What's The Point (of Homebrew)?

I just saw a topic that involved wads get removed by the admin. Doesn't the whole idea behind Homebrew revolve around piracy? I see a bunch of topics involving emulation...isn't that piracy?

I don't understand the whole Puritan approach. I guarantee that anyone who has Homebrew on their Wii has at least one pirated IP. The Wii isn't even a authorized DVD player so technically even playing movies on it is illegal. Before you can even go online through the Wii don't you have to agree that you won't use any pirated software?

So though the rules of this site everyone must only download original Homebrew games, or games ported with with express permission. All of which have completely original music, characters and themes. Who in their right mind would go through the trouble of putting Homebrew on their Wii only to play crappy games like Bubble Pop and pointless time waisting apps like Wii Physics?

Don't get me wrong I love having HB on my Wii. To me it's the same as downloading music and movies. I know it's wrong, there's no way I can justify doing it, buy yet I do it anyway. Buy hey, it's free. And at least I'm not lying to myself by saying it's 'legal'.

Wow. Thats pretty harsh. Where on earth did you get the idea that homebrew is illegal, and why would you even think it is?lots of people who use homebrew only use it for piracy, but not everyone. I don't know about everyone else, but i have never pirated any game. I really,really wanted to download the WAD for SSB1, but i didn't, because its illegal. i'l just have to wait for it to come to america.

You also say that homebrew is pointless. i can list lots of things about homebrew that are useful, fun, and perfectly legal.
Here are a few:

1.) Gecko os. it is an awesome application. you can apply codes to games and channels, and you can boot import games, too. if i could only use one app, this is the one i would pick

2.)Mplayer CE. You can play music and watch movies with this app. What else is there to say? And please explain to me why this is illegal. i would love to know. :)

3.)harmonium. i personally like this app. i can't exactly describe why, except that its fun.

4.) Wiiero. this game is incredible!! sure, the graphics aren't great, but its a lot of fun to play with a friend. i suggest going to download it right now.

5.)Jump'n'bump. this is another good game to play with a friend. 8 player support!!

6.)Super mario war.

These are just a few of many great applications. I suggest them all.

Again, i would really like to know why you think its illegal. please explain why in detail. :D

The point of homebrew is to allow programmers who want to develop something for the wii to have the chance. Looking at it from a programmers point of view, I would honestly LOVE to program something for the wii, I just am too lazy to learn C++ on my own, even though I already know about 1/3 of it. :P

Frankly, as much as I love nintendo, the fact that they make it impossible for people to program for the wii without having a company of X size, Y wealth, and Z experience created the need for the homebrew channel.

As far as everyone having Pirated homebrew... Would using WiiSX to play FF7 which I ripped off of my own PSX CD's count? I do own the game, and had a PSX, just the CD's are more fireproof than consoles :P

Alright, you both make some good points. I suppose there are a lot of things to do with Homebrew.

However, illegal acts are still taking place;
Super Mario War- Nintendo characters are being used with out the consent of Nintendo. It might be small but it's still illegal. Much more damage is done with this than with emulating some no name game made 20 years ago via a rom.

Running game's on Wii without, again, permission by Nintendo. Even though these games are distributed for free Nintendo still has a say in what is distributed seeing as they created the platform that it's being ran on. This goes for all Homebrew products.

They still sell 'Playstations 1's' for a reason...to play old Playstation games. Sony paid for exclusive rights to have FF7 on Playstation and not on other systems. Using an emulator to play FF7 on Wii defeats the purpose of that agreement and thus is stealing money from Sony.

Wii is not a authorized DVD player. DVD is an intellectual property and not an open source platform. Similar to Bluray or HD-DVD permission is needed to create a devise to play them. You can say that you're stealing money from whoever created, or ownes, the DVD format.

Lastly and most importantly, the Wii is NOT an open source platform. Unlike a computer where you can pretty much install anything you want, the Wii was created to have apps and games of their choosing on it. The Wii, and all other video game systems, was made to play their games. If you want a new game you have to pay $50 for it. You have to pay to play, in which Nintendo gets their cut. With this money Nintendo and other publishers create new games and so the system goes. Nothing is free.

