64 replies to this topic

[duplu]

I was reading a post from madman here where he talks about the distribution of layouts via bittorrent.

Although I don't think its a good idea for distributing new layouts I think it has merits for new users wanting to download all of the FME stuff currently available. These amount to about 3Gb of data on the server at the moment which would take a newbie quite a while to download, mainly because they would have to go individually to each download in the downloads section and click the 'Download Now' button.

So my idea is to package all the currnet layouts (no emulators though) up into a .tar.gz file which WINZIP can unzip. This would then sit on the FE server which can also seed the download (I've got BT server running on the server at the moment).

I can then release service packs with the updated layouts at regular intervals (say 3 monthly) with links to FE so if people get it from somewhere else they know where to come for updates.

What do people think, I'm in the early thinking stages at the moment, so I'm open to suggestions?

[ady]

Fantastic idea....

nowt more to say....

[diceman1]

sounds like a very good idea

well done 8)

[mjj]

I think you've got to go a bit carefully here, and ascertain whether the creators of the layouts are in agreement with the idea, I've got to admit that I wouldn't be happy to have any of mine added to a bittorrent distribution or any other P2P type of file sharing.

I think an idea would be to ask the opinions of layout creators at Fruit Forums and the Mecca as well, only including those who don't mind the idea, but for my own I'll say please leave them out.

[M1Adness]

The issues would have to be considered in detail, particularly that of mass distribution of roms in a single download, something that FME has always tried to steer clear of due to the possible implications this could have with a manufacturer. As you would be hosting and providing the download this may have direct implications for you. Unfortunately P2P/BT type sharing has a stigma attached to it, that of it basically being a vehicle for mass piracy. It is difficult to predict how manufacturers may react to this. Generally, rom distribution sites have been working with the condition that you own the original machine or will delete it from your system within 24 hours. It is hard to see how a 3Gb download of hundreds of roms would fit in with this and it could be seen as a step too far. At the moment roms are available individually and fruit-emu is most likely seen as offering a service - it is then up to the individual to make their own personal decision as to whether to download lots of them at once, and they assume the legal risk in having them on their systems. However packaging hundreds together is another thing completely, as you are providing the means for mass distribution outside of the "unwritten gentlemens agreement" that emulation appears to have with manufacturers (speaking about emulation generally) and the downloaders have no choice regarding how many of the roms they receive in the package, they basically get everything or nothing. It's a difficult area to be honest.

As far as M1Adness is concerned we always request that roms are not packaged with our layouts but are available as separate downloads. We have no problem with our layouts being distributed on compilation CD's as long as the CD's are not sold for any monetary value, whether that value is profit or not - i.e. distribution has to be free. This proposal is another type of compilation though, and due consideration would have to be given before saying yes or no at this stage. The thing that is of most concern is as already commented on earlier, the reputation that file sharing has in terms of it's often illegally distributed content and whether by having our work as part of the package we are being seen to be condoning mass large package distribution of copyright material.

We will watch the discussion with interest.

[mjj]

You sum my thoughts up perfectly RF, for me, peer to peer sharing is an absolute anathema, it's something that I don't want any involvement in whatsoever, I'd personally rather see all my layouts removed completely than have them included in any type of P2P file sharing!

[ady]

You sum my thoughts up perfectly RF, for me, peer to peer sharing is an absolute anathema, it's something that I don't want any involvement in whatsoever, I'd personally rather see all my layouts removed completely than have them included in any type of P2P file sharing!

Yet they are on ebay right now?............Being sold. This reply isn't an arguement from me just a reply to this, what have you done to stop your layouts being included on there?...If you feel there is such an issue with you wanting them withdrawn surely you would have addressed that by now.

I create mine for the enjoyment of everybody, personally I don't give a toss if it's P2P'ed, as long as is stated by m1adness it isn't for a monetary value and lay's within the 'Emulation' laws......

[mjj]

You sum my thoughts up perfectly RF' date=' for me, peer to peer sharing is an absolute anathema, it's something that I don't want any involvement in whatsoever, I'd personally rather see all my layouts removed completely than have them included in any type of P2P file sharing![/quote']

Yet they are on ebay right now?............Being sold. This reply isn't an arguement from me just a reply to this, what have you done to stop your layouts being included on there?...If you feel there is such an issue with you wanting them withdrawn surely you would have addressed that by now.

