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Sony Dismisses Claims Against Playstation Emulator 146

Posted by CmdrTaco from the celebrate-good-times-com'on dept.
Gridle writes "According to this CNet article, Sony has voluntarily taken back the patent infringement case against Connectix, the makers of Virtual Game Station, a Playstation emulator for Macs and PCs. Here's the press release from Connectix."
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Sony Dismisses Claims Against Playstation Emulator More

Sony Dismisses Claims Against Playstation Emulator

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  • With the...er, hacker, nature of Slashdotters, I'm wondering why there aren't any playstation emus for Linux.

    If VGS can do it, and now even legally, why aren't there thousands of slashdot monkeys at thousands of computers writing software to turn my $2000 computer into a $100 game console?

  • Re:Hmm.. (Score:3)

    by scott@b ( 124781 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:46AM (#964942)
    I believe that you could patent the concept of rotary blades within the context of a reaper (at least at this time), provided that there was no existing/known usage of rotory blades for reaping. Your patent for such would not prevent me for patenting rotary blades for cutting hair...
  • So now i have to pay out the ass for an HDTV that will only look good with my PS2 and while watching Jay Leno? Screw that, have you seen the prices on those things? I could buy 2 or 3 machines for that.

  • No, it's not stupid. They were obviously hoping that a lot more of those allegations would stick. When only 2 of them did, they decided that it wasn't even worth pursuing that case. They are planning on trying something else with another suit against Connectix.

  • But with Bleem coming out for Dreamcast, PlayStation games will actually look *better* than on the original platform - there are shots floating around of 'before and after' Gran Turismo that when running on DC, it looks far smoother around the edges. Not sure if this is a bad or good thing for Sony though. After all, like you say, it's money in their pocket - and if Sega is selling Dreamcast at a loss, it's taking money away from them. Stu
  • you might as well go spend $89 at your local Target/Wal-mart and get the darn unit - no compatibility issues
    Hmm, this just isn't true. I bought a few games for my Playstation which come up with that circle-slash thing, and "How dare you Americans try to play Japanese games!?!" messages on my modded Playstation. Some of these games work pretty well in Bleem! though (some minor problems with the music not quite syncing up with the game). That's a compatibility issue that works in Bleem!'s favor... Sony doesn't want Americans to be able to play Japanese games, but plenty of Americans want to play them. I. E. Sony deliberately makes it's games incompatible with American systems, even going through the effort of creating code to defeat work-arounds that enterprising people develop. This is one of their most important reason for trying to destroy Bleem! and Connectix.

    I also doubt that the point of Bleem! for Dreamcast is to sell to people who already have Playstations.

    In conclusion, Sony sucks.

    If they ever get the Micros~1 style monopoly they want over video gaming, expect games to show the same high level of quality and originality as Windows shows stability and security.

  • Based on the extortion that went on when MS got Steve Jobs to put IE as default on MacOS in exchange for MSOffice-Mac, I'm guessing a similar thing is going on with MS's purchase of Bungie.

    Bungie's Halo was Steve Jobs' flagship evidence to the computing world that the Mac was a viable gaming platform. Microsoft's recent purchase of Bungie makes Steve Jobs look like an idiot. I'm guessing the deal will go down like this:
    (Apple already dumped Game Sprockets. . . hm)
    Apple will announce that it is dumping Quartz, and replacing it with some bastardized DirectX-based technology from Microsoft, and Halo will be available for Mac - but behind the scenes, MS has ripped out the guts of Halo and replaced them with DirectX so it will run on XBox, and the only easy way to port it would be to port DirectX to Mac.
    Won't that suck?

    If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
  • Hehe, very funnt. You actually think that the fastest part in the Emotion Engine is the 128-bit registers....very funny indeed. The registers are there to make it possible to store bigger chunks of data in one register instead of in several as the case can be with the 32-bit processors. But rest assured that the fast think in the PSX2 is the logic behind. It uses two 64-bit integer unit (which makes integer calculation really fast) and a 128-bit "multimedia command unit" (and thats a nice name for SIMD, 3Dnow etc..) and that makes it faster, just as SIMD on the P3 is faster to the no SIMD processors. Then we have to take into account the damn fast bus speed which is impressive, the PC only has it on new graphicscards, not even AGPx4 comes cloes to 3.2 Gb/s. So what I wanted to say after this ranting is that the PSX2 sure is fast, but don't be so narrow minded and naive that you think the real stuff is the "128-bit system", because it almost never is.
  • Damn right! after all, what *IS* the PlayStation2's ability to run PSX games all about if not emulation? blah
  • VGS2 is a way off yet ... PS2 emulation won't be possible on a desktop PC until you have around 9 GFLOPS to play with (assuming a 10:1 instruction emulation cost, which doesn't seem unrealistic).

    Of course, TransMeta CPUs should do the emulation must faster, but they have CLOSED that part of their architecture ...

  • The way things are going lately, you probably could patent rotary blades in any context. Hell, you could probably patent any and all blades.

    Hey, shit! I gotta get me over to the patent office PRONTO!

    If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
  • You don't really need to read the ROM - you can download them from various sites (sorta like warez).

    NESticle is one emulator, and there are a bunch of others.


    -Dave Turner.
  • VGS is a much better emulator. Bleem seems to serious problems with too many games.
  • "3-D" isn't flashy anyway, it's just a way of saying, "Look, you, Joe Gamer, really want these ugly polygon characters that will probably never look as good as sprites. Why? Oh, they're '3-D' and they let us sell the companies that develop games more expensive development kits... oooh, I mean, they are in '3-D' whoo-hoo forget that last part... Er, no you don't need any special glasses to see the '3-D,' that's it... whaddaya mean it still looks like '2-D' to you, just a different persepective view? Hey, take this guy for next-gen re-education... oh, and smash his copy of Marvel vs. Capcom... how'd we ever let that one make it to the States??"

  • How? With no modifications, no?
  • > MS does make some very decent Mac software (Office98 and IE 5))

    Here I feel I should speak out briefly. There is a difference between having lots of useful features, and actually *working*. Both Office 98 and IE5 have excellent features that are to be found nowhere else, so I use them a lot.

