Ceris White

This is where the "third faction" of preservation groups come in and ask that companies not interfere with their right to make private servers as long as all copyright agreements are intact. Essentially a mutual agreement to both allow private servers and prevent this exact situation. It is when private servers like that perform in-app purchases or likewise that companies like Blizzard will step in and sue for copyright infringement, which is a perfectly acceptable time to do so.

@Ceryphim @gerogeroR 私はWoWをVanillaからMoPまで遊んでましたけど、サービス中にも関わらずプライベートサーバーはあったし、サブスクリプションやアイテム販売してましたよ。 ユーザーの善性だけを信じるのは無理だと思います。

オンゲを「いつまでもプレイできるようにしろ」という裁判はさすがにむちゃくちゃで、気持ちはわかるが、「ならプライベート鯖を自分でたてろや。そのプライベート鯖をたてるためのデータは提供する」ならわかるんだけど、鯖の管理費までゲーム会社に未来永劫負担させようみたいになってるのはさすがにテイカーすぎんか・・・・。

When has this happened? From my experience, the only people who will do something like that are Chinese because they can get away with it due to lax copyright. In the US, it is generally agreed on and understood that you should not use their work to generate a profit. More importantly, people vastly overestimate how much running a server really costs when you're not using corporate software. The total cost for my server Orchis is about $60 USD a year, and that includes the CDN and VPS costs together.

@gerogeroR 現実はプライベートサーバー建ててる奴はゲーム内アイテムを販売して金儲けしたりするからな。 自分達のIPで商売始められたら戦うしか無くなる。 だから最初から提供しないって話になる。

I don't have the energy to create a full explanation to this, so I'll summarize: All data-management functionality can be moved to the device. For services using SQL for database operations, there is a library for on-device SQLite in nearly every single programming language that exists. There is no need for data-tamper protection with offline games, and so storing it in a plaintext database or set of files is not only permissible, but expected. If the game is expected to receive unofficial server support, the anti-cheat also does not need to change and the responsibility of managing it then goes to the person or team that will be running the unofficial server. These things are non-issues for conversion to an offline title. For managing co-op style components, you can remove these entirely and/or replace them with solo counterparts. Dragalia Lost did this while in live service by adding events to the Event Compendium; This included raid events, which typically play with several players at once, as solo-only quests, and offered mostly the same rewards for completion. There is also the option to build the server code into the app itself as a library that then replaces web requests directly, allowing the app to function with minimal changes. You can include server-side drop rates and other configuration data in this way as databases or plain files as well. If, for whatever reason, the intent is to release a functional server binary instead of a solo-version of the game (ill-advised), there is really nothing stopping you from hardcoding all of these facets into it. Multiplayer functionality can be difficult to manage, which I understand, but this is a decision that should have been made with consideration to longevity in the first place. Certain titles now have lost multiplayer functionality for relying on third-party closed-source tools like Photon Realtime, and this is a fault of the developer for not taking advantage of open-source tools with permissive licensing in the first place. Very few people are realistically asking for companies to release internal tools and server components. It is understood that this is difficult or impossible to do in regards to copyright and likewise. What is being asked is that efforts be made to allow users who love the games to keep them playable. In 90% of the cases I personally see in the world of server emulators that I am deeply involved in, people lament the loss of stories, music, and artwork more than the gameplay itself, and to ignore that fact is disingenuous at best. I have seen nothing but excuses from people who clearly do not understand software development while opposing this proposition, and I know they are excuses because I am deeply entrenched in the very world they are against. I am not saying that you are one of those people, but it has been a great number of them.

「サービス終了するなら、オフライン版を残してほしい」という声はよく見ます。気持ちはとてもよく分かります。そこまで愛されたゲームだということですし、遊べる形で残ってほしいと思うのは自然です。ただ、オンラインゲームのオフライン化は、単に通信を切れば済むという訳ではありません。 これまでサーバー側が受け持っていた役割を、どこに持ち直すかが大変です。たとえば、 ・進行管理 ・所持品の管理 ・敵の挙動 ・報酬計算 ・乱数 ・認証 ・不正対策 こうした「ゲームとして正しく成立させるための仕組み」を、オンラインではサーバー側が支えています。これをローカルに移すと、今度はセーブ改竄、同期ズレ、復帰時の整合性崩れといった別の問題が出ます。 さらに、マルチプレイ前提で作られたゲームは、難易度、報酬、テンポ、イベント運営までオンライン前提で組まれていることが多いです。そのため、オフライン化では通信部分だけでなく、 ・ソロ向けのゲームテンポ ・AIによる代替 ・報酬バランス ・保存設計 まで含めて見直しが必要になります。 要は機能追加や変更ではなく、サーバーが支えていた成立条件を、別の形で作り直す仕事なになるんですね。 技術的に一応動くことと、商品として面白く成立することは別です。「遊べはするけれど面白くない」「ゲームとして破綻する」懸念が強いです。 もちろん、中にはオフライン化できたゲームもあります。ですが、それは最初からその可能性を見越して設計されていたか、比較的オフラインへ落とし込みやすい条件が揃っていたケースが多いです。 なので、後付けのオフライン対応が重くなりやすいのは、決して開発者の怠慢ではありません。通信処理を外せば終わる訳ではなく、世界の成り立ちそのものを組み替える必要があるからです。 #エンジニア　#ゲームプログラマー

