Unlicensed/Unauthorized games?

[the7k]

Just wanting to know the rules of the game, is all.

Is there any hard and fast rule about unlicensed/unauthorized games? Games like Somari, Bubble Bath Babes, Final Fantasy VII Famicom and Kart Fighter, while hard to get a hold of, were all actually produced at some point or another.

I'd think that these games are just as deserving of covers as games like Half-Life and Propeller Arena, but I'll wait for an official response before I needlessly waste my time.

[Akumu]

seeing that the games are on produced carts and all, i don't see why we couldn't make covers for them, i got a few chinese pirate carts myself. I'd say as long as they are original games instead of some easy sprite hack they should be fine.

[Doom]

Sorry about the delay. We have decided that covers for games that were not officially released cannot be supported. So if a cover for Half-Life (DC) were to be uploaded today, it would not be put on the site, regardless of quality. When Snowcone gets a chance, all covers for games that were never released will be removed from the site.

[UncleBob]

For what it's worth - I'd like to see any covers currently uploaded to stay.  It seems kinda cruddy for anyone who might have went through the effort to create and upload a cover to have it removed based on a policy determined after the work has been completed.

Just as the lower-quality covers are "grandfathered" in (until higher quality replacements are uploaded), it'd be nice if these types of covers that are all ready up were grandfathered in as well.

Just one man's opinion, of course...

[Doom]

Read my post a little more carefully.

[MisterCreazil]

why was the decision made to not support unofficially released game covers?

[Doom]

It wasn't talked about much, but we all knew the reason: (I brought it up) To distance ourselves from supporting piracy/homebrew. The Cover Project does not endorse any illegal actions, homebrew included.

[AppleQueso]

so basically, the reasoning is not-exactly-unwarranted paranoia?

Eh, I can live with that. We can still put links to unauthorized covers in our sigs, right?

[Doom]

The Cover Project does not endorse any illegal actions.

[AppleQueso]

The Cover Project does not endorse any illegal actions.

Haha I know, I know. I see the link too y'know.

[MisterCreazil]

homebrew is illegal?

[Doom]

homebrew is illegal?

In most cases, yes. Especially the kind of homebrew that had covers for them hosted here. Half-Life DC, for example, would be the usual copyright infringement and then probably stuff involved with trade secrets because it was leaked. Maybe we could get by saying that it's just concept art or something, but I'm not sure how much money Snowcone would want to spend on a lawyer willing to fight a large company. It's not worth it.

I hate "the man" as much as anyone else, but I'd hate to lose TCP, and this decreases the likelihood of it happening. If we leave it at that and stop talking about how awesome the covers for the homebrew stuff is, we'll be better off.

[MisterCreazil]

They'd probably just send a cease and desist if they had a problem with it, no big deal, I don't really know what you're scared of seeing as nothing has happened yet.  It all sounds overly cautious to me.  Anyways it's not my site so I won't say anymore on the matter.

[shenske]

homebrew is illegal?

Many times yes, most homebrew games you unauthorized sprites from other games.  Sprites could be of the main characters, the antogonists, backgrounds, items etc.  Its just best not to push it and keep the site going 

Doom's thread he started in the general discussion will be easy to navigate and download the covers.

[Doom]

They'd probably just send a cease and desist if they had a problem with it, no big deal, I don't really know what you're scared of seeing as nothing has happened yet.  It all sounds overly cautious to me.  Anyways it's not my site so I won't say anymore on the matter.

If they send a C&D, it'd probably be for all covers related to their company. But if they never see those types of covers in the first place, a C&D might never get sent.

It is very paranoid. I thought that was obvious.