    However, little things can get in the way: create a large-ish Word document (over 10-15 pages), add a table, and it almost invariably screws up the document, even to the point ot crashing the computer. And IE5 *doesn't* send the "Refresh" command properly to a proxy - which is pretty fucking vital for a browser.

    There are many more examples of this kind of behaviour in those 2 applications. MS can often have great ideas. But it's implementation is seriously fucked up.

    And now back to the scheduled program...


    - Oliver
    "exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
  • It seems that with 7 of the 9 allegations being tossed right out, they probably didn't have much of a case.

    That's a stupid thing to say. If 7 of the 9 allegations were tossed out, that means 2 of them were not tossed out. I don't know too much about the law, but I believe it's fairly standard practice to throw a whole plateful of allegations and see which ones stick. After all, it's the court's job to decide which ones hold water and which ones are just dumb, as they did in this case.
  • I've seen a lot of people ask why would anyone want to use an EMU when the original system has perfect compatibility and doesn't cost much more...

    Here are my answers:
    1. It usually does cost more to buy a console than an emulator.
    2. By the time the Emulator is complete usually PC hardware is up to date to play the games better than the original console.
    3. Consoles break, PC's do as well, but over time, it's easier to keep the PC alive as when something breaks you can just upgrade it to the latest and greatest.
    4. Some emulators are freeware which would theoretically mean that anyone could attempt to program a game. It's tough to do that on a console without the proper software.
  • I also believe the fact that the PSX1 will soon be obsoleted by the PSX2 had something to do with the decision

    now, if they'd come up with a psx2 emulator (which would be nigh-impossible now, but give them a few years), it would be a different story.

  • Re:First direct result of this... (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:47AM (#964960) Homepage Journal
    I'm ashamed to admit it, but I once did exactly this.. VMware on NT booting Linux, Linux running ZSnes in Wine, and playing Super Mario Kart.. All because NT wouldn't run ZSnes right, and I was bored..

    C'mon! Any one else do this? Don't tell me you haven't!
  • In case you haven't noticed the trend lately, copyright infringement suits are unpopular with the public. Companies that file them are thought of as "traditional" or "old fashioned" and the suits thus considered petty.

    One thing I have always noticed about Sony is they are fairly "hip". They are up on modern business strategy as well as technology. I would expect this suit to disappear entirely.

    -Effendi
  • hahaha

    Isn't it funny, though, that wine ran the program better than WinNT itself? Use that against your microsoft lovers!

  • Granted, I don't support reverse-engineering and stealing proprietary routines (and don't bother to correct me, as I don't know/care about the details)...

    If you don't know/care about the details, how can you profess to have any opinion at all?

    Sorry, but closemindedness == idiocy in my opinion, and therefore renders anything you may have to say completely worthless.

    -CZ
  • Without a challenge to the law reaching completion, the law stays on the books. This allows Sony to continue to go after the little guys writing shareware/freeware/GNUware emulators. Unlike Connectix, which has deep enough pockets to fend off lawsuits, you or I do not and will lose againse Sony just because we can't afford to win.

    This is therefore, a Bad Thing.

  • What would be really sweet, is if Connectix released their PS2 emulator before PS2 was released in the states.

    The ultimate "F-U Sony!"

    They should put a little sticker on the package:
    "It's a Phony!"

    If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
  • I think you hit the nail on the head, here. Sony doesn't want settlement in a court, as that limits their options in the future. This is simply a means of intimidation, and Sony's hardly the first to employ it.
  • First of all, Disclaimer: IANAL. Now, on to the good stuff...

    Sony is suing on the grounds of theft of intellectual property. They own the intellectual property required to write the emulator, and therefore can sit around writing emulators for their own stuff until the cows come home.

    They are attempting to stop anyone who does not have license to use their intellectual property from doing the same.

  • They probably figured why bother with this case since PSX2 is almost out.
  • Thanks for the link to the article.

    Reverse engineering has always been a hot topic. The issue comes down to what exactly was done. The ethical (and I believe legal as well but IANAL) litmus test that has generally been accepted is the black box idea--you treat something as a black box--info goes into it and then info comes out of it--and you make something that performs exactly the same way without actually looking into the box. My understanding was that Connectix (with previous experience in emulation software) was very careful to do it this way and could prove they did it this way. The Sony lawsuit was not about winning, but rather about pushing back the release and slowing sales of the Connectix product. It worked, and with the PS2 out, they'll probably do the same thing again.

    As an aside, thankfully Compaq reverse engineered the IBM PC ROM using the same "black box" technique and helped launch an industry and change the world (tough to admit for a Mac lover).

  • So this means we shouldn't defend our intellectual property now? Sony tried very hard to create a game system that was reasonably priced that could play cutting-edge games - and someone took their ideas and patents, released a competiting product.

    No. A court found the copyright infringement claims invalid. Sony has voluntarily dropped the patent infringement claims, suggesting to me that they probably weren't valid either---if they did have a valid patent claim they have lots of money for lawyers and they could easily win. This is pretty much what I'd expect for a clean-room reverse engineered product: any overlap with Sony's intellectual property would have to have been the result of chance; that's pretty unlikely.

    Here's a laymans rundown of what various forms of intellectual property traditionally protect: Trademarks protect a particular name or logo that distinguishes a company or product in the market. This case has nothing to do with trademarks. Copyrights protect the particular expression of an idea. Patents protect a particular implementation of a functional idea (i.e. an invention, defined quite narrowly by how it was implemented). Trade secrets protect all sorts of things, but once the cat is out of the bag they provide no protection at all. The real issues here were copyright and patent infringement.

    Smart people trying to produce an emulator would have poked through the Playstation and documented the interface for games without describing Sony's patented algorithms or providing any of Sony's copyrighted code; then a separate team would have written an emulator to the specification without even looking at a console. (i.e. the clean room reverse engineering mentioned above). Barring a massive coincidence, this pretty much guarantees that they don't use any of Sony's IP.