So yeah, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes thinking that these things are no big deal. Well their still illegal. Is it alright to shrug off one law and be strongly against another? Do we put a monetary value on each law that we break? If so, the single act of putting Homebrew on the Wii would be the biggest. All the time people spend using and playing HB apps is time being taken away from the games and apps you should have paid for. As I said before, other than a pretty sunset most things that we enjoy we have to pay for.

The only reason I got started on this post was because it was annoying to see the admin's on this site freak out when someone talks about wads or burning games. By putting unauthorized software on Wii you're stealing money from Nintendo. It just seems very hypocritical ;)

Could someone more experienced than me (Arikado,Bushing,Tona,etc.) come explain the legality of thing homebrew related to mahern4, please?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 07:32AM by WaxyPumpkin72.

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mahern4
Doesn't the whole idea behind Homebrew revolve around piracy?

Obviously no. There wouldn't even be any piracy if a certain coder didn't misuse critical information from us.

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mahern4
I see a bunch of topics involving emulation...isn't that piracy?

While emulation can be used for piracy, and even if it is sometimes, it's really a misdemeanor compared to piracy of retail games. Also, emulators themselves are not piracy.

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mahern4
I don't understand the whole Puritan approach. I guarantee that anyone who has Homebrew on their Wii has at least one pirated IP.

I don't have a single pirated IP on my Wii. Your theory fails.

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mahern4
The Wii isn't even a authorized DVD player so technically even playing movies on it is illegal.

Oh really? So what media format are the Wii discs on then?

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mahern4
Before you can even go online through the Wii don't you have to agree that you won't use any pirated software?

Yes, which is why you shouldn't pirate ;)

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mahern4
So though the rules of this site everyone must only download original Homebrew games, or games ported with with express permission. All of which have completely original music, characters and themes. Who in their right mind would go through the trouble of putting Homebrew on their Wii only to play crappy games like Bubble Pop and pointless time waisting apps like Wii Physics?

Thans for overlooking the rest of our homebrew. Have a peek at this: [www.youtube.com]

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mahern4
Don't get me wrong I love having HB on my Wii. To me it's the same as downloading music and movies. I know it's wrong, there's no way I can justify doing it, buy yet I do it anyway. Buy hey, it's free. And at least I'm not lying to myself by saying it's 'legal'.

Yay, you just admitted to piracy across multiple platforms of media. We can ban you for that :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 01:29PM by Arikado.

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mahern4
Super Mario War- Nintendo characters are being used with out the consent of Nintendo. It might be small but it's still illegal. Much more damage is done with this than with emulating some no name game made 20 years ago via a rom.

You obviously haven't played the game. If you did, you would know that all of the artwork is fan made. None of it was stolen (AKA ripped) from a Nintendo game. Even if it was true (and it's NOT), pirating a rom is always more damaging. So you fail twice in that paragraph.

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mahern4
Running game's on Wii without, again, permission by Nintendo. Even though these games are distributed for free Nintendo still has a say in what is distributed seeing as they created the platform that it's being ran on. This goes for all Homebrew products.

Fail. It's my Wii, I can do whatever the hell I want with it. Nintendo can not tell me what I can and can't run on my Wii. The only thing they can do is void my warranty.

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mahern4
They still sell 'Playstations 1's' for a reason...to play old Playstation games. Sony paid for exclusive rights to have FF7 on Playstation and not on other systems. Using an emulator to play FF7 on Wii defeats the purpose of that agreement and thus is stealing money from Sony.

Your argument is getting weaker and weaker. The Playstation 1 is no longer in production. And using a Wii to play your old FF7 is legal. Besides, Sony didn't even make FF7! The only "deal" they made with Square Enix was for them to produce the game for the PS1 exclusively. Even though, it later was officially released on the pc as well.

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mahern4
Wii is not a authorized DVD player. DVD is an intellectual property and not an open source platform. Similar to Bluray or HD-DVD permission is needed to create a devise to play them. You can say that you're stealing money from whoever created, or ownes, the DVD format.

