Author Topic: moriyashrine.org got DMCA  (Read 15700 times)

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moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« on: March 28, 2022, 10:15:47 AM »
So alongside Touhou Wiki drama someone anonymously sent out a DMCA in regards to all official Touhou content from Windows era and some of the albums as well.

It makes one wonder why is that and who's behind this. I'm a little worried that it may be some other source that's related to ZUN, though it obviously wouldn't make sense for someone else to speak for Touhou apart from ZUN.
This is especially weird since I recall ZUN being okay about fans in the west obtaining these games for free (or maybe it was just in relation to fans making their own translations?).
Side note?: Some people claim that ZUN actually DMCA'd websites that hosted PC-98 games, though I have no evidence from them.

deice

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2022, 11:24:49 AM »
personally i'd wager it's just a copyright troll, many of those exist online due to how easily abusable and just generally terrible the dmca is. as an example, there was a western touhou fangame a while back which had set up crowdfunding without asking for permission first (which is a breach of guidelines). they were contacted in an orderly manner and while i can't remember whether it was by ZUN directly or a legal representative it does lead me to believe that an anonymous copyright claim is rather out-of-character.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #2 on: March 29, 2022, 12:16:46 AM »
I don't see how not being able to freely download games other people have to pay money for is drama but sure.

ZUN has never been OK with piracy but he and his team is very small so it takes time for them to handle stuff. If anything, you should be thankful they only got around to issuing takedowns after the majority of his catalog has been released on Steam.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2022, 05:23:04 AM »
A lot of the games are at least still available on steam, I'm more worried about the older albums which can be harder to come across and OSTs in general. The ones on Moriya Shrine were always really good
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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2022, 07:30:34 AM »
All of the OSTs are on stores and subscription services like Apple Music and Spotify.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2022, 08:02:42 PM »
I don't see how not being able to freely download games other people have to pay money for is drama but sure.

ZUN has never been OK with piracy but he and his team is very small so it takes time for them to handle stuff. If anything, you should be thankful they only got around to issuing takedowns after the majority of his catalog has been released on Steam.

From archival standpoint I'll say that Moriya Shrine did a good job just as an archive as it kept original ISO files for the games aside from already patched games which were on every other website.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2022, 05:43:20 PM »
Alright, we've got it confirmed. ZUN took this action himself.

This probably means he's perhaps ready for releasing Th6 up to 9 on Steam, right? Well we still don't know if he finally got around to fixing EoSD on W10 and above (for which he supposedly lost the source code?).
To be fair if that's the case then maybe he should just try to get in contact with the community itself and ask if he can rely on shipping out the game with their FPS patch. Besides that there's also Th9 to take a look at, more importantly its netcode. ZUN will probably want to implement Steam's P2P service for easier multiplayer, though that is unknown.
I wouldn't expect remakes/remasters from him as he's known for being more into making new things from scratch rather than re-releases.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2022, 06:17:28 PM »
i think it's interesting pointing out that on the Cloufare e-mail only lists the games that are on Steam. I think they're only going after the illegal distribution of games with active copyright? (for lack of a better term) I recently got copyright striked on YT for uploading the Rainbow-Colored Septentrion CD, and so have many others.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2022, 06:28:21 PM »
i think it's interesting pointing out that on the Cloufare e-mail only lists the games that are on Steam. I think they're only going after the illegal distribution of games with active copyright? (for lack of a better term) I recently got copyright striked on YT for uploading the Rainbow-Colored Septentrion CD, and so have many others.

I guess that is still too hot to upload on something like Youtube. Note that the theme there isn't entirely on ZUN's behalf since he composed it for some travel agency or something like that, so it may be them taking down other uploaders since their channel is the one hosting.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #9 on: March 30, 2022, 06:34:55 PM »
I guess that is still too hot to upload on something like Youtube. Note that the theme there isn't entirely on ZUN's behalf since he composed it for some travel agency or something like that, so it may be them taking down other uploaders since their channel is the one hosting.

