Comments 1,116

Re: Discord Reportedly Removing Servers And Creator Accounts For Switch Emulators

FantasiaWHT

Woah woah woah this is some BS. First, as I've explained before, it's highly unlikely the emulators themselves are illegal copyright infringements, for the same reason that tape recorders survived legal challenges at the US Supreme Court. Second, even if they are illegal, Section 230 prevents Discord from being held liable for any potentially illegal communications posted by other people. Third, discussion of illegal activity itself is generally constitutionally protected, with the primary exception being inciting imminent lawless behavior.

Now, Discord is within its legal rights to take these channels down, none of what I've explained protects the creators against Discord. But Discord is nearly bulletproof from any legal claims by Nintendo so it's upsetting to see them cave like this.

Re: Staff At UK Retailer GAME Reportedly Facing Redundancies

FantasiaWHT

For everybody here hating on zero-hour contracts, ask yourselves what the alternative is. Because the realty is that the alternative is not having a job at all. Here at least the employee has some opportunity for performing paid work without having to apply and be hired. And in the meantime they can still do other work and they're free to quit completely. It's not a great situation, no, but it's better than just losing their job completely.

Re: Review: Balatro (Switch) - Devilishly Compelling Cardplay, And A Clear GOTY Contender

FantasiaWHT

I bet in a week people will be regretting this score and shaking their head that they thought this could be GOTY. This game does not have staying power. It gets old and repetitive real fast. It's just a big number cruncher, the goals of what you're trying to do are very limited.

Plus I think the devs seriously goofed in balancing straights and flushes. In traditional poker, a flush is harder to make than a straight, so is a higher-ranking hand. The devs ported that over without much thought to this game, ignoring that it is WAY easier to build your deck to make it easier to create flushes instead of straights (1 - lots of ways to change suits; 2 - wild cards for suits but not ranks; 3 - removing one card makes a flush easier but not a straight)

Re: Nintendo Sets Its Sights On Switch Emulator Yuzu In New Lawsuit

FantasiaWHT

They aren't exactly the same, of course, but when home video recorders came out, there were big legal fights claiming that the manufacturers of these technologies were responsible for any copyright violations committed by their owners (e.g., recording and distributing/selling TV shows and movies). It went all the way to the US supreme court, which held that the VCR company was NOT violating copyright. Key to that ruling was that there were legal uses of the copying technology. Specifically, fair use generally permits creating an archival/backup copy of something you own or have a license to use for your own purposes.

Analogizing here, Yuzu is like the VCR. It enables infringements of copyright, but I would argue it itself is not committing any copyright infringements. You have the right to a copy of a game you own, for your own use, to protect against degradation/loss (however, you should not be distributing the copy and if you transfer the original to someone else you can't keep the copy).

Nintendo feels they have an argument around that. I'll admit I don't know really what they mean by ""accessed Switch games from a hacked unit and made copies of games." Maybe that's enough different and an infringement by itself.

Re: Round Up: Developers React To Unity's New 'Runtime Fee' Policy

FantasiaWHT

@aresius Generally you're correct, but it's possible that the original contract permitted changes like this in the future. Or it didn't cover past installs originally, which fees are a condition for continued use of Unity products. Or something else. Lawyers are very good at doing things like this, and I expect that they've taken into consideration the general rule you identify and have, if not a rock-solid argument, an argument with a reasonable likelihood of success.