legality issues? whats your thought?

N.N.T. Barton '1080 ~IIDX · Trick Member Joined: 02 May 2002 Location: :noitacoL

ok i have been a avid suporter of konami home releases of DDR... but i also have been doing simulators sence diet diet repaition... it had funky A shaped arrows.... but it worked... now what are your thoughts on DDR sims...

Stepmania may be open sorce... but they didnt get the premission of konami to copy the look and feal of DDR...

so how is stepmania and or dwi not copyright infringment? i mean some people realy cant tell the diffrence between Stepmania and DDR.

when stepmaina is set up with all the music you legaly own. and backgound video from the mix's you own... is it still illigal?

i was thinking of writing konami to see there take on Stepmania or DWI.

on a positive note... most people i know who play Stepmania actually own home versions of DDR. for there ps2. or ps1
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diddrstrait · Trick Member Joined: 01 Jan 2004

I believe (and I'm no lawyer, so I can't be sure) that because they aren't selling it for a profit, the game is ok. it is not intended that the people who use it also illegally download music for the program. that would be the only actual case against simulators, because of copyright infringement due to the music that the game uses. Stepmania is "Stepmania," not "Dance Dance Revolution," and it cannot be bought in any store or off the internet. Konami might have a case against them if there were stepmania machines everywhere (see the "In the Groove" thread), but as of now, stepmania is 100% legal when used properly.

think about kazaa...what the program itself does is not illegal, but what the people do with the program is. kazaa is a filesharing network, nothing more. people choose to share illegal mp3s over it. kazaa cannot be held responsible for what it's users do on their network, that's why it hasn't been shutdown, whereas napster was a company that gave away free copyrighted music that was stored on their very own servers.

long, but I believe that answers the question. if anyone has a better explaination (law students around?) go for it.

hooded__paladin · Trick Member Joined: 10 Nov 2003

Stepmania is fine. Konami has shown that they don't mind enough to sue, so it's not too much of an infrinement of DDR. But people need to stop stealing songs, that's illegal (surprise!). What annoys me is when people compliment Stepmania on its ability to play said stolen songs. If Stepmania was used totally legally, ie with no songs that you don't own on other media, it would be pretty mediocre (unless you have a big collection; then it's good if you don't like swapping discs).

Otla · Posted: Sun Mar 21, 2004 1:09 pm Post subject:

Yes, but what are they to do If you own the DDR CD/ Bemani CD (like I do) but downloaded the songs because they were too lazy to make a stepfile and do all of the syncing for the song? Is it still fair use?
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hooded__paladin · Trick Member Joined: 10 Nov 2003

they'd have grounds to sue you (technically you're supposed to backup the media yourself, not get it from anyone else) but they never would.

ddrlukemj · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 12:48 pm Post subject: Luke likes no piracy

Stepmania is open source. It is free, and it is legal. It has no copyrights attatched.

Everything else, is everything else. Can you handle it?
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--lukemj

im good at ddr kinda