    Regarding your own hypothetical product, anyone is free to make a product that does the same thing, so long as it doesn't borrow from your particular implementation. Thus _all_ people can profit from their own particular ideas and innovations, including emulator companies.

  • I wonder if Connectix is thinking of suing Sony for making them waste all that money on a defense.
    --

  • Slightly misleading article... (Score:4)

    by Chiasmus_ ( 171285 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:20AM (#964972) Journal
    Sony has voluntarily taken back the patent infringement

    The article at the link sure didn't read that way to me. It sounded like after losing seven out of their nine issues at court, Sony decided the cost of the lawsuit didn't justify the chance of winning. After all, their executives refused to comment; if they had been doing this out of a sense of "right", naturally they would have hyped it up into a big PR thing.

    In conclusion, Sony remains evil, but at least the forces of evil have been held at bay... for now.
  • This is basically correct - property is a set of rights. However, these rights are pretty self evident because of the nature of the universe.
    I would be vary cautious claiming anything about "the nature of the universe". The universe tends to be a lot more complicated than we think.
    For something to be owned it must satisfy three requirements:

    1) The owner must be able to use and enjoy it in any way
    2) The owner must be able to regulate how, when and if others use it
    3) The owner must be able to dispose of it in any way
    Let me give a few examples. Suppose you own a bottle of liquor, you may not drink it in your car ot give it to people under 21. Violation of (1),(2),(3). Suppose you own a plot of land. Local regulations probably will not let you build a skyscraper there. Violation of (1) and (3). Suppose you have a dog. You may not torture the animal. Violation of (3). (Also if you own a dog, can you own a person?)

    Notice that land ownership is a strange concept - in what sense do you own land? Do you own everything beneath the surface as well? How far? Land is already an abstract concept very different from, say, a saw or a hammer.

    Thus if one uses your definition, we own very few things, perhaps even none at all.

    Note also that copyrights and patents aren't natural rights, and that no one in the world is entitled to them, or even that they're necessarily a good idea. The world got along pretty well for thousands of years without any notion of copyright or patents.
    I would argue there is no such thing as a "natural right" or entitlement. All rights and entitlements are rules that have been developed by humankind over thousands of years. Rocks, trees and animals do not have rights. While information ownership might be different from ownership of physical objects (but perhaps not so different from land ownership (btw most land used to be the property of the local ruler or king)), the property rights for information fall within a certain pattern of development. As law and society reached a certain stage, copyright became necessary to encourage innovation and to ensure stability.

    The distiction between ownership and copyright is purely a matter of terms. Copyright is the idea of ownership taken to a new domain.

  • It does, however, decide how we view the company. Do we all believe at this point that Amazon is a shining example of a company? I don't. Sony, on the other had, I have a profound respect for, bolstered by this new move they have made. Amazone may *have* been hip, but the flow of executive businessmen from "the old world" have reverted them to some older and less respected (in the electronic community) business tactics.

    Just my take on it.

    -Effendi

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by jyuter ( 48936 )
    Does anyone know why Sony bailed? Sony was "unavailable for comment." Hypothetically, what would some reasons be? Did they think they would lose the case or are they just waiting for more ammunition?

  • Re:First direct result of this... (Score:3)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:04AM (#964977)
    Oh heck. If you are that kind of a sadist:

    Start with a G4-based enterprise server (not the Macintosh)
    Install LinuxPPC
    Run Mac-on-Linux
    Run the RealPC emulator for Macintosh
    Install a lilo dual-boot of Windows and Linux on that
    Within the Linux partition, run Wine on VMWare
    Within Wine, run VGS.

    Half measures never got us nuthin! :)

  • I thought DeCSS was cracked because they reverse-engineered/disassembled a Windows player that didn't encrypt its CSS key and this info was enough to crack all the keys.

    If thats the case, it shouldn't apply. Connectix black-box reverse engineered it as opposed to hacking on a Playsation to see what it does.

  • Just because a company is selling something at a loss doesn't give someone else the right take to take the idea a do as they wish with it. I'm not saying that the emulator idea was stolen, I DO believe that they legitimitly came up with the idea, and have every right to sell it. But I don't like seeing "They are selling Playstations at a loss" as a reason when piracy of the system should be allowed.
  • Acctually, they arent using an emulator. They have an I/O processor in the Playstation 2 that acts as the Playstation 1's CPU. So their not using an emulator because the actual PSX hardware is in the PS2.

    I guess its hardware emulation then, rather than software.
  • The reference to "don't bother to correct me" was in regards to my word choice of "routines". What I was trying to convey was that whether it be routines, ideas, or a logo - it doesn't matter - it's not something I support.

    The topic was more of the timing and cost issue, and not about the details of the lawsuit, so I was trying to stay away from it, and my original intent was to encourage others to not talk about it on this particular thread.

    Still, I think what I meant to say didn't come out right. It looks like I worded it in a way that sounded stubborn and ignorant, and took away from what I was really trying to say. Apologies.
  • The reference to "don't bother to correct me" was in regards to my word choice of "routines". What I was trying to convey was that whether it be routines, ideas, or a logo - it doesn't matter - please don't go nitpicking about my word choice of "routines" -- stealing proprietary stuff is not something I support, period.

    The topic was more of the timing and cost issue, and not about the details of the lawsuit, so I was trying to stay away from it, and my original intent was to encourage others to not talk about it on this particular thread.

    Still, I think what I meant to say didn't come out right. It looks like I worded it in a way that sounded stubborn and ignorant, and took away from what I was really trying to say. I shall be more careful in the future. Apologies.
  • More specifically, the PS2's I/O chip IS the psx cpu. :) It even has it's own 2mb of on chip RAM as well. In reality, PS2 has a PSX on it's mb, but with the abilty to optionally use faster CDROM speeds and texture filtering as well.
  • Yeah. I don't know how they get around the sound and GPU problem though. I guess they just have software routines for those... or something.
  • Perhaps the XBox could be emulated, but it would be exceedingly difficult to do with the PS2 or Dreamcast, since both use a sort of multi-processor setup, which is nearly impossible to emulate. You ever wonder why you never see any Sega Saturn emulators? That's why. Even if you were to have two processors on a motherboard, each emulating one of the processors, the simultaety still needs to be preserved, which is not a key part of emulators. Oh well. Save a life. Buy more cheese. - Naerbnic

  • Re:Hmm.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Thank god the USPTO is not full of people like you. You can't patent output. Duh? In addition, to patent something, full disclosure is required. This prevents me from slapping the "big black box" on to another man's invention and patenting it.

