~Bunbunmaru News~ > Letters to the Editor
Games that can't be found any more
?q:
The question got brought up a few months ago, but I'm not sure that it was solidly answered, so I'm putting it up here.
What are the rules around
*redistributing files that you do not own
*that were originally free to download (i.e. the creator never charged a price for them)
*where the creator's permission is difficult or impossible to get
?
The specific game I'm thinking of is Phantamagoria Trues but plenty of other examples of Old Stuff can be pulled out pretty easily. It's a good game, but nearly all of the download links on the Internet that other (perhaps less scrupulous, IDK) people have put up have rotted away. What do?
In the event that the answer in this particular case is "lol Len's not dead, stop being lazy" then
*let's talk about a different, more hypothetical game (for instance, one where the creator is unknown)
*if someone who knows how2Japanese can assist with asking Len to get a frigging web site for permission, then step right up, step right up, hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry; community service awaits
EDIT: It is not the intent of this post or thread to discuss piracy; yes if you're rehosting something that normally you're supposed to pay for then that's out of bounds; if this is in the same category let me know, feel free to lock, and please do not ban the poor hapless topic creator.
Karisa:
Just to add, this is currently relevant for more than one known fan game, though the situation is slightly different--
Both Suwapyon games were originally sold, then released for free, but then (about a year ago?) UTG Software's site disappeared.
helvetica:
If you can provide a reasonable defense (aka you did a little bit of homework) that it is no longer available publicly, I'm all for preservation and historical documentation so these can be preserved.
Basically if you can show more than just "oh I can't get it on Amazon.jp lol", that's fine. If you need storage or a permanent place to host it I'd be willing to keep it here too. This applies to any game, but we will respect any DMCA requests of course.
Demos don't need any approval from me or anyone tbh. Full versions I would ask to check with someone before posting, especially if they did sell physical (or digital I guess now, thanks Steam and stuff) copies at events or online at some point.
helvetica:
Realistically the anti piracy rules are not to prevent people from accessing these games. It's mostly out of respect of people's hard work and dedication, as the vast majority of the games we are here for are doujin/indie games which deserve all the support they can get.
I'm not unsympathetic to the fact that a lot of these games are very hard to obtain, and in a sense, the physical copies are seen as collector's items to show your support to your favorite circle. I personally would love to be able to talk to circles and other authors and discuss their actual stances on this, as I find the doujin community in general a fascinating labor of love.
That being said, I like to err on the side of caution and disallow direct links to games. If you can provide a reasonable enough defense, I'm all for permitting and even hosting doujin material that can't be obtained by any practical means.
The only obvious in my mind "duh don't link those" category of games are the main touhou games and stuff from major circles like tasofro. I personally have been easing up and calming down a lot on the hardcore "don't ask don't tell" policy about piracy and educating people rather than smacking them down in some righteous fury.
?q:
I guess the good news about Danmakufu stuff is that the only program I know of that was sold for money was Concealed the Conclusion.
Two things follow from this.
*Given the language barrier, is there anyone who can act as a semi-official liaison between MotK and <insert doujin content creator here>? Like, with my example, I'd ask Len myself, but I don't know how to reach them and I don't know how to pitch the request in a mutually understood language.
*Taking your stance to its logical conclusion, would it be a good idea to keep up a continuously updated wall o' doujin programs? Something with entries like
**Game: Phantasmagoria Trues
**Creator: Len_dnh
**Environment: Touhou Danmakufu v0.12m, distributed separately [or "stand-alone, requires DirectX 17" or whatever]
**For Sale: No (free to distribute)
**Link: <link to creator blog, or to some retail site, or "out of print to our knowledge - MotK-hosted link">
and this would steadily update as people found new games. If we really wanted to expand in this direction, we could start reaching out to TH doujin music artists, or ideally develop a reputation among the content creators for being a reputable English-language mirror to the extent that we can start asking questions like "under what circumstances would you permit us to host this program; e.g. if your blog goes down for 60 days". It would be a huge undertaking but becoming the de facto bridge for fanworks would be an interesting direction for the site to take.
...but if you don't want to go there, the more immediate question of "what do I tell people who tell me that the P.Trues download link is broken" remains, so etc.