Read my previous post.

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mahern4
Lastly and most importantly, the Wii is NOT an open source platform. Unlike a computer where you can pretty much install anything you want, the Wii was created to have apps and games of their choosing on it. The Wii, and all other video game systems, was made to play their games. If you want a new game you have to pay $50 for it. You have to pay to play, in which Nintendo gets their cut. With this money Nintendo and other publishers create new games and so the system goes. Nothing is free.

Correct. Wii is not an opensource platform. The homebrew channel and MINI are however. Homebrew is free, of course retail games are not (that would be moronic - even for Nintendo).

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mahern4
So yeah, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes thinking that these things are no big deal. Well their still illegal. Is it alright to shrug off one law and be strongly against another? Do we put a monetary value on each law that we break? If so, the single act of putting Homebrew on the Wii would be the biggest. All the time people spend using and playing HB apps is time being taken away from the games and apps you should have paid for. As I said before, other than a pretty sunset most things that we enjoy we have to pay for.

If you want to pay for homebrew, go head and donate :D

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mahern4
The only reason I got started on this post was because it was annoying to see the admin's on this site freak out when someone talks about wads or burning games. By putting unauthorized software on Wii you're stealing money from Nintendo. It just seems very hypocritical ;)

Because you're not stealing money from Nintendo unless you're installing wads or burning games.

Law school called, they want their janitor back ;)

Edit: BTW, the only reason this topic is still here is so I can get an admin to take a look at it. I'm seeing if I can rouse a few right now ;)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 01:56PM by Arikado.

Regarding SMW: isn't Mario's likeness an intellectual property? Even if you draw something yourself, it doesn't mean that you're not infringing. For example, consider the fan-made Chrono Trigger 3D remake which got shut down a little while ago - that used original code and artwork, but the IP was still being infringed.

One other reason why this forum doesn't support piracy: it keeps fail away.

About legality issues... you really need to distinct Wiibrew.org from Wanky related sites. Those are almost completely different scenes. The thing is, they (notice my style of talking about them) are using our boot methods. This does not make our work illegal, which is what many people think.

And if you worry about IP being a issue, it isn't a factor in the legality of homebrew itself, then you are talking about basically everything slightly related to a company having trademarks and trademarked products.

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Arikado ftw! ?

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Then how about: "Wow. Arikado is right. I'm not going to degrade my self to worshipping him, but he really does know EVERYTHING!"?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 03:54PM by Dykam.

About Super Mario War again:

Unlike Square, Nintendo is not a "trademark bitch" that sues anyone trying to do a fangame. They have this right, but try searching about how many Mario clones are in the internet, and how many were taken down. In fact, a good fangame is a good advertisiment, and a terrible fangame is a even better ad ("Man, this sucks. I should have bought the original game").

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alainvey
For example, consider the fan-made Chrono Trigger 3D remake which got shut down a little while ago - that used original code and artwork, but the IP was still being infringed.

Not to get into a huge discussion about this: But Chrono Trigger 3D infringed on basically everything, not just the artwork (which I believed (but am not 100% certain) was ripped from Chrono Trigger). The gameplay, game design, story, music, etc. were all infringed upon.

marcan, bushing, shagkur and other gives "hobby"-programmers the ability to write software for the Wii.

Did you ever looked what the conditions for that small text "licensed by Nintendo" are?

[www.warioworld.com]

No one of us may have the requierements and probably no one of us will ever able to publish his/her game to the whole world - i never heared about that "home made software" is illegal...

But! if you talk about illegality: last week i visited a game-store near to me... and found a Wii-"Tool".. an "commercial version" of gecko-os .. 20 euros - is that more legal as homebrew? (btw. there was an notice on the back: works only with update 3.2 and lower)

I'm not trying to insult anyone here, the first two posts were pretty interesting and I learned some new things about Homebrew.

There's no reason to insult me by calling me a janitor or a failure. I thought this side of the scene was supposed to be a little more civil.