    "The methods are irrelevant." I nearly laughed so hard when I read this. The methods are all that are protected by patent law.

    Emulation is not illegal, you dumb ass. Using images of the device being emulated, without owning that property, is illegal.

    Get your facts straight before responding in a hostile manner to a person who knows what he is talking about.

  • Re:I thought it was open... (Score:3)

    by John Poole ( 102799 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:19AM (#964987) Homepage
    Sony did create a version of the PlayStation that the average programmer could develop for called the Net Yaroze (spelling may be off a bit). A couple of problems, though:

    1. They were rather expensive. The only price I heard for one was around $800US. I'm not sure what PlayStations were going for then, but it was probably a quarter of that.

    2. They were incompatible with the normal PlayStations. Sure, I could develop a game on the Net Yaroze, but I couldn't send copies to my friends so they could give it a whirl. I don't know about you, but while I get a kick out of programming, I also get a kick out of having other people use my software (especially when it comes to games). I think the reasoning for this, though, was so that people couldn't develop for the PlayStation without paying the licensing fees.

    Just my thoughts on the matter.
  • It was terribly expensive and a bitch to get. If you count that as "opening the psx," then yes.
  • "The public" couldn't care less about copyright infringement suits. /. readers may have this perception, but /. readers are about as far from the general public as you're going to get, and I mean that in a good way.

  • Re:Slightly misleading article... (Score:3)

    by Lightwarrior ( 73124 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:21AM (#964990) Journal
    >In conclusion, Sony remains evil, but at least the forces of evil have been held at bay... for now.

    I love some of the anti-corporate spew you see at Slashdot. The "slightly misleading article" article will sound as it was written, and as the reader intends it. The written word (unless very artfully done) is always open to interpretation.

    After reading the articles again, I'm sure you'll notice:
    "Sony executives were not immediately available for comment."
    - This doesn't mean Sony refused to comment; it means that C|Net didn't want to wait around for their replies before the posted the article.

    And who held the "forces of evil" at bay? Certainly not Connectix, or the Federal Courts - Sony *chose* to drop the case. So who, praytell, stopped the Evil Sony in its tracks?

    Why is Sony evil? Because they want to protect the market for a product they make? Because they want to make sure people aren't ripping off products they own?

    -lw
  • since they make a profit on every Playstation game sold ... The real hot water that the presence of a legally reverse-engineered emu. puts them in is, Why shouldn't Bleem tell other people how to make compatible versions of the software? Then Sony would lose out. They should have embraced Bleem in th first place, and even braught / branded / co-licensed the emu. Dumb business!;) sw
  • Okay fine. It isn't stealing.
  • While I wholeheartedly agree that this "Can't play foreign-coded games" idea sucks, admittedly, it's their right to control how their games are released, priced, supported, etc... For you to say that there is a compatability issue when using your mod chip is not really fair.

    Put yourself in their (Sony/game-maker's) shoes... I'm sure the game-makers want their products to have the labels, packaging, game content in the correct language, right? I'm sure they would want their customer service staffed correctly, and their webpage, commercials, and on-line store updated and deployed as well... Okay, so most people would probably agree that customer service is a joke, and that you'd rather have the game *now* vs. having the correct documentation... but to them, it's their bread and butter. They would want to present it the best way they can, so that it will do well. The last thing they would want is for 1 million copies of their games making it to the US, but everything written in Japanese... And the phones start ringing...

    So... while I admittedly don't know if Sony is truly evil or not (hehe), using the above scenario, I can understand why the game developers would support, (if not demand/plead) that Sony create country codes and limitations...

    Okay, so now that I've given my "oh well, we have to be fair" statement above, I will, for the record, say that yes, it sucks to have to have two PSX's in order to play Japanese and US games hassle-free. (by hassle I mean mod-chip, stuff not working, etc..) The cost of two units is not what bothers me.. it's the fact that I could just as easily just have one unit, and half the cables running around... LOL. Alas...

  • Ummmm...

    Here's how it goes:
    1. Sony is selling playstation units at a loss, to earn money from selling the games.
    2. Connectix starts selling an emulator. This has two effects:
    a) Sony gets to sell less playstation units (lose less money) and
    b) Sony gets to sell more games (earn more money).

    The question was simply: why are they pulling a law suit against something that they could earn alot of money from?

  • I have been wronged the bastard admitted it in #slashdot
  • Fucking hypocrite.

    Granted, I don't support reverse-engineering and stealing proprietary routines (and don't bother to correct me, as I don't know/care about the details)...

    Strike 1. Proprietary routines were not stolen. Proprietary hardware was not stolen. Pheonix clean roomed an IBM compatible BIOS. That's why PCs are cheap and Macs are expensive. Or should we all be driving Fords in Black only?

    Honestly... do you know anyone who decided to buy the emulator over the "real" unit? Maybe you do, but I, for one, don't.

    I bought one. Thank you.

    If you're going to spend $30-$50 on an emulator, you might as well go spend $89 at your local Target/Wal-mart and get the darn unit - no compatibility issues, etc... Most of the folks
    who have the emulator already have the PSX, and they still buy all the games.

    You'd pay 90 for something you get for 30. Well folks, the new math is in.

  • Sony is a four letter word, thats all i have to say
  • No, if you were fired, you've been ejected from the company. You didn't voluntarily leave your job; you were forced out. Quitting is voluntary.
    If you're talking about walking out the door, then if no one escorted you, you'd be leaving voluntarily. If you were escorted, you'd be complying. If they dragged you kicking and screaming, you'd be resisting.

