MOTHER 2 (Earthbound) on Japanese Virtual Console March 20th

[Rob2600]

And that's what someone with ZERO knowledge about US copyright law would think. No offense, but "perfectly innocent homage" is perfectly ignorant of how such things work.

Am I really being lectured about copyright law by the guy selling NES and SNES reproduction cartridges on his web site?

[Ninja_with_ Glasses]

Am I really being lectured about copyright law by the guy selling NES and SNES reproduction cartridges on his web site?

That does seem to be the case.

[JSoup]

Am I really being lectured about copyright law by the guy selling NES and SNES reproduction cartridges on his web site?

If he is doing that and getting away with it, I'd think he'd be the perfect person to ask about it.

[rkotm]

You're underestimating how different our cultures are.

Japan doesn't take copyright law very seriously. They allow people to create derivative works and even sell it at conventions (Doujinshi, anyone?). Hell, Lupin the Third--one of Japan's longest-running franchises--is a walking CASE of copyright infringement, and this was why early attempts to export the character had to change his name.

And as has been stated, America is a very litigitious country. We try to sue restaurants for selling coffee hot, for chrissakes.

That being said, this so-called "music issue" sounds like B.S. to me too, and some comments I've heard/read from Nintendo regarding Earthbound make me concur with you--Nintendo just hates Earthbound and wants to bury it.

WoW, i had no idea they were so lax about it-It never occured to me about the doujin comics..
Side note, is the Earthbound box holding up okay? I still think about it from time to time, like an old car lol.
I'm going to look up Lupin the Third, sounds interesting. Also, i wonder if Japan even likes Mother series half as much as the west does..

[Aussie2B]

The people who obsess over each and every reference in Earthbound and the supposed legal issues that would result from them fail to realize that US-released games across the board are littered with references. If you want to talk specifically music, there are games that have blatantly ripped off other songs and others that sound very similar merely by coincidence, and yet no lawsuits resulted (and, yes, this includes games released within the last decade, if anybody thinks things were more lax when Earthbound was released on SNES). Or how about Working Designs releases? Their games were loaded with pop culture references, and I highly doubt they paid anybody for the right to include them.

But this is all ignoring the basic fact that replacing a song or editing a sprite would be very easy, so even if there were legal issues, there is NOTHING preventing Nintendo from addressing them and releasing the game if they so desired.

[Rob2600]

If he is doing that and getting away with it, I'd think he'd be the perfect person to ask about it.

I don't think this makes him the perfect person to ask about copyright laws:

"I know there are mixed feelings about reproduction carts, and if it's not your thing, then I hope you won't hold our decision to offer such things against us."

[Tupin]

Regardless, there are changes that have to be made to the game. Heck, they had to make changes to get it released here originally, whether it be getting rid of the implied spanking or changing the red cross on the hospital to a green one, since the Red Cross owns that.

Itoi is adamant about not changing anything, if I recall. He'd rather see it never released outside Japan again than change the things required.

[Aussie2B]

I'm not so convinced that Nintendo of America HAD to make the changes they did in order to release the game in the US, as opposed to the localizers merely thinking it would be a good idea to do so. According to the linked page, the crosses were removed entirely, and prior to this whole "Earthbound legally can't come out in the US" conspiracy nonsense of recent years, it was always regarded as just another instance of Nintendo self-censoring any and all instances of crosses so as not to get grief from religious groups (same kind of deal with the spanking; that wouldn't be a legal problem). Whether you look at games before Earthbound's release, around the same time, or after, red crosses have been used to indicate medical/health-related things in games countless times, without any legal problems resulting. The article the Earthbound Legal Issues page links to about the Red Cross going after game developers seems to suggest that any claims made weren't taken seriously in a court of law, and it seems to be more of an issue about the Red Cross worrying about violent games giving them a bad name than caring about every single instance of a red cross in a video game.

[Rob2600]

Exactly. Those links are merely fanboy speculation, not actual proof.

[JSoup]

I don't think this makes him the perfect person to ask about copyright laws:

"I know there are mixed feelings about reproduction carts, and if it's not your thing, then I hope you won't hold our decision to offer such things against us."

How a person personally feels about a law and how they abide by it are two different things. I have to assume that if his business is made around what is basically custom bootlegging and he's getting away with it, either he knows something we don't or the law just hasn't caught up with him yet.

You see this all the time working small conventions, a big portion of any given dealers room is going to be people who printed out or otherwise burned their stock in their living rooms and you're basically paying for the pretty packing.

[Leo_A]

Regardless, there are changes that have to be made to the game.

I wish people would stop saying things like this as if they were fact.

We're not privy to these details and Nintendo has never publically spoken about their reasons on why Earthbound never made it to the Virtual Console a few years back after being rated by the ESRB and even having a demo of it included on Animal Crossing in Japan.

[Edmond Dantes]

WoW, i had no idea they were so lax about it-It never occured to me about the doujin comics..
Side note, is the Earthbound box holding up okay? I still think about it from time to time, like an old car lol.
I'm going to look up Lupin the Third, sounds interesting. Also, i wonder if Japan even likes Mother series half as much as the west does..