I create mine for the enjoyment of everybody, personally I don't give a toss if it's P2P'ed, as long as is stated by m1adness it isn't for a monetary value and lay's within the 'Emulation' laws......

No doubt they are also being sold at car boot sales, computer fairs etc, that will always go on, no, I don't like it any more than anyone else.

Peer to peer sharing is something very different though, as M1adness says, it's the seedier side of the internet, it's a world of software theft, of pirated DVD's and CD's, and it's one which I don't subscribe to.

This has to be down to choice at the end of the day, if you're happy to have layouts included in a P2P sharing scheme, fine, but not everyone will be, and their wishes must be respected.

[handsome_rob]

You sum my thoughts up perfectly RF' date=' for me, peer to peer sharing is an absolute anathema, it's something that I don't want any involvement in whatsoever, I'd personally rather see all my layouts removed completely than have them included in any type of P2P file sharing![/quote']

Yet they are on ebay right now?............Being sold. This reply isn't an arguement from me just a reply to this, what have you done to stop your layouts being included on there?...If you feel there is such an issue with you wanting them withdrawn surely you would have addressed that by now.

I create mine for the enjoyment of everybody, personally I don't give a toss if it's P2P'ed, as long as is stated by m1adness it isn't for a monetary value and lay's within the 'Emulation' laws......

:roll:

Do you have any idea what implications this can have for the scene? or is that a 10 second decision made with no knowledge at all?

Let me give you a little wee history lesson.

Chris Wren wrote an emulator and sold it bundled with 3 roms.
He was threatened with legal action from the first moment of Barcrest gaining knowledge of it.

I tried to strike up a friendship with QPS, it was going nicely until the owner of QPS (gaussleman group) met up with QPS to discuss it.
I found myself on speakerphone with some of the most influential and powerful buisnessmen in europe and was told, and I quote "No, we don't want you touching our machines, nor do we want to see any of our machines emulated. to ignore this could result in legal action, you must remember that *any* intellectual property of QPS meaning roms, artwork and sound are strictly copyright".

The there was the car boot sale fiasco.
One of Barcrest's high end employees was at a car boot sale and discovered people selling CDS loaded with emulators and roms, and in one layout in particular a barcrest employee's name was mentioned.
He was instantly dismissed.

There have also been numerous rom floods that have made the companies close down their bulletin boards to prevent US from using THEIR matierials.

Pier to Pier networks are all over the news, they are a known for being black spots of the internet, AND if Barcrest get a whiff that they are now with Sony and other companies in the "hey look we're being screwed" gang this site will close within 24 hours.

Why risk it?
I mean, all it would take is *one* email to duplu from barcrest and this site would be gone within 24 hours.

You're talking about opening pandoras box man, Id leave well alone and hope we get the same in return.

[handsome_rob]

by the way, you do realise that MFME and JPEMU are also copyright and anyone that is reported to ebay *by* the copyright holders get their account terminated?

[handsome_rob]

THIS WAS ORIGINALLY my post/idea.not the file sharing part..which has been said before..but using bittorrent,which is NOT p2p........

Yes, it is.
Anything that connects computers directly together is peer to peer.

infact its the furthest thing away from peer to peer .

Nope, its not.
Infact, it's the seeders and servers that allow people to connect that break the law.

virus free..confirmed files.. big corprate company,s now use bt as a downloading tool....even streamed radio stations use bittorrent as a medium of mass distribution....

I have had plenty of broken rar files from torrent, and I've heard that some have viruses.
They are alot better than kazaa and others, of course, but for all you know you could be downloading a nuclear bomb of program.

as far as roms go.........split the the two zip files.one roms..other layouts...

Any kind of mass distribution or 'flood' causes problems.
Why be greedy? I mean, I've been around the FME scene from day one and the most I have ever had in layouts was about 800mb.

layouts are another minefield.........ARE THEY OURS TO SAY who has permission to let them be released....

ROFL, yes, they are.
Dat and Jel files are copyright to the author, the content is irrelevant.
It's complicated alright, but the creator of the DAT file is the *dat file's* owner and the same for JEL files.
How else can you stop people selling them on ebay
Dats and Jels were made copyright to their creators when the emulators were also made copyright, and that goes for GAM files too.