    -lw

  • About the NetYaroze (Score:3)

    by Naerbnic ( 123002 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:24AM (#964999)
    Yes, there was a Black Playstation which was called the NetYaroze. It let you use a basic API on your PC to write games, which were d/l into your playstation via cable (Can't have people burning PSX cds, now can they?). However, there were a few things which limited it. First off, it is no longer being sold. Second, your programs had to be less than 2megs, since that was the size of the PSX's RAM. That two megs also included a 500KB API library included with it. And of course, you couldn't show your friends unless they also had a NetYaroze. So the Black playstation wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. You can find some more info, including some on how to make real PSX games at Hitmen [hitmen-console.com] or Napalm [intellinet.com].

    Save a life. Buy more cheese.
    - Naerbnic
  • > I can't simply duplicate McCormick's reaper...

    McCoy, n'est pas? As in "the Real McCoy".
  • I thought all of this stuff was settled way back in the day when people started making hardware emulators (or clones if you prefer) of the Atari 2600. Like the 2600 addon you could get with the Intellivision (II), and the 2600 system marketed by montgomery wards.. and probably others. I know Atari had some big problem with that, but then they lost in court. Is a hardware emulator so much different legally than a software one?
  • and don't bother to correct me, as I don't know/care about the details

    IOW: I feel the say that I feel and I don't care if I'm a baby who is basing my opinion on nohting factual. Leave me and my little dream world alone.
  • You stupid bastard. The 9th Curcuit Court of appeal isn't the 9th court that hears your case. It's based upon geopgraphical jurisdiction. The 9th Circuit covers one area and the 11th Ciruit covers another area.....

    LK

  • Yes, that's true. If my boss told me I was fired, I would still be leaving "voluntarily", unless he hit me over the back of the head with a sap and dragged

    Perhaps a better analogy. You screw up really badly at work and know you will be fired, so you quit first. Looks better on the resume.

  • Re:Slightly misleading article... (Score:4)

    by Danse ( 1026 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:40AM (#965005)

    And who held the "forces of evil" at bay? Certainly not Connectix, or the Federal Courts - Sony *chose* to drop the case. So who, praytell, stopped the Evil Sony in its tracks?

    Seems like the court did have a lot to do with it. The judge threw out most of Sony's case. So, Sony *chose* to drop the case because they'd already lost most of it and they realized they weren't likely to get anything out of it anymore, so it didn't make sense for them to keep fighting it to the bitter end. That just costs more money.

    They will apparently be pursuing a separate patent-infringement case though. And Connectix is, of course, trying to have that one tossed out as well. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

    Why is Sony evil? Because they want to protect the market for a product they make? Because they want to make sure people aren't ripping off products they own?

    It depends on their reasons for suing. If they truly believe that what Connectix has done violates the law, then they're probably right to sue. If they're doing it just to cause problems for Connectix, then they're evil. It seems that with 7 of the 9 allegations being tossed right out, they probably didn't have much of a case.

  • Re:Why? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hehehe... They lost seven of nine... :)

  • Re:PSX obsolete (Score:3)

    by NetCurl ( 54699 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @10:40AM (#965011)
    That is not true. The problem with giving up means that they leave themselves open for Emulation on the new PSX2. While this does leave it unresolved, it's better to be unresolved for Connectix. Connectix can make money off the PSX emu for now, and later on fight with more power, money, and a semi-precident of having done this and gotten away with it before. In my opinion, Sony lost this battle.
  • I would think that emulating an X-Box on a PC wouldn't be terribly different

    True, but Connectix makes great emulators for MacOS as well (VGS and VirtualPC). I imagine that MS will make X-Box games work on Windows, but I'm not so sure they will go after the MacOS market (it *is* possible -- there is money to be made from Mac users, and MS does make some very decent Mac software (Office98 and IE 5)).

    If Micosoft isn't interested in supporting games on MacOS, perhaps Connectix can step in to make that work.

    - Isaac =)

  • Re:Timing, and cost, maybe? (Score:3)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @10:42AM (#965014) Homepage Journal
    Did it occur to you that perhaps Sodakar has an opinion based on a sense of right/wrong, and doesn't care about the details of laws he/she doesn't agree with?

    So, like I said. He feels the way that he feels and doesn't want to let the facts, or reality, get in the way.

    what you said, in other words, is: I feel it is my duty to define what other people mean by their statements and pass arbitrary judgements on them.

    That's pretty much it.

    LK
  • Well, as it works out, when it comes to tangible property two people can't independently of each other own the same thing. If I own a bottle of liquor, you don't have the ability to use it except as I permit. And vice versa.

    Information is the same in that respect. We can't both share _precisely_ the same piece of information. But unlike tangible stuff, information can be and is trivially copied all the time. When you read a book, you do not move the information from the book into your mind. A copy of the information carried in the book is made in your mind; the book still has all the information it ever did. Tell me what the book said, and now I get a copy as well.

    This is the sort of thing I'm talking about with how the universe - which as far as this debate is concerned is basically just us Earthlings (property law on Planet Claire is irrelevant) - works.

    -----

    As for the traditional requirements for ownership go (these are legal requirements AFAIK - I didn't invent them myself) you're missing the point.

    Let's say that Alice lawfully owns a car. It is illegal to hit people with it. This doesn't mean that Alice does not own the car. It doesn't mean that Alice doesn't have the ability to hit people with it. It means that it is illegal to hit people with it. Alice's ownership of the car is never in question.

    Remember, I didn't say that you could only use or enjoy or restrict or dispose of things lawfully in order to own something. As a practical matter, you may be compelled to forfeit your property when using it in an illegal manner.

    Obviously this doesn't mean that you never owned it to begin with, but that as either a punishment or a corrective measure Alice's future ability to exercise rights over some piece of property have been taken away. Acquiring property in a manner that violates the previous owner's property rights is also illegal, and as a matter of course, includes the return of the illegally _acquired_ property.

