>legit
Seriously? What gives.

>>2410
https://moriyashrine.org/forums/topic/985-removing-lots-of-official-content/
tl;dr Possibly fake "anonymous" claim and legit one from ZUN's lawyer soon after
And forgive me for posting a link to bird site:
https://twitter.com/HakanaiBlue/status/1508999668788862984
A random fan translator who started to try and take down links to some fangames several hours ago and as far as I know, actually doesn't hold copyright for whatever he is trying to take down

>>2411
Yeah, but why? Especially from Zun's lawyer? What rationale is there to taking down games which can't be bought anymore? This is nothing short of a betrayal.

>>2412
Most of the games from TH10 onwards are on Steam; all currently sold from TH06 onwards are on Akiba-Hobby's overseas storefront, AmiAmi, and countless other places.

>>2413
In a piracy free-world, where nobody would distribute his games in the early days besides him, so the only copies around were what he sold at conventions, ZUN wouldn't have even a fraction of the recognition he has.

>>2414
First of all, ZUN doesn't even handle any of the legal matters himself; second of all, even in a 2009 Comiket interview, he made it clear that he does mind illegal distribution of his work, just that he's not willing to assert it in markets he has no official distribution in. As he has official distribution now (of music, books and games), his tone is clearly changing.

I've seen this very discussion play out with many doujin creators on Twitter, and most - but, importantly, not all - of them would rather have had less exposure than owe their popularity to unofficial distribution.

>>2415
Yeah, he doesn't go around taking down stuff himself, but that wouldn't happen unless he paid a person to do it. Unless before now, whoever is responsible for that was too incompetent to find moriyashrine.org, something changed.

My point is, he only has official distribution now because of the recognition he gained from piracy. Maybe he doesn't recognize that, or care. So maybe it's not a betrayal, but it's certainly an unlikable trait.

>>2414
I think this is what personally annoys me the most.
I had always admired how lax he was about his IP and the overseas fandom, and I know without any of that I wouldn't be able to enjoy his works and spread them to other people as well.
What makes it worse in my eyes is that it's targeting a site that's very minor in the scope of all things Touhou.
It feels like a band selling out. Maybe it's childish to feel this way.

>>2416
>>2417
He was lax about his approach to derivative works but not ever about his approach to redistributing "official data". You can even find instances of him feeling ambivalent about Let's Play-style uploads on Nico back in the late 00s. The doujin guidelines require you not to spoil the official games' endings - which makes sense, the first half of each game is free in trial form after all.

Lack of enforcement is not always deliberate. ZUN's approach remains consistent, if weakly enforced - the Western fandom just assumed he doesn't care, because he never got around to it.

>>2417
>there is a user on your site who has been notifying us.
How much of a massive faggot does somebody have to be to do that...

>>2418
Like, remember when fan-made music arrangements were banned from Booth because of a new official distribution company being formed? Only Booth - DLSite, Bandcamp, etc. were left untouched.

I think there are a few factors at play here. One is the growing size of Shanghai Alice or Mediascape or whatever, I'm not sure how this works and it probably actually plays into it because it seems that Mediascape might have the license to it or at least it does on steam, anyway, they have gone form an indie dev of one guy to a company on Steam that also has been licensing Touhou Fan games like Touhou Genso Wanderer and has games out on PlayStation and the Switch. I don't know how many people work there now but unlike one guy making indie games, now there are going to be company Lawers and such involved as well.

Secondly, Mediascape or whoever seems like it probably would be quite aggressive legal wise simply due to all the work it would have to do. While making a fan game is legal if it doesn't make any money, if people are making games based on another persons IP for money, that is illegal and Touhou is swamped with that kind of thing, there is a pirate site that I check to see what new games come out and if any are good at least once a month it seems that a new game has been released that is ripping off Touhou's IP, and these games are mostly pirated from Steam, so they are getting through whatever copyright policy Steam has as well. Anyway, due to how active these lawyers are going to be, it makes sense that there would be spill over unto other realms such as piracy.

>>2421
Publishing Touhou derivative works on Steam has been allowed ever since Twilight Frontier's games got the okay to be put there. The primary exception here is that if you're not self-publishing or if you are seeking external funding, you must go through a ZUN-approved publishing company - in this situation, he gets a licensing cut.

>>2419
I'd lynch the fucker.

A popular compilation of the PC98 games recently got hit with a DMCA.
https://spaztron64.github.io/th98tuc_site/
At least you could say before, "Well the modern games are on Steam" to justify the first couple.
There is no reasonable way for any person both in Japan and outside to play without paying more than thousands of dollars, and that's just for the games themselves.
Not including the pricing of hardware which is an entirely different circus.
Even if you did manage to buy them, it's secondhand only. None of the money would go to ZUN.
afaik He has no access to source code anymore as said in some interview at either a con or a book, so a re-release is very unlikely...unless he pulls a Nintendo and makes you pay for pirated ROMs packaged in his own release.
Thankfully PC98 Touhou is one of the few PC98 games that are actively torrented and spread like wildfire, so it's not like they're lost to time.

>>2424
>Thankfully PC98 Touhou is one of the few PC98 games that are actively torrented and spread like wildfire
There's also my website. *cough* *cough*

http://[200:c5b0:cfeb:5db:c054:d66d:eb6f:7412]/content/PC-98_collection/同人/【PC98】東方シリーズ.rar

>>2424
That's some bullshit right there.

What's with these takedowns? Are there plans to do some GOG like re-releases or something?

>>2426
"Serious" corporations don't care about the "necessity" of enforcing their copyright. So regardless of how old or whether or not they have plans for the property, they will "protect their assets". It does not matter. They do not care. In their mind, this is an important part of ensuring profitability.

Also, we knew years ago ZUN sold out when he started making certain features of the mainline series console exclusive.

Post edited on 12th Apr 2022, 2:43pm

>>2426
I don't know about the PC98 games but I do know PoFV is planned to have a Steam release. It's fair to assume the earlier games will also have Steam releases.
Also for what it is worth, ZUN often partakes in exhibitions where he shows off older work material including the PC98 titles. There was one recently that happened about the same time as the first two DMCAs funnily enough:
https://twitter.076.ne.jp/nagihararion/status/1510240307924770821#m
It reminds me of how art galleries don't allow you to take pictures because it'll ruin the value of the artwork. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhat related in that sense. But that's just asspulling theories.
>>2427
I want to say much before then as well, but I'm a bit forgetful about release dates...There's been too many big company collabs for something that's just a self proclaimed doujin work.

Listen here, the downloads are back on Moriya Shrine, supposedly the admins let them back on for limited time. So the time has come, grab what you can now!! I have already download every mainline primary game except PoFV. Will download more. You should try to get the other official games and fangames.