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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
Cracks and Crack Intros in CSDb
Seems most people agreed not to add commercial games into the scene database, well after all, the project's name is SCENE database, therefore it's only logical. Delete them. If you want to add games into a database support Gamebase 64 or UVL or any other.
Twoflower states he won't add cracks to the Triad entry for the reason of its length. This isn't a reason to exclude them, but a job for the database coders to split up the chronological group release list into demos and cracks.
Of course cracks are part of the scene and i even add the job of doing a crack intro to the demo scene work. Problem occures crack intros aren't released as stand-alones but only in conjunction with cracks. It's wrong to say Remember released their Satan intro in 1997, ignoring it was linked onto a crack.
Cons? |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11384 |
agreed.
still there is the problem with release-lists getting incredibly large if you wanted to add all cracks (the discs with all hitmen cracks fills a large box here :=P)
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
How about a "crack filter" (that sounds more than a tad dubious) that can be selected from user preferences, you either see demos/games, cracks or both from a crew? |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
The question is how important are cracks, if you exclude them from the main page of a group's entry and just put a link beneath the demo list to an extra page covering the cracks this sounds good to me.
Then on the other hand, if you'd click on Remember then you'll see a cruncher coded by Fungus on the main page and nothing else... |
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
i'd say cracks were important, but it depends on the scener - i've never really been involved in the cracking side of the scene even although Cosine did have a cracking division up until about 1989 so my personal interest is more the intros than the cracks themselves.
i don't know if people agree, but i'd say the scene products should take priority since, the cracked games are secondary to the act of cracking them in this context...? |
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ccr
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 26 |
Basically the "same" intros were used in many cracks, so if someone just took up the task of collecting all the intros and sorted out only the _different_ intros (scrolltexts, etc. don't count as difference of course) that would be added here. I've seen some introcollections around, maybe they could be used as a starting point...
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
that's crap, they have not been released like that.
i could exclude a part of so-phisticated iii and add it into the database, see?
ps. intro-collections of previously released intros suck. |
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
if cracks are added, the games themselves should be added aswell, so you can link the crack to a game and when you have a look at the game entry, see the different crack versions listed.
think I already proposed that crack/game link thing ages ago, but noone got around to implement it yet |
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iopop
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 317 |
I agree with Seven.
A crack is useless unless its linked to its orgin game. Where you also get the posibility to see the other versions of the same game. ie. Gamers Guide style.
This demands some work from the admins of this Db. |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
Correct.
Well, first of all I need to correct myself here. In general i'm not against adding cracks. If you look at the scene based around 1986-87 you'll see that there are very few groups which are legal/demo-centered. In Sweden, even SSS (Super Swap Sweden - later Horizon) and XAKK was cracking just because that was what the scene demanded at that time. The scene evolved around the cracking and spreading of games, and even I have to accept that. And who am I to ignore a large part of the scene history?
The thing that is bugging me, though, is that this database isn't built for including cracks. This database is built to easily handle small demogroups, such as my last group, Twilight. Twilight was democentered and released a number of demos and magazines during it's not-so-long existance. Those releases are easy to get a total view of, but there isn't easy to get a good view over the releases for Triad. The database isn't built to handle this amount of information in a good way. All you get is this pretty fucked-up list.
So, my point is; as long as the structure of the database looks as it does - without subcategories / sublists in the releaselist - I won't lift a finger to add a crack to our releases. The best solution would be to have a link which reads "cracks" which in its turn could lead to "1987", "1988", etc. But anything is better than the current.
I spend an awful lot of time on researching our, and other groups, history. And I think that this scenehistory is a hell of an important thing to handle. I also think that sharing the knowledge about our heritage is an important issue, but I refuse to present it in a fucked-up way which destroys much of the intention and clarification of my research. And right now, the CSDb releaselist doesn't live up to my standard. Therefore - I refuse to add cracks. |
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fade
Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002
Posts: 290 |
A site dedicated to gathering as much information as possible about the productions, the groups, the sceners and the events in the Commodore 64 Demoscene.
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This is from the first page of the csdb (to the right of the login section). End of story.
deh moh seen, if you want crack scene goto jessika's arsè ( a little irc humour there) |
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Slator
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 274 |
maybe there should be some "extra" startscreen/GUI for crack oriented content or maybe a checkbox in the profile where you have something like wanna see crack releases y/n.
It makes no sense in splitting up the scene into demo/crack as it is impossible to seperate them, they are like siamese twins with one heart, the c64.
maybe a special marker for cracks should be established, so that those who dont want to see it, can just turn it off.
hmm, hope it aint too hard to get what I want to say..
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
Okay, 'nother pain-in-the-arse idea, how about if a list on a group's page gets over a certain length, any cracks get filed off onto a separate page...? |
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Stryyker
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 468 |
I always think of CSDB as a legal scene based database. Maybe someone should work with CSDB crew for a compatible database format for illegal scene which can have your links to games. This could all be in the same database if the servers could handle it. Then we could use different front ends, legal, illegal or combined. We could server all people. Maybe someone should talk to the games based databases to discuss a few issues and maybe crosslink? |
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
talking about legal/illegal... adding links for files of possibly illegal content (read: cracks) should be disabled right away.. different countries may have different laws about this, but in some countries the webmaster is actually held responsible for stuff his site links to...
we wouldn't want some company to discover that there's a link or two to cracked versions of their property (even if it is 10+ years old) and sue the database away, would we? |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11384 |
sorry se7en, but thats ridiculous :o) there are ways to prevent any company from beeing able to even remotely figuring out who is behind a certain website, server or content. (just for the sake of it, give it a try and track down hitmen-console.org owner :o)). also in the case of c64 stuff, even IF some company tracks down the responsible person, it would ask the one to put down certain links or context before sueing them. moreover, the simple fact that most companies did not care for their property to be spread around the net in public for +10years makes all and any attempt from their side to suddenly sue ppl void. (most civilised countries have that kinda laws atleast).
for that matter, i personally find it much more dangerous how this (and other) websites and databases exhibit certain personal data connected to sceners handles.... most dont care, but those who are still active not only in the demoscene probably wont appreciate it. (eg some magic dwarf keeps adding back my birthday to the database everytime i delete it... WTF?) |
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Steppe
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 1510 |
LOL!!!