    So Alice owns all kinds of stuff. And there's nothing preventing her from doing whatever she wants with it. But there may be repercussions from some uses that effect her continued ability to freely exercise her rights.

    That's what I'm saying here, and to my understanding that's basically what the law says. IANAL, and I'm sure that there are many fine points involved but I don't think that it flips the entire thing over.

    As for land, yeah, you own everything in an ever shrinking wedge down until the center of the earth, IIRC. The ownership of air and space is a newer issue however. And because sometimes property rights may conflict with each other but the means of resolution are generally not brand new here. (e.g. if I own property which is completely encompassed by your property, you are required to grant me access. This infringes on your right to exclude me from your property, but if you could exercise that I would be unable to exert ANY right over my own property. The encompassor imposes the greater burden on the other party; it's less of a burden for him to relent)

    -----

    Natural rights exist. I'm not talking about mother nature (trees and rocks? please) but the state that people exist in when there are no laws other than physical ones like gravity. But you have to remember that the existance of a right doesn't necessarily preclude other people from infringing on it. The best strategy so far imho appears to be to restrict the exercise of your rights just enough to preserve as many others intact as possible. It's more an art than a science though.

    But let's consider your thesis. If there are no natural rights, then Alice, who is alone in the woods is incapable of saying whatever she wants? This is clearly untrue. Thus freedom of speech is a natural right. Unfortunately it does not carry with it a defense against those who would infringe on that right - Bob threatening Alice with bodily harm if she speaks her mind. And that is where laws are introduced.

    But copyrights are fundementally opposed to the natural freedom of speech. If Alice gives a speech, there's nothing in the absence of law or threats from others that prevents Bob from repeating it word for word.

    Copyrights were developed which prevent Bob from doing so without incurring the possibility of punishment. But the clearly stated objective of copyrights (in the US anyway) is to encourage Alice to give many speeches that Bob wishes to repeat. This is frequently overlooked.

    Copyrights are an incentive for Alice. They are limited in a number of important ways because it's more important for Bob to be able to repeat Alice's speeches than for Alice to have absolute control. Unfortunately our carefully developed and rather fair system of copyrights which has evolved over the past ~200 years has been unconstitutionally corrupted by moneyed interests.

    Anyway - the intrinsic requirement that information be copied, rather than transferred is what makes it impossible to own it.

    *If I compose a poem in my mind, I can enjoy it. I can satisfy the first requirement.

    *If I want to let someone listen to the poem, I can do that and fulfill half of the second requirement. But I can't compell them to give it back or to forget it or stop thinking about it in some manner which I dislike. I can't fully exercise the second requirement.

    *I still can't dispose of it (i.e. willfully forget it) and can't own it. This is a limitation of how humans work. But I can't fulfill the third requirement either.

    _This_ is how I can't own information. And this is why copyright law doesn't claim to confer ownership of information. If it did, we'd call it something else. Copyright rather clearly indicates that it is an exclusive right to copy.

    A more accurate definition would be: An exclusive (but not sometimes, or under some circumstances. and only for a limited time anyway) right to copy.

    I haven't said that copyright is necessarily bad. I think that it can serve a purpose, but presently is in need of significant reform. But it's not ownership, and it's really important that people understand that. I hope that I've managed to convince you. It's NOT just a matter of terms.

  • Re:Slightly misleading article... (Score:4)

    by ContinuousPark ( 92960 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @03:17PM (#965019)
    In conclusion, Sony remains evil, but at least the forces of evil have been held at bay... for now.

    Not anymore. According to this C|Net piece [cnet.com]: "Sony said today that it has refiled a suit against Connectix alleging that the company's software that allows PCs to run games developed for the PlayStation violates Sony patents. A Sony representative said the company dismissed its lawsuit a day before a hearing in the case on the judge's advice to avoid "procedural issues that may have been appealable.""
    So, Sony it's at it again. We have to restart this whole /. thread with a twist.

  • Sony was slowly losing their entire case. In the past few months, one claim after another was tossed out by the court; eg. had no merit. Sony was facing a difficult task on the remaining claims. And oh by the way .....

    Sony is huge player in the games title business (er... I mean content). They didn't see the logic of going to court and pissing off a bunch of game evangelists all for the sake of preserving a low margin aspect of their business - the HARDWARE end when they could just coopt and force more games through the channel. Games is where they make the real money cause you invest to get the first one and then each next copy takes a few bucks to make, distribute and sell. Consoles are expensive to make, hard to ship, get returned....blah blah blah.

    And anyway does emu run as well as a console? or is a BIG company like Sony banking that slow performance will motivate folks to switch to a console. And what about PS2?
  • Why is Sony evil? Because they want to protect the market for a product they make? Because they want to make sure people aren't ripping off products they own?

    Well the Playstation was a loss leader if I remember right. They made most of their money from games and the emulators just opened up another area for people to play Playstation games so really this wasn't done to make sure people weren't ripping them off.

    I know I don't like Sony because of their part in the DeCSS fiasco as well as their strong arm tactics for demolishing smaller competition.

    There are reasons why the anti-corporate sentiments are raising up. Corporations are given the same rights as individuals and then are given some that normal people don't get, like getting bailed out by the government without any adverse affects or not having taxes.

    On top of this it is the corporations, not the government, that is trying to take away all our rights and freedoms. The laws were passed by the government but the corporations are pulling the strings and have the control. I am biased but do you want our world run by entities whose existence values a dollar higher than a human life?
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • Re:Why? (Score:2)

    by Danse ( 1026 )

    Well, 7 of their 9 allegations got tossed out, and from what the article says, it looks like they're going to file, or have already filed, another case against Connectix.

  • Connectix CEO comments... (Score:3)

    by NetCurl ( 54699 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @10:43AM (#965024)
    For those of you truly interested in this topic, here is an article [macnn.com] that has an interview with the CEO of Connectix regarding this issue. It's posted at MacNN [macnn.com].
  • Sony makes little to no money off of their hardware (in the case of Playstation 2, it reportedly costs more than double the retail price to manufacture!). Their money is made off Playstation software, and things like bleem! and Virtual Game Station only *expand* the market for that software. I'm surprised Sony hasn't attempted to create an "officially licensed" emulator, as some software companies have. (Activision, Williams, and Konami all sell discs with their older games running on emulators).
  • They've lost every case so far against Connectix. They probably are tired of spending money on the legal fees. They don't really need to worry too much about it anymore with PSX/2 coming out.