@Cacophanus I'm finding it increasingly difficult to have any level of discussion with them at this point. This one blocked me for replying to what they said about my comment. x.com/emutyworks/sta… It's evident they don't want to do anything but make excuses.

そのようなモバイルゲームにも携わってまいりましたが、ローカルにオフラインで保存されているデータは相当量にのぼります。

Publishing it is legal (in the US) law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17… (f)Reverse Engineering.— ... (3)The information acquired through the acts permitted under paragraph (1), and the means permitted under paragraph (2), may be made available to others if the person referred to in paragraph (1) or (2), as the case may be, provides such information or means solely for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, and to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title or violate applicable law other than this section. Information obtained from reverse engineering (writing the server code) can be published freely as long as it's for the purpose of interoperability (i.e. a modded client). In other words, it can't be used for profit if it violates copyright law.

@Tats_Gunso リバースエンジニアリングでゲームの挙動を復元できるコードを作る→合法 プライベートサーバーで実際に再現する→合法 それを公開する→EUでも米国でも違法

てかニア リインカーネーションの件現地の法律では合法なのかよ。 ますます日本のオタクが10/0で悪いじゃねえかよ。

Yes, it does make reimplementing the server legal. The server is being run locally by users in all parts of the world (there is no one public instance yet), and US law dictates that the code produced from reverse engineering is copyright of the person who wrote it (the person who did reverse engineering). As long as they are not redistributing copyrighted assets like the game client or images, which the server doesn't do itself, it is legal.

@Ceryphim @OCynotis 海外で合法に入手＋クリーンルームOKでも、それだけでサーバー再実装が合法とは限らない。著作権は属地主義で運営場所の法が効くし、仕様再現や商標、規約違反など別のリスクもある。部分的な合法性＝全体の合法性ではない。

外国人の海賊版擁護を見て「ここまで遵法精神を持ち合わせていないのか」と驚愕してる

@emutyworks There's also no discussion of "handing over copyright" to users. What we want is for games to remain accessible after they've shut down. The method I describe above achieves that without requiring a company to provide any source code.

I'm all for having a proper discussion. My work is publicly available. If I, some random software developer, can create server implementations for dead titles, why can't the companies who own them? It legitimately is not hard to compile a mock server into the app and reroute web requests through it to make it offline.

ねぇ「海外勢」はこんな人ばっかりなの？ガッカリだよ！まともな話できる人は居ないの？ あのさぁ「労力がかかるかどうか」って意味での「簡単」なんて議論は*誰も*してないの 「技術的には可能だし簡単だろ」なんて低レベルな話をしてるんだとしたら「話のスタート地点にも立ててない」ので出直して、お話にならないwww

@St1ka It's twitter. The only people here are terminally online and/or bots. This and future conflicts will change nothing.

For years, JP Twitter and Western Twitter heavily romanticized each other. It only took a week or two of auto-translate for the first major clash to happen. The first of many I'd wager. I wonder if bridging the language gap will end decades of romanticizing

オフラインモードは技術的に難しいものでも高コストなものでもございません。また、追加の運用・サポートコストも基本的には発生いたしませんので、ご主張の意図がどこにあるのか、理解いたしかねます。

One of the interesting arguments the JP side has had against Stop Killing Games is that to make an offline version or would cost 50% to 100% more of the games original budget to do it. I'm not sure if this is just a blatant lie, genuine incompetence or total ignorance. We have guys with no access to the source code able to reverse engineer servers with, relatively speaking, minimal effort. If Joe Everyman can do it for 0 dollars in his basement without the nessecary information, how come companies that actually have that information apparently can't do?

@endo_hizumi This will change nothing, as Japan and it's companies have regularly excluded the western markets for decades. If they refuse to expand into the west, only they will hurt from it.