I assume so, and i'd also like to point out that the whole album is probably at risk of takedown. I also posted the "Where is that Bustling Marketplace Now" track separately and that got striked :(

deice

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2022, 09:04:34 AM »

"...he also claims to have sent me a DMCA notice..."

well at least my intuition was somewhat correct ^^ ;
in any case, while i myself only ever used moriyashrine for fan content, i can at the very least admire their dedication in deciding to go full kissanime. here's hoping it doesn't leave a bad impression of the overall western community on ZUN (or even worse, leads to him starting to package drm or something with future releases haha)

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #11 on: April 01, 2022, 08:12:18 PM »
ZUN has never been OK with piracy but he and his team is very small so it takes time for them to handle stuff. If anything, you should be thankful they only got around to issuing takedowns after the majority of his catalog has been released on Steam.

He's never been okay with piracy? Didn't he say he's okay with westerners doing it in an interview or are people misinterpreting it?
ze

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #12 on: April 01, 2022, 11:14:51 PM »
About goddamn time. Took long enough.

Wonder if there are plans to go after print works etc. and their translations as well; I remember bringing those up on Touhou Wiki about 11 years ago and people being less than enthusiastic about the prospect; after an admin went berserk on me I agreed to let it go because I didn't want to argue too much about it, but I pretty much left the site at that point and never looked back.

That being said, distribution-wise, the situation is much different now than it used to be, even though getting the games has never been an issue if you did not go at it expecting to find them in your town's local stores.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2022, 11:23:44 PM by Petitssk »

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2022, 01:48:57 AM »
About goddamn time. Took long enough.

Wonder if there are plans to go after print works etc. and their translations as well; I remember bringing those up on Touhou Wiki about 11 years ago and people being less than enthusiastic about the prospect; after an admin went berserk on me I agreed to let it go because I didn't want to argue too much about it, but I pretty much left the site at that point and never looked back.

That being said, distribution-wise, the situation is much different now than it used to be, even though getting the games has never been an issue if you did not go at it expecting to find them in your town's local stores.

Main issue I find with it are the fangames that are less known. Sometimes the dev just outright refuses to release it for the west. My point is that sites like Moriya Shrine brought people's attention to fangames that no one in the west would know about due to lack of translations. Can't expect people to look for fangames or other fanmade media like music through using one of Japan's alphabets. If every developer at least released their works on booth or dlsite, that'd be good on its own, but that's not case either as some of them use different methods of distribution. There are some of works from recent years that were available just once physically on a Comiket or other convention or works that were digitally sold, but got taken down for one reason or another. One side tells me it's wrong to pirate, other tells me to archive and preserve. Which one to listen?
I guess I'll follow into forces of sanity.

He's never been okay with piracy? Didn't he say he's okay with westerners doing it in an interview or are people misinterpreting it?

Probably was ok with it like 10 years ago as there were no easy ways for westerners to buy his games. Since 2017 however he's been distributing games digitally on Steam alone (which is a shame as he could also try DLSite, Booth or something else like GOG even. That could potentially give him even more money since these services may take less with each purchase). So with clear conscience he's free to take away "free Touhou" from the west as it's been going for a pretty long time.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2022, 01:57:09 AM by Kotоhime »

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2022, 09:16:50 AM »
Main issue I find with it are the fangames that are less known. Sometimes the dev just outright refuses to release it for the west. My point is that sites like Moriya Shrine brought people's attention to fangames that no one in the west would know about due to lack of translations. Can't expect people to look for fangames or other fanmade media like music through using one of Japan's alphabets. If every developer at least released their works on booth or dlsite, that'd be good on its own, but that's not case either as some of them use different methods of distribution. There are some of works from recent years that were available just once physically on a Comiket or other convention or works that were digitally sold, but got taken down for one reason or another. One side tells me it's wrong to pirate, other tells me to archive and preserve. Which one to listen?
I guess I'll follow into forces of sanity.

No offense, but "archive" and "preserve" are the big words some of those sites like to mention, which, by itself, is totally valid, but if you only want to preserve, keep the data somewhere safe and ask for better ways of distribution from content creators, but do not fool yourself into thinking that your noble quest to archive and preserve somehow gives you the right to provide the media content that creators worked to create to thousands of people who basically just want free stuff.

Granted, I agree there are some unfortunate cases where the means to obtain specific media are very limited, but at the same time, I recommend you wonder if that really somehow legitimizes uploading their works for free, often as early as day one.