  • More details from Connectix CEO (Score:5)

    by isaac_akira ( 88220 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:23AM (#965035)
    Short interview with Connectix CEO [macnn.com]

    He mentions that a key point is that the technique of reverse engineering was completely cleared, opening the door to creating PS2, Dreamcast, and even X-Box emulators in the future (once PC hardware speeds are capable of it).

    - Isaac =)
  • If we all could just have just been happy with the original Atari gamming system, all this pain could have been avoided. The answer is in you.

  • Re:PSX obsolete (Score:3)

    by Golias ( 176380 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:25AM (#965042)
    They probably figured why bother with this case since PSX2 is almost out.

    That, and they were getting their a?? kicked. Most of the patent disputes were already rejected by the courts. This was just the last nail in the coffin of the Sony lawsuit.

    Hopefully, when "VGS2" comes out, they will not waste their time. After all, the PSX2 has lots of crunchy features that make it a nifty living room appliance, but the typical PC owner who already has a DVD player will have little reason to bother with the platform unless there is an emulator... and Sony makes the big money on the games, not the player.

  • The biggest drawback for Sony that I can see is that a game running on the Sony emulator (in my experience anyway) isn't as good as when it runs on normal PSX hardware. I suppose that someone who had never seen a PlayStation before and tried playing Soul Blade on their Bleem emulator might think, "Boy, Playstation games aren't all that good."

    Interesting - I heard that if your hardware was good enough, then the resultant emulation was actually much better than what the PlayStation hardware could give (in terms of resolution & such). I haven't tried it myself (yet), but that's what I heard.

  • Blockquoth the poster:
    Copyright is the idea of ownership taken to a new domain.
    No. That's what the copyright industry wants you to think but it historically is not so. You cannot "own" an idea; you can have rights to control the distribution of that idea (although in a limited way and -- as originally conceived -- for a limited time). Note that property never goes away -- if you own a piece of land, it is yours forever. It requires a very cumbersome process to seize that land, either for taxes or eminent domain or whatever. Copyright, on the other hand, simply expires (or rather, it is supposed to, if abdominations like the Sonny Bono Act don't interfere).
  • Blockquoth the poster:
    As to the law, it is not introduced to let Alice speak her mind (in fact most cultures do not allow free speech), the law is introduced to bring order and stability to the society.
    Thank you, John Locke. For a long time this idea -- the "social contract" solely as a bulwark against random disorder -- has commanded a high philosophical respect, and rightly so. But remember that it evolved in a time when those in power ruled arbitrarily and by fiat. As such, eliminating disorder would be the first, necessary step in human progress.

    We are not Locke. We inherit a rich political tradition that has, in part, been built around the rights and processes his ilk won. But here we must make a distinction about what we mean when we say what law "is for".

    On the one hand, its purpose is quite clearly as suggested; to wit, to secure and maintain public order. To preserve property, as Locke put it. That is why law can exist in the most tyrannical regimes; why we find it in many societies, regardless of the rest of their political structure.

    But in another, real, and more important sense, law exists to secure justice. It is no accident that we call our system of laws "the justice system". And though the implementation and even design of those laws often fall short of ideal, the assumption of justice is the engine that drives the system. It is the only thing that legitimatizes it.

    In that sense, one must ask whether the current crusade to defend intellectual "property"(*) is actually just and whether the legal system should be pursuing it as strenuously as it is. By the twisting of the concept of "property", rights holders are also twisting the legal system into an engine for their self-enrichement regardless of whether the result is just or even whether the terms have been ratified by common usage. ---
    (*) Intellectual "property" is to property as fool's "gold" is to gold.

  • GameBoy (Score:3)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @09:54AM (#965051) Homepage Journal

    I know you're joking, but I've actually become quite entranced by the GameBoy platform recently. It's simple, VERY well documented, and lots of free tools exist for developing for it. Nintendo doesn't seem to be too annoying about shutting down emulator and reverse engineering projects, too (they even released a game "Harvest Moon" recently, which was developed by amateurs). And best yet (in my view) no high-3D-flashiness/low-gameplay!

    If you yearn for classic gaming and a reasonably open platform, grab an emulator (rew) and assembler (rgbasm) and check it out!
  • I would say that copyright infringement suits are certainly unpopular with the majority of Sony's PlayStation market. My mom and dad don't care, but they also don't buy video games.

  • Impact on DeCSS (Score:3)

    by Synthesis ( 30538 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @10:01AM (#965053)
    Shouldn't this have a favorable impact on any ruling rgarding DeCSS? It's practically the same thing i.e. Connectix provided a way for play Workstation disks on non-Sony players; DeCSS provides for a way to play DVD's on PC's.
  • Um. Nintendos had multiple processors - sound, sprite, and main (maybe more, I don't recall). They have been emulated for years. The reason you don't see a Saturn emulator is because it had, like, 3 games.
    -Dave Turner.
  • Somewhat offtopic, but still interesting.

    Someone was once describing the art of writing patents to me. The idea is basically to make the patent wording broad enough to cover all future derivations of the patent, but at the same time not cover anything that had been developed before. Apparently, the most profitable patent ever written was for the first word processor and was something to the extent of "A program that tabs across the screen and fills in the blank spaces."
    I can't say this is true, since I heard it second hand, but this basically covers all forms of word processors (word, wp, etc) and any other form type programs. I guess at the time, all other programs didn't follow this same flow of tabbing across the screen, so they didn't fall under the patent application. If this is true, some serious bank must have been made.
  • That would still be a "voluntary" withdrawal. Involuntary would be, I dunno, getting thrown out of court?
    --
  • IANAL: If Sony had taken this to court and had lost, it would have killed any future chance they had at suing Conectix (or however you spell it) on these grounds. Sony probably wasn't able to put their case together in time and as such dropped the case so they can regroup and sue Conectix at some future date. Money could not have been in the consideration, Sony has far more money than Conectix ever will. If they keep suing eventually Conectix will run out of money.
  • Obviously, because the case was not issued a court ruling, there's no precident set by this case. But it can be used as an example. However, more importantly, the effects of this case will only be felt if the judge goes the way of interoperability instead of the encryption breaking/DCMA route that the MPAA is trying to go down.
  • Never mind my 1600x1200 resolution at 100 frames per second against TVs 640x480 with 30 frames per second.

