Category: intellectual property

  • Myrient Announces Shutdown

    Site Cost Owner $6,000+ Per Month to Run After Donations

    For clymax’s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube or Twitter.

    The video game “archive” offers curated collections of games that include allegedly illegally hosted roms and even romhacks.

    According to Time Extension, which covered the story:

    The irony of blaming AI – a technology that is famously built on the widescale theft of human-made content – for the closure won’t be lost on those who take a dim view of ROM-sharing websites….

    According to Hackaday in its coverage:

    Although finances are the main reason for this hobby project to be shut down, it’s due to (paywalled) download managers that  have recently appeared, and which completely bypass the donation requests and similar on the website.

    According to Myrient:

    What is Myrient?

    Myrient is a video game archive where you can download content from our wide variety of collections to use in emulators and on real systems.

    What makes Myrient different?

    We focus on accessibility with fast download speeds, no limits on downloads, no ads shown, and no registration needed.

    Is Myrient safe?

    Yes. All content is verified before being added to Myrient by comparing the hash of every file against lists of hashes of known good copies to see if they match.

    What does “Myrient” mean?

    Myrient is a portmanteau of the words “myriad” and “entertainment”, referring to the countless amount of video game content that is difficult to access or no longer available legitimately.

    Vimms Lair broke the news on X, citing a Discord post:

    Coverage from Around the Web

    This post has been viewed 30 time(s).

  • Retro Achievements Suddenly Claims Achievement Logic is “Proprietary”

    New Language Silently Added to “Legal & Terms” Page

    Mirrored at the sole discretion of clymax for sake of transparency on Retro Achievements, which was one of the aims of Moderator BahamutVoid in leaving his farewell letter not long after Administrator televandalist’s own resignation letter dropped. If you have any concerns with this mirror, please reach out to clymax directly.

    Opinion Piece by clymax

    Original Link: https://retroachievements.org/terms

    February 23, 2026

    The following new section was added via a Pull Request here with seemingly no announcement made on the website (emphasis added):

    Achievement Data

    Achievement titles, descriptions, and related metadata may be referenced or reused by third parties (eg: for tracking sites or community tools).

    Achievement trigger logic (the code and conditions that define how achievements are evaluated) is proprietary to the RetroAchievements community and may not be reused, redistributed, or reproduced without explicit permission. The GPL-3 license covering the RetroAchievements web application source code does not extend to achievement data.

    This claim may be questionable for many reasons.

    Achievement [trigger] logic may not necessarily be protectible by copyright. But let’s set that aside from now.

    To the extent that the achievement logic is protectible by copyright, the copyright vests, at least initially, in the achievement author. Not in Retro Achievements.

    According to their Developer Code of Conduct here:

    Achievement Ownership

    When you publish your work you are giving it over to the community to be reviewed and reworked over time….

    This language, however, does not necessarily mean that achievement authors transfer copyright to Retro Achievements.

    Neither does it necessarily mean that Retro Achievements has any exclusive license to use the achievement logic.

    It could mean that Retro Achievements has at best a non-exclusive license to use the achievement logic.

    In that scenario, only the achievement authors have authority to decide whom else can “reuse[], redistribute[], or reproduce[]” the achievement logic.

    Retro Achievements would have no authority, under copyright, to tell any party that he or she cannot “reuse[], redistribute[], or reproduce[]” the achievement logic.

    So, Retro Achievements, what gives?

    This post has been viewed 33 time(s).

  • Romhacking.net Reportedly Requiring Hack Authors to Self-Dox to Request Hack Removal

    Removal Policy Allegedly Quietly Updated This Year

    What do you think?

    Will you keep using RHDN or RHDI?

    Or will you use alternatives like RHP?

    This post has been viewed 38 time(s).

  • Epic Clash Between Spriter and Repro-Cart Seller on FFIV Mod’s Discord Server

    Spritework Offered for Sale Without Permission, Allegedly

    For clymax’s projects, click here. You can also follow him on YouTube or Twitter.

    December 2, 2025

    Spriter: Am I seeing this right? Are you selling bootleg carts and including optional patches? First, get my name off of it, now. Second, many of those optional patches are my work, or include parts of my work, and, no, you are not allowed to sell them under any circumstance, in any form.

    Spriter: [Seller] does not have the rights to sell or distribute the Final Fantasy IV ROM. [Seller] does not have permission to sell any of my work included in FFIV [Modification]’s optional patches. If you buy a reproduction cart from [Seller], you are purchasing an illegal product and stolen non-commercial fanart. I condemn the inclusion of my work and the use of my online handle on this eBay page.

    Seller: I see, will remove

    Also, be sure to send some cease and desist to this seller as well: [link redacted]

    and this one: [link redacted]

    there may be a few others

    Spriter: Your eBay page still contains original art of mine, in addition to edited work. [3 artwork names redacted], most of the fonts.

    Seller: [4 links redacted]

    These all have them too

    Spriter: I don’t speak for the main FFIV [Modification] project, I don’t speak for Square Enix. I don’t condone the sale of reproduction carts in general, and I don’t care to discuss creative, wrong interpretations of copyright law and enforcement. My concern is I do not want art that I created and especially not my name associated with your illegal bootlegs.

    Moderator: this sounds like an excellent conversation to have in dms

    Modification-Team Member A: Please leave it to the DMs guys.

    If there’s something that involves someone else, please also DM them and handle it in private.

    [Editor’s note: messages were deleted by Moderator]

    Moderator: I am deleting the recent messages and WILL ban/kick if necessary. I, as a moderator, made a direct specific request to keep it to dms

    if the dms themselves weren’t civil, there was no reason to bring it back into the public channels of this discord

    [Editor’s note: Following this exchange, the Spriter was noted as no longer being in the Discord. It was not immediately clear whether the Spriter was booted from the Discord or left of his own accord.]

    Modification-Team Member B: I was asked to remove some patches from the archive today in regards to a community member selling some physical copies of [Modification]. Any major combination of the existing patches in the archive are available in [Seller’s] storefront, so I was asked by a contributor to remove their content as they are not interested in this arrangement. If you also would like your patches removed from the public archive and the web patchers for any reason, now or in the future, let me know

    What do you think? Do you side with the spriter or seller in this case? What’s your take on repro carts of mods in general? Comment below, or check us out on Discord.

    This post has been viewed 38 time(s).