. You can ask for donations, but the patch itself must be freely distributed. Sometimes there is no rights holder left, or they don’t care to pursue the case, but they are in their right to challenge paid patches if they wanted to.
This mod, though, is a product that provides a new experience (Cyberpunk VR) by using someone else’s work. It doesn’t matter if it’s a $1 yearly subscription, you must pay to get it, so it’s legally a commercial product. And that product relies on other people’s work to deliver its advertised experience, which makes it illegal in the vast majority of courts in this world.
Specifically, this mod is not universal, it only works on Cyberpunk and its functionality is directly related to that game. If it worked on all games, you could call it a VR emulator, but it doesn’t, so you can’t.
Actually if anything those are illegal considering they usually contain the entire video with some moron’s face in the corner. You could argue that they fall under fair use for criticism and analysis, though I don’t think you’d be able to do so successfully given the amount of original content included and the insubstantial nature of the commentary. Its more like these videos usually copy work from creators that don’t have the resources to put up a fight.
Yeah, that’s what I just said.
I’m really sorry to tell you this but IP law doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about whether or not you’re making money from something. It might aggravate a company’s lawyers into action more readily than if you are not, but a company is fully within their rights to shut you down whether you’re violating IP law to make money or if you’re doing it to help underprivileged kids with cancer.
Copyright laws, as the name suggests, govern who has the right to make copies of a particular piece of IP. If you are not making and distributing copies of something in some way then copyright law doesn’t apply.
You are effectively arguing that I shouldn’t be able to make and distribute lists of songs I think are good to listen to together unless I get the permission of all the song creators. That is ridiculous.
If companies are able to exert legal control over anything that relies on their IP to function, not just copies of their IP, the implications would be far reaching and disastrous. For one, custom phone ROMs, even completely original ones, are usually specific to specific models of phone because they rely on interfacing with firmware that is different from phone to phone. Currently it is legal for consumers to modify phones they own (which is something that had to be fought for, by the way), but under that standard a manufacturer could DMCA ROM developers. Nvidia would be able to DMCA the developers of the Nouveau driver since it relies on their GPU firmware in order to function.
Something everyone here needs to understand is that law in general, but IP law especially, is not a set of platonic ideals handed down by god. It’s very very fuzzy and what flies and what doesn’t relies heavily on precedent. There are things that were common practice in the 1960s that would get you sued now even though the law hasn’t changed. Companies constantly try to push to expand the scope of their control while consumers try to push back. Yes I know “I like free mods, I like wholesome CD Projekt because they ran GOG, I think this is a good thing”, but you need to think of the broader implications of things like this. I don’t give a shit about this specific developer or whether they “deserve” to charge for their mod or whatever, the precedent that game companies are able to exert legal control over, and set standards for, mods of their game is very very bad. Even if you think daddy CD Projekt would be a good steward I can assure you other companies would not be.