この論調だと、日本人は、めんどくさがりなので、西欧での展開をやめる可能性があります。 自分で自分を追い込んでる自覚はないのですね。

In America, and other western countries, ownership is implied. The license itself does not dictate that you can or cannot possess a copy of the program or binary data. Legally, there is no recourse for using a cracked copy of software in a non-corporate setting. This is why DRM exists and why the legal definition of piracy is "illegal redistribution of copyrighted content"; To prevent people who have the data from using it outside of the terms of service, because there is no argument of whether a person owns a copy of binary data.

@misaki @Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 あくまで原則論であれば、そもそもアプリケーションは所有権ではなく利用許諾なので、是が非かで言えば非なのは概ね揺るがないと思います。 使ってはいけないがデフォルトで許諾を出す立て付けなので。 ただ、仰る通り大っぴらにやられなければ全て取り締まるのは難しいように思えます。

これ、今回のプライベートサーバに関してはそれらの法に関してはほぼ問題ではないということを多くの日本人が理解できていないという側面もある。

I don't believe that was the fault of the developers. The person who made the post that got popular was doing as media does and bringing public attention to something that could have stayed hidden. I didn't meant to come across as aggressive, but it really seems to me like a poor situation on all sides that started because a few Japanese users began commenting negative things on the post and it escalated.

@Ceryphim ごめんね、あなたの意見を否定するわけではないんだけど、問題の発端は「ゲームを遊べる環境を構築した」と人々に向けて発表したことじゃないかな。彼があなたたちからの感謝を放棄して、こっそりゲームを遊んでいれば、日本人もコメントしなかったと思うよ。

ニーアの騒動、日本と海外の争いを色々観察してるんだけど、不謹慎ながら勉強になることが多い🤔オートマタならともかく、外国人がここまでするほどのコンテンツだったのかニーアって

@lug120587 @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 It's OK to perform the necessary modifications to be able to create the specification documentation AND for it to operate with the program created from this documentation. That is what reverse engineering is as a whole.

@Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 貴方の引用している条文では ・バイナリを解析してインターフェースなどの仕様書を起こしても良い ・これを用いて独自にプログラムを作成しても良い と言う趣旨の内容が書かれていると思いますが。

No, this is protected under reverse engineering, as I said: law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17… (f)Reverse Engineering.— ... (2)Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a)(2) and (b), a person may develop and employ technological means to circumvent a technological measure, or to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure, in order to enable the identification and analysis under paragraph (1), or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title. Particularly: "or for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs", meaning altering the original binary to interface with the new server address to "achieve such interoperability". This is, in fact, considered clean-room. The only thing that would prevent it from being so is if the developers were to have access to the uncompiled source code in some fashion.

@Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 既存のクライアントを修正する時点で改変でありクリーンルームではありません。 既存のクライアントを修正せず外部プログラムで接続先を改変するアプローチも既存のクライアントの不正利用であり、技術的保護手段の回避にあたる可能性が非常に高く違法となるリスクが甚大です。

@lug120587 @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 Modifications to the existing client is the clean-room approach. There is no interfacing with the original source code, and instead applying binary patches to achieve interoperability. This is also protected under reverse engineering law.

@Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 私の意見はサーバ単体をクリーンルーム方式で作成するのは、基本的には問題ない。 ただし、正規のクライアントアプリケーションをエミュレータサーバに接続するのは法的に問題があると言う話です。 クライアントもクリーンルーム方式で実装すれば問題ありませんが、誰もそれはしていないでしょう。

@lug120587 @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 But that still doesn't revoke your right to analyze and reverse engineer the software you now legally own. In fact, having legally obtained the disc and not having agreed to any form of installer agreements is the best-case scenario for reverse engineering.

@Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 マイクロソフトのOSをお店で買ってもライセンスキーを入れなければ使えないのと同じです。そしてそれはライセンスがあるから使えるのです。

@snapwith Speaking as a server developer who specializes in preservation and manages my own servers, I can tell you firsthand that it would not take much effort at all to achieve. If you think that's "beyond reasonable discussion", you're really just making excuses for corporations.

ま、オフライン化を簡単だとか、サーバー公開を簡単だと思っている段階で、もう議論の対象になりえない。

Doesn't this defeat your point about CDs implying ownership, then? Even if that was true, you still don't have execute it to perform reverse engineering. You can load any binary into IDA/Ghidra without executing it and perform analysis. And even then, it is a program that exists on your own personal device, which you have obtained in a lawful manner (via downloading from the app store or purchasing a CD). There is no precedent for such things to be revocable from the user once it is in their possession.

@Ceryphim @ohtori_bigbird @kiga24313088 法律の話となりますが、アプリケーションの実行時点でメモリのロードによる複製が発生します。これは日本、ヨーロッパ、米国共通の話です。 日本では適法利用の場合、この複製が例外的に許容されますが、サービスが終了しているアプリケーションの利用が適法とは判断されにくいと考えます。