    Other than that, though, I'm sure the psx2 will whoop up on my pc.

  • Apparently, dropping the lawsuit was just a strategy to avoid giving Connectix ammunition for appeal. According to CNET [cnet.com], Sony is refiling the patent suit.

    So, this wasn't a victory at all, it's an illustration of some of the more questionable aspects of the legal system. Apparently, Sony can keep trying until the get the lawsuit right, and force Connectix to waste more and more time and legal expenses on it. Imagine you were being sued and the company bringing the lawsuit could just file it again and again.

  • Don't forget, this isn't the only PlayStation emulator out there -- bleem! [bleem.com] has been around for a while.. wasn't Sony suing them as well? Or was that just to prevent it's release?

  • Sony covering it's own a$$? (Score:3)

    by Anopheles ( 43442 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @11:25AM (#965077) Homepage Journal
    Sony has advertised the PS2 as being backwards compatible with most PSX games. Now, since the PS2 is a completely different, brand new architecture, the only way they can really do this is by coding an emulator into the PS2. The key word that people seem to miss is that *most* PSX games work with PS2. Hence, a PSX emulator has been built into the PS2. <P>
    So, Sony has made an emulator for PSX. If Sony won the lawsuit and forbade Connectix from writing an emulator, then can Sony legally write an emulator for the PS2? I know this sounds silly, but can anybody dispute this?
  • WHere can I find an emulator? I have a used cartridge of caveman games in my trunk, but never owned a nintendo. The friend I meeant for ruined it before I could deliver it :(

    Hmm, then I need to read the rom in the cartridge, too . . .

  • Re:Hmm.. (Score:5)

    by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:38AM (#965083) Homepage Journal
    Blockquoth the poster:
    People, that's theft of intellectual property -- that's the same stuff that Microsoft is getting in trouble with the DOJ.
    Um, no, that's "reverse engineering" -- a widely accepted practice. If Connectix had actually stolen patents, that would be "theft" of intellectual "property" (*), but of course, the point of the lawsuit would be to establish such infringement. No lawsuit, no establishment.

    As for the MS/DOJ thing, it is not about patent infringement or IP. It is about predatory monopolistic practics at MS.

    Also blockquoth the poster:

    If I make a product, patent and trademark it, and someone comes along and makes a product that does in essence, the same thing my product does, causing me to lose sales, I'm going to sue for patent infringement.
    A patent does not guarantee the right to make a profit from an invention. It does not guarantee the right to an exclusive market due to an invention. It does not prohibit others from fulfilling the same need you've chosen to address via the device patentned.

    A patent does prevent someone else from implementing a solution in exactly the same way you do. In other words, I can't simply duplicate McCormick's reaper, but I sure as heck can come up with my own device for harvesting grain. It is not the concept of rotary blades that is patented; it's the particular form that is protected.

    Admittedly, the federal courts and the PTO have really murked the waters by allowing software and "business model" patents (egregiously wrongly, IMHO). But even they don't say "MS patented Word, so no one else can make word processors" -- even ones that read Word files.

    --- (*) Intellectual "property" is to property as fool's "gold" is to gold... It can't be "stolen", although one's rights vis-a-vis it can be infringed. Current usage is a deliberate obfuscation to play on the connotations of "theft".

  • Sony playing dirty legal games? (Score:4)

    by MattW ( 97290 ) <matt@ender.com> on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:38AM (#965084) Homepage
    Notice from the press release, they note "We recognize Sony may still attempt to bring these claims back before the court at a later date..."

    Also note this occured 1 day before they were set to present their motion to dismiss (they being connectix). To me, it sounds like Sony is suing, causing trouble, then dropping the case before there's a chance for resolution. In other words, they're grinding on them without ever allowing the court to actually settle the issue, costing Connectix money and making people question the viability of the product, just using money on lawyers to make trouble. Maybe connectix should have had the right to seek a summary judgement on the matter to prevent such abuse. (or at least a right to continue a day and have their motion heard)

  • Pros and Cons for Sony (Score:5)

    by Toddarooski ( 12363 ) on Friday June 30, 2000 @08:38AM (#965085)
    The way I see it, a PlayStation emulator isn't all that harmful to Sony -- after all, as lots of people are quick to point out, Sony doesn't make any money selling their hardware. Often, they'll sell it for a loss and make their money on royalties for their games. (They get a pretty hefty chunk of change on every PSX game sold.) If they can make money selling games without having to take a loss on the hardware, they'll probably be pretty happy.

    The biggest drawback for Sony that I can see is that a game running on the Sony emulator (in my experience anyway) isn't as good as when it runs on normal PSX hardware. I suppose that someone who had never seen a PlayStation before and tried playing Soul Blade on their Bleem emulator might think, "Boy, Playstation games aren't all that good."

    Another more dangerous (but perhaps less likely) potential problem is the fact that maybe these console companies could steal each other's publishing deals. Suppose to make Tunnel Raider V for the PSX, it'll cost me $5/game in royalties for Sony. Suppose Sega offers me a better deal -- say, $3/game -- to make the "Dreamcast Bleem Emulator" version of the game (which, totally by coincidence, happens to run on the Playstation as well). That could really screw over Sony. I don't think it's a particularly likely scenario, but it's possible...

    Of course, most of this is a moot point now that most people are looking forward to the PSX2, which is probably the real reason why Sony isn't continuing their legal battle.

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