In general, you inevitably wind up creating scenarios where every single person draws the line less far down the road. One will say it's fine as long as it's available in stores in Japan, the next one will be fine with download links, the next one won't buy anything not available in his own country. However, if you really think that limited means to obtain something somehow justify just taking it for free against the content creator's specific wishes, I honestly don't know what to say. You don't need to play every game, but you absolutely should respect content creators and their wishes; it's not like there are none that haven't been turned away from creating content for good because of this very problem. If in doubt, why not muster up the courage and ask them to make sure they're okay with their works being archived and preserved somewhere (and provided for download to just about everyone)?

Again, "archiving and preserving" sound like fine goals, but in the end, it boils down to a sense of entitlement for the large majority of users. They need to have that game/that CD, they deserve it or they flat out don't care.

Personally, I'm honestly not even sure if I like ZUN and Tasofro based on many of the stunts they've pulled (console-exclusive characters, game design choices, event-only releases), but you bet I still respect them enough to actually buy their works and not go for downloads because I don't like the channels through which all games have been available for more than one and a half decades, even from outside Japan.

In that vein, the response from the site itself is also interesting since they mention they want to "find alternative means to continue to provide service to the community" - wonder what that is, but if it entails anything involving downloads, they're at least outing themselves for the hypocrites they are. Though at least they are not referring to themselves as fans in that post - because they may like the stuff they share, but they sure as hell aren't fans with that blatant disrespect for the content creators. That being said, if they're referring to something else, then at least now they may have a better approach to this in mind.

General note - you just happened to be the one mentioning archiving and stuff, so I'm not necessarily referring to you when I say "you".
« Last Edit: April 02, 2022, 09:44:18 AM by Petitssk »

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #15 on: April 02, 2022, 01:21:37 PM »
In that vein, the response from the site itself is also interesting since they mention they want to "find alternative means to continue to provide service to the community" - wonder what that is, but if it entails anything involving downloads, they're at least outing themselves for the hypocrites they are. Though at least they are not referring to themselves as fans in that post - because they may like the stuff they share, but they sure as hell aren't fans with that blatant disrespect for the content creators. That being said, if they're referring to something else, then at least now they may have a better approach to this in mind.

I'm not speaking for them, but I suppose the best thing they can come up with for keeping on living as a website is turning into a torrent site. That's harder to DMCA and they'll be probably also moving away from Cloudflare to something less restraint.

deice

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #16 on: April 02, 2022, 01:28:59 PM »
I'm not speaking for them, but I suppose the best thing they can come up with for keeping on living as a website is turning into a torrent site. That's harder to DMCA and they'll be probably also moving away from Cloudflare to something less restraint.

it might not even necessarily involve torrents. since they mentioned moving servers to a country with different copyright laws, what's more likely is that they'll have the files hosted on another service (instead of directly on moriyashrine) and just link to it. in many countries, you aren't held accountable for simply linking to copyrighted content as long as you yourself aren't hosting it. this is how many anime/manga/movie piracy sites survive.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #17 on: April 02, 2022, 01:42:43 PM »
Which would confirm that they are absolute dirtbags, but guess we'll see if they surprise us or not.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #18 on: April 13, 2022, 10:54:48 AM »
Curiously enough, even games that haven't been for sale in 20 years are now getting taken down too.
https://spaztron64.github.io/th98tuc_site/

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2022, 09:47:56 PM »
 piracy comes with risks and nothing is guaranteed but the reaction over these DMCA takedowns was like the community forgot that rule. Widely popular site gets hit and instead of simply looking for another source the community throws a tantrum It was one of the most disappointing things I've seen in this fandom.

 Pc98 no longer being sold makes it vaporware but unless zun officially gives his blessing then it's still piracy and at the mercy of DMCA takedowns so Ultimately it's the fault of the translator who bundled the patch with the actual game.

 Does this mean those pc98 titles are lost forever? No that's ridiculous there's copies everywhere on the net which again means throwing a tantrum is nonsensical and only served to highlight how entitled the western fanbase could be.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2022, 09:55:10 PM »
Good News (or Good Highlighitng) of a News since https://moriyashrine.org/ has,mainting promises and resolve without any hard feelings or bitterness, returned " Fully Back Online After-Maintenance Without  Any Official Material" alongside "
P.S.1 OH! It CERTAINLY GAINED a lot of " functionalities and active following" since I last, a time far back it really seems, checked it out and navigated it : "News Bulletin & Forums " ; "Clubs & Gallery(with Albums ) ; "LeaderBoards " ; "Chat&Discord Server " ;Activity Timeline ; "Intro to Touhou " ; ...