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you--I for some reason have had bad cases of oversleeping.

Yes, the box is holding up fine. I want to get a box protector for it soon. And you might have heard somewhere that I now have an actual game to go with it. ^__^

Lupin the Third is awesome. It's about a professional thief and his allies... so kind of Ocean's Eleven/The Thomas Crown Affair, but far more whimsical and in serial format. The copyright issue comes in because Lupin the Third is a pretty unabashed fanfic/ripoff of the Arsene Lupin novels by Maurice LeBlanc, which at the time were not in the public domain (some of them are now, and can be found in English on Project Gutenberg... they're worth a read).

And yes, Japan LOVES Mother. All three games recently made it onto Famitsu's "Top 100 Games of All Time" lists, with Mother 2 and 3 especially ranking pretty high on said list. Mother 3 was also the first game in history to get all-perfects from that magazine, which is notoriously brutal.

[fahlim003]

And yes, Japan LOVES Mother. All three games recently made it onto Famitsu's "Top 100 Games of All Time" lists, with Mother 2 and 3 especially ranking pretty high on said list. Mother 3 was also the first game in history to get all-perfects from that magazine, which is notoriously brutal.

Got links? The most recent top 100 from Famitsu (that I could find) comes from March 2006, which is a month before Mother 3 was released. Additionally, only twenty games have gotten a perfect 40 and the first one was Ocarina of Time back in 1998 while Mother 3 is not one of the twenty listed. Mother 3 scored a 35: http://earthboundcentral.com/wp-cont...u04282006b.jpg
Unless you're talking about something else, I was slightly confused by your comments so feel free to correct if necessary.

As for Mother 2 being released on the Virtual Console, I say it's better than nothing. It'd be great if it somehow fueled a release of EarthBound but I'm not holding my breath.

[rkotm]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you--I for some reason have had bad cases of oversleeping.

Yes, the box is holding up fine. I want to get a box protector for it soon. And you might have heard somewhere that I now have an actual game to go with it. ^__^

Lupin the Third is awesome. It's about a professional thief and his allies... so kind of Ocean's Eleven/The Thomas Crown Affair, but far more whimsical and in serial format. The copyright issue comes in because Lupin the Third is a pretty unabashed fanfic/ripoff of the Arsene Lupin novels by Maurice LeBlanc, which at the time were not in the public domain (some of them are now, and can be found in English on Project Gutenberg... they're worth a read).

And yes, Japan LOVES Mother. All three games recently made it onto Famitsu's "Top 100 Games of All Time" lists, with Mother 2 and 3 especially ranking pretty high on said list. Mother 3 was also the first game in history to get all-perfects from that magazine, which is notoriously brutal.

It's cool man. that's great, is it like one of those plastic boxes that are see through?
And how much was EB? If i could buy it again, i'd pay 120 for it..Especially since it's my favorite game of all time. I saw some of Lupin, i love 80's anime. I'm thinking Itoi had a falling out with NOA during EB's American release, of course who knows, but i really wonder what the real story is, and if there are any about Nintendo..There isn't much inside info on the company, like how it works and stuff, unlike Atari or Sega, i dont know much about the company's behin the scenes stuff-like, was Nintendo doubting the Gamecube before it came out? It seems Nintendo was depressed at the time (a whole company depressed, it can happen)...Anyways sorry everybody for going waaaaaay off topic.

[Edmond Dantes]

It's cool man. that's great, is it like one of those plastic boxes that are see through?

That's what I had in mind, yes. Haven't bought one yet (not enough spare cash at the moment) but I'm being really protective in the meantime.

And how much was EB?

It wound up costing me $150. Shipped.

If i could buy it again, i'd pay 120 for it..Especially since it's my favorite game of all time. I saw some of Lupin, i love 80's anime.

80s and 1990s was best for anime, IMO. I look at the stuff out today and it all seems like just watered-down rehashes of the classics. Although unlike western animation, anime still offers decent stuff every once in awhile--such as the Devil May Cry anime.

[wiggyx]

Am I really being lectured about copyright law by the guy selling NES and SNES reproduction cartridges on his web site?

Yup, point?

I don't think this makes him the perfect person to ask about copyright laws:

"I know there are mixed feelings about reproduction carts, and if it's not your thing, then I hope you won't hold our decision to offer such things against us."

Of course you're assuming that my quoted comment has ANYTHING to do with the legality regarding repro carts.

How a person personally feels about a law and how they abide by it are two different things. I have to assume that if his business is made around what is basically custom bootlegging and he's getting away with it, either he knows something we don't or the law just hasn't caught up with him yet.

You see this all the time working small conventions, a big portion of any given dealers room is going to be people who printed out or otherwise burned their stock in their living rooms and you're basically paying for the pretty packing.

And in this case, the time and effort that goes into building the carts, designing labels/packaging, building packaging, etc.