Some of the points I made I may be wrong about. I'm not totally sure about the whole DVD thing and tapping into your Wii once you buy it. Most of the points that 'Ari' makes I don't really agree with. I just think he's misinformed about basic IP rules and piracy. He doesn't seem like a very good representative of this forum and site, but I'm sure he's a moderator for a reason.

I'm not sure where everybody's from but in the US and the EU you're not allowed to use characters made by other companies without their permission. It doesn't matter if it's hand drawn or user made, you're still not allowed to do it.....at least in the US and EU.

I'd argue more of my points, specifically the FF7 thing and emulation, but I think most people understand basic copyright laws and therefore I'll leave it at that.

Again, I'm not trying to insult anybody here. There's a lot of people that work hard on these games and apps and some of them I really enjoy. I think the point of having forums is to learn new things. It's just frustrating when someone has a legitimate question and they get pounced for mentioning something the admins don't agree with. Just through my original posts I've been threatened to be baned from the site and have this topic blocked.

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mahern4
There's no reason to insult me by calling me a janitor or a failure. I thought this side of the scene was supposed to be a little more civil.

We are more civil. Please don't let my poor mannerisms frighten you away. I'll admit that I was not on my best behavior as I should have been. And from now on, I promise to treat you with more respect. I do regret some of my wording, as I was typing quickly, and would always rather teach someone like you than (for lack of a better term) "school you".

My 'threats' were actually empty though since, while I can lock the topic, I'm not going to until an admin gets here. And only an admin can ban you, I was merely letting you know what could happen.

Please continue your discussion if you wish :)

I think you missed the whole point by putting the old arguments of "hypocrisy" and "is it legal or not" on the table...

the thing is that THIS website does not support piracy of Wii software, this a decided rule and everyone coming here should at least respect that. If you feel it's too puritan or hypocritical for you, there are tons of website out there accumulating hits by providing tutorials and applications to pirate Wii games, really nobody care about what you want to do with your Wii, just don't come here to talk about it...

Now about the endless "is it more legal or not" debate, I would not say much more than emulators or DVD player are 100% legal on their own (as long as they don't use any copyrighted code), it's their use that can be illegal. Off course, they are as much legal as "backup" or USB loaders but the difference is about what you tolerate on YOUR website and what you don't tolerate : remember the MAME team refusing to emulate game that weren't old enough ? that's pretty similar, call it how you want "morality" or "hypocisy", it's up to people running a project or website to decide, not you, even if you naively think internet should be "free", it's not :-)

Finally, by critisizing the quality of some homebrew release, you are missing the whole point of homebrew: it is not designed to give people the ability to "play cool stuff fo free", it's all about fun for developpers to run their own software on an entertaining system and hackers to reverse-engineering a new unknown hardware. Maybe Nintendo don't like it, maybe you will lose your warranty for what but there is no way you will get sued for that (otherwise, they would have done it long time ago,believe me), because it's not illegal , at least in my country, to run his own stuff on a proprietary IP.

wow I can't believe how mahern4 is being treated just for bringing up this topic...it would be even more ridiculous to stop this topic and ban him...some of what he is saying is simply true:


most people who use homebrew, also use it for pirating wii games.and even if team twiizers doesn't support piracy directly; the pirates are surely glad for apps like bootmii:

one of the great features of bootmii is the ability to restore a wii,if bricked...but the most common case of bricking a wii is because of risky software like WaniXXXX's and these apps are most likely for pirating!


I know there are thousands of other methods to brick a wii and that bootmii is not only for restoring a bricked wii, but team twiizers do help pirates with their software...


i guess it is nearly impossible to design apps to only work with wii's not using pirated games,so this is indeed a huge problem!


I know the opinion of team twiizers about piracy and I know the forum rules and i do respect them, but honestly, why would it be a problem to discuss such a critical topic on this forum??


and sure, there are many homebrew apps which are VERY useful (gecko os,mplayer) and perfectly legal, but (at least I see this often) many new comers to homebrew immediately ask questions like "how do I play "backups" without a modchip? :O" and without team twiizers this would not be possible...and NO I'm not accusing them for the piracy-problem,since other coders are much more responsible for that, but they certainly built the platform for piracy.


this topic is comparable to modchips...in most countries modchips are legal,but it will void your wiis warranty (just like the homebrewchannel e.g.),but most people "misuse" them for piracy...


in the end every coder is resonsible for his/her own apps and ONLY for his apps, but there is (or at least should be) the moral problem because by enabling homebrew for wii,it was pretty clear that piracy will flourish as well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 11:20PM by Sephiroth.