P.S.2  This reminded and spurred me to go and look back to the (Translated and apart from " any Insights such as during Interviews)" Touhou Release Content Guidelines"
https://touhou-project.news/guidelines_en/
http://takker6.tada-katsu.com/t-081.html
https://kourindou.exblog.jp/
https://kourindou.exblog.jp/14218252/9178184/ 

P.S.3 While performing the above I have also find out this,which " an helpful template guide for Westerners Touhou Gamers/Enthusiasts indirectly linked to the Touhou Release Content Guidelines " ,
https://en.touhougarakuta.com/eastern-playing-en/toho-no-asobikata-en/
on https://en.touhougarakuta.com

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #21 on: April 24, 2022, 01:38:53 AM »
I am aware, I think lemons.party is related to this issue since small animals are being used to hamster drive engines, but I am not sure if all antique games need to be nuked .

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #22 on: April 24, 2022, 01:41:05 AM »
Alright, we've got it confirmed. ZUN took this action himself.

This probably means he's perhaps ready for releasing Th6 up to 9 on Steam, right? Well we still don't know if he finally got around to fixing EoSD on W10 and above (for which he supposedly lost the source code?).
To be fair if that's the case then maybe he should just try to get in contact with the community itself and ask if he can rely on shipping out the game with their FPS patch. Besides that there's also Th9 to take a look at, more importantly its netcode. ZUN will probably want to implement Steam's P2P service for easier multiplayer, though that is unknown.
I wouldn't expect remakes/remasters from him as he's known for being more into making new things from scratch rather than re-releases.
Maybe not replying back is better, the current modern keyboards provide lots of digital signing options it’s hard to retrospectively judge what is or is not certain

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #23 on: April 24, 2022, 01:43:56 AM »
I guess I'll follow into forces of sanity.


I like dlsite personally, for lewd reasons. Žźżz

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #24 on: April 24, 2022, 01:46:09 AM »
I'm not speaking for them, but I suppose the best thing they can come up with for keeping on living as a website is turning into a torrent site. That's harder to DMCA and they'll be probably also moving away from Cloudflare to something less restraint.

Just anchor it to my Yurucamp episode 11 subs and bind it to the torrent tags for the gynaecologist laboratory data if things get really dire.

/(^o^)/Fuwayuru

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #25 on: April 24, 2022, 01:49:03 AM »
The Japanese alphabet has two slash systems, the hiragana for local calendars which is rotated based on the shogunate, or so rumoured, the katakana for everything else Ainu and English, I couldn’t even pronounce the strikes letters on hiragana properly.

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #26 on: April 24, 2022, 01:56:50 AM »
I personally felt it was fine as a child since natural progression in the games illustrate the passing of lore with retrograde developments (subterranean animism four divas, outclassed by hidden star in four season sages, wriggle nightbug from imperishable night transiting to cirno and eternity larva clownpiece etcetera…) and it is like the games such as the one where Horikawa Raiko is the extra boss, which is set on ZUN’s child birth and I cleared, The games usually reflect how demotivated the creators are since they slap random stuff together instead and go for hot baby making.

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #27 on: April 29, 2022, 05:00:16 PM »
Quote from: PrettyPettiGuy
Again, "archiving and preserving" sound like fine goals, but in the end, it boils down to a sense of entitlement for the large majority of users. They need to have that game/that CD, they deserve it or they flat out don't care.
Did they ban or ridicule you in the past or something? Because, boy, ironically enough I can't get through a paragraph of yours without getting a massive feeling of the sense of entitlement you've mentioned.

Either way, it's a shame and I hope like Kotohime and others mentioned, we are actually getting rereleases of things we can't get in the west or Europe right now, because if not, this will only have the opposite effect. A bit more hidden, but still public sites in the background sharing downloads of the games and such, either that or any time western fan will try getting into Touhou games in chronological order, a "friend of a friend" will have to help them. If the product is limited or straight up not available anymore, it's never the fault of a consumer for taking such actions. So yeah, it's a pretty dumb situation. Even if ZUN can legally do whatever he wants with downloads of his games and even if his most loyal fans will blindly agree with how he handled that, like we've seen already, I'm still pretty disappointed by all of this. It's like EA/Ubisoft/Nintendo baby's first legal case. 1) Release content only in specific region or for limited time. 2) Make only fraction of said content available everywhere else 3) Take down downloads that share all of your content, including region or time exclusive content 4) blame it on pirating despite it all starting from your own mistake or from being in gray legal zone to begin with (PC-98 games).

