this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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And the subsequent C&Ds/lawsuits to the idiots who are "forking" the tainted codebase will do an even better job of explaining "you fuck with Nintendo and we will literally own you for the rest of your life"
That also assumes the various projects have competent developers (unlikely since anyone with the technical ability knows why you don't touch this code) and isn't just a way to rush in some crypto miners and spyware to people who are mad they can't have yuzu.
What I don't understand is why developers ever put their names to projects like this. Create the project and distribute it via peer to peer
Because this is generally hundreds, if not thousands, of ~~years~~ hours of their life.
Part of it is wanting to get some degree of recognition for that. Part of it is that this is very much part of their portfolio for future jobs searches.
@NuXCOM_90Percent @PopOfAfrica both recognition and showing the project in a portfolio and even receiving donations are more that possible using an alias. I don't see any point at all in exposing yourself like that, specially when emulators are legal and your only threat, a single company with way too many lawyers, can be almost completely avoided by not saying the name on your ID and where are you currently living
Yes. I am sure someone could set up multiple shell corporations in different countries and receive all their money in crypto that goes through multiple tumblers. Sure. Regardless, this is not the board to really argue about people being compensated for their labor.
But I will say this. If a person I am interviewing talks about how they can show me the code they have worked on in their spare time but that I cannot ever tell anyone that they wrote it and it is on a different github account and blah blah blah: I am noping the fuck out of that conversation before I need to ask HR what my obligation is to report criminal activity.
@NuXCOM_90Percent WOW you didn't read my comment at all. First of all, you are exaggerating the level of secrecy needed for getting money here. Nintendo isn't gonna get the fucking FBI to search for where does the money end (and that's assuming you're from USA, good luck finding out where I'm from), so using any cripto currency and a crypto mixer should be enough. As long as you don't move obscene amounts of money (which you won't get from this alone), you should be good by just being officially a freelancer on your country.
And, again, EMULATION IS LEGAL, AND LITERALLY NO ONE CARES EXCEPT NINTENDO. If you go to a company and show you're the developer of a successful piece of FOSS, they will literally just don't give a shit how your account is named or if nintendo likes it or not. If you can't understand that emulation is legal just keep shouting to a wall.
So... because this is 100% legal, people should... hide their name and run shell companies?
Because patreon tends to give a shit who they are mailing the check to.They won't just leave it taped to a wall outside the local Denny's and not ask questions about who picks it up. Shell companies can help with obfuscating that.
Relying on crypto DRASTICALLY reduces the likelihood people will make any donations to you. And is still incredibly easy to track, even through tumblers (there is a reason graph algorithms are such a hot topic and it isn't just twitter).
Because, you are right: Emulation is legal (if you thread the needle). Which is why people who spend thousands of hours writing cool software put their name on it. Rather than jump through all these hoops and make themselves look like criminals.
@NuXCOM_90Percent dude it's not rocket science...
- The activity is LEGAL, so your country (actual law enforcement) probably won't actively search for you.
- Even if it's legal, Nintendo still doesn't like it, and they have enough money to extend every single legal process and crush you on debt unless you stop like yuzu (which will be pricey anyway).
- Now, if you add 1 and 1, you'll see Nintendo can't rely on any government's collaboration in order to search for the devs, but the game is over the moment they know your name. Hiding your name for your country is really hard, but from a japanese videogame company? Just do not tell them your name.
I never talked about the likelihood of getting money, i know less people donate that way, but I was just talking about the possibility. Shell companies are also traceable, if you put it that way, but it's more complicated and costly to set up, and you'll look even more suspicious in your government's eyes; which are the most relevant here. I can justify to both my government and a company wanting to hire me the fact I'm developing free software but i prefer to take the donations money anonymously for whatever reasons; no one cares really as long as I'm declaring the earnings and paying my taxes. Same using shell companies, but you said it yourself, why would anyone do that? Sure you can trace money through crypto, but small amounts of money not reported to be stolen or a scam isn't gonna get you caught.
And yes i ultimately would agree people deserve being credited for their good work, but in this scenario i don't think it's worth it. Blame nintendo for this one, they're the ones abusing copyright laws to kill cool projects just for extra pennies. If, hypothetically, you had the resources to put up sith their crap, then by all means develop an emulator and make your name very public. Every time they lose in court it a point to the rest of us.