M1 madness....most if not all artwork is sourced from flyers/photo,s...
i appreciate the work that goes into these layouts....( I HAVE DONE 2 layouts THEY BEEN FROM SCRATCH>>>AND HAVE 2 UNRELEASED..clubbers which are not finished yet...but from scratch...
but the artwork and images used are not yours...........

As I said above, that is immatierial.
There is still plenty of copyright matierial IN the layouts to make them the property of the creator.
As an example, X and Y axis positions that were laid out by the designer, meter settings and pretty much anything that doesnt have © on it.
That also includes hand drawn artwork and reel symbols.

if your chosen machines/brand/company suddenly turned round and said...this is ilegal use of rom sets and copyright and went down the route of another certain fruity company...u would be f***ed......

The roms are irrelevant.
All you would need to do is release layouts WITHOUT the roms.

next thing your layouts would go underground............

No, next thing people just wouldnt release them, no release, no problem surely?

the 3 year rule is not covering you either...look at the retro scene at the mo.....

The three year rule doesnt cover 'anything' it is merely a emulator coders intention NOT to piss of fruit machine manufacturers and so that's how it is, you feel like breaking the rule? you'll only screw yourself.

amiga/nes liscenses are being snapped up.gameboys packaged with 20 year old games are asll the go.......once the fruity companys realise how much interest there is how long av we got................

Well seeing as FME has been around for 3 years and has over 20,000 viewers I think you'll find that there's plenty of interest, always has and always will be.
Also, you will find that FM companies are *so* totally anti FME that they would never EVER consider selling their roms or creating an emu to sell because it would go against everything they believe in.

i say....get them out there into the bt comunity.they all ready on kazza and imesh.not one big file.but they there anyway.........

Well the 2 layouts you've made are your decision.
The over 90 that I have publically released are mine, and I dont want them as a part of a mass flood.
Maybe it's my intuition, maybe it's because I know of the damage it does.
Ever wondered why JPM impact roms are impossible to get now, or why the emulator that runs them is pretty much forgotten about?
That would be because some smart alec with the 'get them out there' attitude flooded them all out and JPM then completely closed their BBS and make owners pay 25 quid per set for updated EProms.
Cool huh?

i know for a fact....in 1 week ... the lot is getting posted on bt forum in 2 files....and pinmame tables and roms also....................

Good for you.
If my work turns up in there I'll seek further action.
Your attitude smacks of greed.

That goes for anyone thinking of using my creations as part of a flood, I do *not* give my permission for my copyright DAT files to be a part of it.

[ady]

Thanks for the explaining guy's....ok I admit I still think the idea is great but i'm now looking on the other side of the fence now considering the possible implications.

PS lets try not to dig each other too much hu....I remember a post on PR not too long ago about 'the under the table boys' and all hell broke loose...

[Zoltar]

One point we are missing here is those disks that appear on eBay and car boot sales ect... The scene has no control over these things and the scene as a whole condemn these actions. Offering the files in bulk ourselves, well, we have a choice. We made the decision. I would think in the eyes of any manufacturers that we as a scene actually condone this type of mass rom/layout distribution.

This may be the only reason that the manufacturers haven't become heavy handed with the scene as we cannot control the sales on eBay and boot sales.

Offering large zipped files ourselves could well be the the push the manufacturers need in order to gain momentum to shut the lot of us down. As much as I'd love to see my layouts spread across the world, I have to admit that unless it's obtained by legitimate means from and through the scene, or from me via my webspace or email, then I fear I may become a statistic on the manufacturers listing of 'Evidence to close down the FME scene'. I wouldn't be very comfortable knowing my offerings (as few as they are) could contribute to the end of the FME Scene.

Compost

[hurtand165]

i remember seeing a 60-70 mb zip on suprnova a while ago that had fme layouts and roms, it turned out to be mostly pooks stuff.


personally i am not sure yet if i want my layouts added to a bt release, as soon as one person downloads the file it can be slightly altered with viruses and it could make this site and the scene look bad.

i would hate my files to be the ones that are infected.


hurtand165

[Geddy]

Yes, it is.
Anything that connects computers directly together is peer to peer.

Not really... so is connecting to the internet P2P?

Nope, its not.
Infact, it's the seeders and servers that allow people to connect that break the law.

Nope wrong again, infact just yesterday in New York (IIRC) the courts ruled in favour of the P2P filesharing companies. Oh yes.