You can disagree with me of course, but by saying archivization and preservation of content isn't an issue here you're making as much sense as the spambot above me does.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2022, 05:02:42 PM by Popcioslav »

Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #28 on: April 30, 2022, 12:52:39 AM »
Did they ban or ridicule you in the past or something? Because, boy, ironically enough I can't get through a paragraph of yours without getting a massive feeling of the sense of entitlement you've mentioned.
I don't have enough question marks on my keyboard to properly respond to this.

Regardless, since when did playing every game in a series become a dire, pressing need anyway? Is it seriously going to harm or hinder your perception of Reimu because you never got to feel how she controls in HRtP?

ZUN obviously isn't going to hunt down and root out everywhere these downloads are available. If you want to go through the effort to do so, knock yourself out. But he is 100% justified in taking out public repositories of his past works. "Baby's first legal case" is overly reductive too, especially since unlike any of those companies you mentioned, Team Shanghai Alice has one core member and a handful of helpers. If ZUN hasn't even hired a translator to make an official English version, what makes you think he would go through the effort of porting PC-98 games to modern systems, especially when that effort could go towards making a brand-new game?

Petitssk

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Re: moriyashrine.org got DMCA
« Reply #29 on: April 30, 2022, 12:14:52 PM »
I don't have enough question marks on my keyboard to properly respond to this.

Regardless, since when did playing every game in a series become a dire, pressing need anyway? Is it seriously going to harm or hinder your perception of Reimu because you never got to feel how she controls in HRtP?

ZUN obviously isn't going to hunt down and root out everywhere these downloads are available. If you want to go through the effort to do so, knock yourself out. But he is 100% justified in taking out public repositories of his past works. "Baby's first legal case" is overly reductive too, especially since unlike any of those companies you mentioned, Team Shanghai Alice has one core member and a handful of helpers. If ZUN hasn't even hired a translator to make an official English version, what makes you think he would go through the effort of porting PC-98 games to modern systems, especially when that effort could go towards making a brand-new game?

I am somewhat puzzled by this as well, so thanks for jumping in.

@Popcioslav - Nope, next to the aforementioned brief stint on the Wiki, this is pretty much the only Touhou community I've ever been part of. I simply haven't touched unauthorized downloads in about 12 years or so for various personal reasons, that's all there is to my view on the matter.

I am not sure exactly how my view on this makes you think I feel entitled here unless expecting people to pay for stuff somehow equals a sense of entitlement, but I don't want to rule out that I'm missing something here, so if you care to elaborate on that, please feel free to do so.

Regarding the other points - don't want to go into details since it's somewhat unclear, but you're exclusively referring to PC-98 titles, right? All other titles are widely available, half of them even on Steam. While the other ones are limited to physical releases, they are among the most widely available items on second-hand stores and get regular rereleases. Unless, of course, those sites are right in assuming that not liking the channels through which a specific item has been made available somehow grants everyone who does not like those specific channels a carte blanche to just download it for free (next to those who wouldn't pay money for it in the first place), because that's one of the things that will inevitably occur when those sites continue their noble quest to "preserve and archive" even the games that are available.

However, I'd like to ask you to reread my post - I did not say that preserving and archiving isn't important at all. My point is that such an effort takes one or two people at most - make an effort to have it saved somewhere safe, even in a cloud, and it's preserved and won't be lost unless something goes horribly wrong.

Judging from your post, the only way to preserve these older games is to keep circulating them, which in theory, may be a valid approach, but in practice, again, inevitably leads to the side effect of basically providing the game for free to just about everyone out there. If there were some kind of middle ground here, I definitely agree that it would be great, but the way I see it, you can either support the content creator and ask yourself why you absolutely need to play that game and choose not to, as N-Forza has pointed out, or assume it is your right to have that game and play it, and essentially slap the creator in the face by doing so.

It's not that I don't understand the desire to play those games, it's just that I don't understand being willing to pay that price (or rather, having the content creator pay it).