Your view of the law is flawed, and most of your attacks boil down to ad-hominem. Other people have commented on your other points, so I'm only going to address a few of them.

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mahern4
However, illegal acts are still taking place;
[...]
Running game's on Wii without, again, permission by Nintendo.

The law does not require Nintendo's permission.

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Wii is not a authorized DVD player. DVD is an intellectual property and not an open source platform.

No, DVD is a proprietary standard. The easiest way to implement support for it is to pay the DVD-CCA for a copy of the specifications. If you do that, you have to follow certain rules. That's the only "authorization" -- a contract by which you gain information from the DVD-CCA in exchange for following some rules.

If you can reverse-engineer the necessary information without signing a contract with the DVD-CCA, you can do whatever you want (setting aside DMCA issues, which don't really apply here).

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Lastly and most importantly, the Wii is NOT an open source platform. Unlike a computer where you can pretty much install anything you want, the Wii was created to have apps and games of their choosing on it. The Wii, and all other video game systems, was made to play their games. If you want a new game you have to pay $50 for it. You have to pay to play, in which Nintendo gets their cut. With this money Nintendo and other publishers create new games and so the system goes. Nothing is free.

I already paid Nintendo $250 for my Wii. That's the only money the law entitles them do. They have the right to try to extract money from me in other ways, but no legal right to succeed.

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So yeah, I'm sure you're rolling your eyes thinking that these things are no big deal. Well their still illegal. Is it alright to shrug off one law and be strongly against another?

No, I'm rolling my eyes at your poor spelling and your attempts to use emulator issues and your poor understanding of the law to accuse me of hypocrisy.

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mahern4
I'm not sure where everybody's from but in the US and the EU you're not allowed to use characters made by other companies without their permission. It doesn't matter if it's hand drawn or user made, you're still not allowed to do it.....at least in the US and EU

What? Are you saying that its illegal for me to draw a picture of mario? Or do i misunderstand you? Do you mean i can't draw a picture of mario and redistribute it? I don't understand. :P

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Sephiroth
one of the great features of bootmii is the ability to restore a wii,if bricked...but the most common case of bricking a wii is because of risky software like WaniXXXX's and these apps are most likely for pirating!

I know there are thousands of other methods to brick a wii and that bootmii is not only for restoring a bricked wii, but team twiizers do help pirates with their software...



Here are some ways to brick your wii that are legal:

Basically all of the titles under System Tools

And just so u know, his name is Waninkoko, so when you put WaniXXXX, you really mean WaniXXXXX. :P

Edit: sorry, couldn't get the quotes to work

Edit2: Oh yeah, trying to pwn Twiizers is a bad idea lol.

Arikado Edit: Fixed your quotes :)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 11:49PM by Arikado.

Sephiroth:

Please leave BootMii out of this. It's by far the most innocent piece of Twiizer Homebrew to accuse for indirect piracy. I understand the point you're trying to make, but it's an extremely weak one. You even point out the flaws in it yourself.

Also, indirectly accusing Twiizers for piracy is a topic that has been discussed to death on everywhere, even on sites beyond this one. My response to these accusations is always what you said in the last paragraph of your post.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/2009 11:54PM by Arikado.

@ WaxyPumpkin72:

1. I know his name, i just didn't want to write it down completely,because he isn't the only one behind piracy...i guess saying "the coders XXX" would be more appropriate :P

2. I already mentioned in my post above that there are enough legal ways of bricking a wii!


@ Arikado:

I really didn't want to accuse team twiizers of being responsible for piracy, but this IS a problem and in my opinion we can't just ignore it...well but since this seems to be a topic well discussed there is no need to go into further detail :)

btw. you didn't fix WaxyPumpkin72's quotation right xD