Any kind of mass distribution or 'flood' causes problems.
Why be greedy? I mean, I've been around the FME scene from day one and the most I have ever had in layouts was about 800mb.

Sorry but I cannot see how that is the case. All forms of emulation use floods to pass files around and all forms of emulation use copyrighted material as with FME. FME is NOT unique in that respect no matter what you say.

layouts are another minefield.........ARE THEY OURS TO SAY who has permission to let them be released....

ROFL, yes, they are.
Dat and Jel files are copyright to the author, the content is irrelevant.
It's complicated alright, but the creator of the DAT file is the *dat file's* owner and the same for JEL files.
How else can you stop people selling them on ebay
Dats and Jels were made copyright to their creators when the emulators were also made copyright, and that goes for GAM files too.

Your grasp of the laws of copyright are amazing. Do you have any proof to back up this opinion?

M1 madness....most if not all artwork is sourced from flyers/photo,s...
i appreciate the work that goes into these layouts....( I HAVE DONE 2 layouts THEY BEEN FROM SCRATCH>>>AND HAVE 2 UNRELEASED..clubbers which are not finished yet...but from scratch...
but the artwork and images used are not yours...........

As I said above, that is immatierial.
There is still plenty of copyright matierial IN the layouts to make them the property of the creator.
As an example, X and Y axis positions that were laid out by the designer, meter settings and pretty much anything that doesnt have © on it.
That also includes hand drawn artwork and reel symbols.

See above

the 3 year rule is not covering you either...look at the retro scene at the mo.....

The three year rule doesnt cover 'anything' it is merely a emulator coders intention NOT to piss of fruit machine manufacturers and so that's how it is, you feel like breaking the rule? you'll only screw yourself.

The 3 year rule as has been proved on numerous occasions is a bag of shite. How many FM makers have contacted the various sites etc when machines like Tomb Raider, Wildthing or any other numerous machines have been released? Would a guess of NONE be accurate?

amiga/nes liscenses are being snapped up.gameboys packaged with 20 year old games are asll the go.......once the fruity companys realise how much interest there is how long av we got................

Well seeing as FME has been around for 3 years and has over 20,000 viewers I think you'll find that there's plenty of interest, always has and always will be.
Also, you will find that FM companies are *so* totally anti FME that they would never EVER consider selling their roms or creating an emu to sell because it would go against everything they believe in.

And you know this how?

i say....get them out there into the bt comunity.they all ready on kazza and imesh.not one big file.but they there anyway.........

Maybe it's my intuition, maybe it's because I know of the damage it does.
Ever wondered why JPM impact roms are impossible to get now, or why the emulator that runs them is pretty much forgotten about?
That would be because some smart alec with the 'get them out there' attitude flooded them all out and JPM then completely closed their BBS and make owners pay 25 quid per set for updated EProms.
Cool huh?

Again no proof to back up your points. How many FME mambers had access to these BBS? All the emu coders are worried about (and I have this first hand from one of them) is theat THEIR own supply of roms etc are drying up. They are pissed because they cannot get stuff for themselves, they are not bothered about the scene in a whole.

i know for a fact....in 1 week ... the lot is getting posted on bt forum in 2 files....and pinmame tables and roms also....................

Good for you.
If my work turns up in there I'll seek further action.
Your attitude smacks of greed.

Okay I tell you what over the next week or so I will flood the usenet groups with every released FME layout and rom. What will this 'further action' consist of? By releasing one layout or rom to the public is just as bad as releasing 1000s as far as copyright is concerned. But go ahead 'rob' if you want to bring down all FME sites and I mean ALL then you go reporting folks for the actions you say because it WILL result in all sites being terminated I can guarentee you that.

That goes for anyone thinking of using my creations as part of a flood, I do *not* give my permission for my copyright DAT files to be a part of it.

Can you show me the papers from the courts that show you to be the copyright owner of said material?

[megabitch]

MANBEAST once said ....

Get over it - emulation has an illegal aspect to it no matter how you justify it to yourself (the emphasis is ours)."




Sorry, but when read something like :

I do *not* give my permission for my copyright DAT files to be a part of it.

.... 8O
If you're cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?

[marcosource]

I really like this site to continue.
I found on ebay a guy /from edingburgh / selling some usal crap info
about emtying fruities.together with a cd with emulators and roms /layouts.
I wonder who is the owner of the layouts...

Item nunmber 6114181399