Why don't you simply lock your entry? |
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Rough
Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1829 |
CSDb might get sued by German lawyers for providing 18+ games all over. Hehehehe.
Due to brain-damaged text content of the new youth law all computer games pre 1994 have, taken the law exactly by its words, become 18+.
And, yes... shuriken are forbidden, no more Last Ninja playing in your backyard. |
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
@groepaz:
1) A company MIGHT ask you to take whatever content down, but it doesn't HAVE to... if they want to sue you right away, they will
2) I'd like to see that law you're referring to
3) no matter how much that particular registrar violates standards, they'll just approach the server owner anyway, who will be more than happy to point the law enforcement into the right direction if otherwise it will be his head on the plate
4) I suppose you're pretty much aware of the fact that there's the so-called "Abmahnung" in Germany, which can cost you unnecessary money even without a court procedure... and linking to a site with content of illegal nature had its precedents...
5) I agree that publishing personal information about other sceners without their consent is a dangerous thing
either way... my posting was not about what you can get away with, but about what would be the right thing to do |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11384 |
@groepaz:
1) A company MIGHT ask you to take whatever content down, but it doesn't HAVE to... if they want to sue you right away, they will
sure... however the biggest problem is not loosing the case, but paying your own lawyer in advance :=P
BUT i can tell from first hand, that companies like the big N, Sony and Sega *will* send you a mail and ask you to put the stuff down :) oh, firststar software will do that to :)
2) I'd like to see that law you're referring to
been a while since i have been reading copyright law, but theres a sentence that basically says that if you "never" tried to enforce your rights, you will loose that right alltogether after "a long time". (gummiparagraphenfreund :=P). its along the same lines that say that "irrelevant" or "exremely low standard" pieces of code are not protected by copyright. (you can not say "hey all jmp $fce2 are mine" :=))
3) no matter how much that particular registrar violates standards, they'll just approach the server owner anyway, who will be more than happy to point the law enforcement into the right direction if otherwise it will be his head on the plate
a) domain owner != site owner
b) server owner dont know who is site owner
[this is not possible with server in germany, admitted :=)]
4) I suppose you're pretty much aware of the fact that there's the so-called "Abmahnung" in Germany, which can cost you unnecessary money even without a court procedure... and linking to a site with content of illegal nature had its precedents...
c) server not in germoney :o)
d) domain owner not in germoney :)
either way... my posting was not about what you can get away with, but about what would be the right thing to do
but only the first is of real interest :=P
afterall, the only "illegal content" that is currently even remotely dangerous to put on the web is directly linked mp3 and movies....and least dangerous are probably those games from the 80s, which are more like *theoretically* copyrighted, but practically public-domain since a decade.
anyway... back to topic :=P |
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
to 1) that's nice of 'em, but unfortunately you cannot count on that with all companies
to 2) that's §102 Urhg (old version, don't have the new version from April 1st 2003 yet), but it's about not enforcing the rights in a single case within 3 years of knowledge of that particular violation... won't really save anyone at this point, except maybe some old ftp servers
to 3+4) may be true for some sites, but it still poses the same problem for those site owners that do _not_ hide, making it kind of illegal to link to a crack-linking CSDb, which would be a shame IMO
so I still propose to not link to cracked and other potentially illegal files |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11384 |
Yes i understand that for some its still a problem... even we try to be as legal as we can be on our site for that matter (although a lot of the stuff there is pretty much on the borderline, hence the selfprotecting via hiding).
mmmh. for once i would personally like a database for the cracks (since once a number of major groups have their releases added, we could do a lot of interisting statistics :=P)
on the other hand, linking to the actual binaries is atleast questionable.
tjam, now the question is, would the simple *mention* of a certain illegal content ("we have cracked this and that") fall into the same cathegory already? can we say "pacman+7h/lxt" or even "lxt-pacman+7h.lnx.gz". is the latter already a link (easy to find the actual binary with google if you have the filename used on ftp sites) ?
hrm, and taking latest stupido german laws into account... do we have to declare our pages as XXX rated now? :O) (and seriously, this question beats me, do demos and simelar media fall into this shit aswell?) |
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Seven
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 202 |
The mention of the existance of a crack cannot be illegal by itself, but any info on where you find is indeed questionable.. I don't see a way to mention a filename without making it an obvious hint... other than maybe making it the record identifier in the database and "accidentally" show it somewhere in the URL to the database page without any further mention of that fact =)
as for the new german JuSchG ... I don't think it covers demos (as long as there's no interactive element in it... I remember some Wonderland part had a playable Tetris in it, which would probably make it a game again), but according to it any game downloads of C64 games should not be made available to anyone under 18... which at least will have an impact on digitalexcess.de sometime the next few days, even if we only have 2 games or so downloadable...
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