Miscrediting situations and lack of permissions

[IlDucci]

Greetings.

I am IlDucci, main fantranslation dev for Traducciones del Tío Víctor, a Spanish romhacks/fantranslations site, as well as admin for TraduSquare, one of the biggest romhacking communities for Spanish-speaking users. I just found out that the following patches, which I led, were added to this repository without asking for permission and removing all traces of the accompanying materials that had the full credits of these patches:

• Ace Combat 3 - https://retroachievements.org/game/11308/hashes
• Silent Hill 1 (USA) - https://retroachievements.org/game/11252/hashes
• What's Shenmue - https://retroachievements.org/game/20430/hashes

While my first reaction was to think these uploads were a hostile action, I also read that the purpose of mirroring these patches is for preservation reasons and so the RA system works correctly. Therefore, I would like to request the following:

• A change in your policies so all existing and future patches also include any text file (.TXT, .NFO...) that was originally included with the existing materials, as those files usually include the complete credit roster of each project.
• A change in your policies so patches whose teams or devs are still active must have an explicit permission of those devs before accepting uploads.

Sincerely,
Víctor "IlDucci"

[wescopeland]

Hi @IlDucci 👋

Firstly, thanks for reaching out and for all the work you and your team put into these translations. RetroAchievements wouldn't have as vibrant of a Dreamcast and PS1 library without the creativity of ROM hack authors like yourself, and we absolutely want to give proper credit where it's due.

With that in mind, I'd like to address your specific requests.

Why the patches are mirrored on RAPatches

This repository exists solely so that achievement sets continue to work years down the road. When a patch is updated, the hash of the patched game changes and everyone's achievements break. Mirroring the exact version that a set was built on guarantees players can still load the game and earn the achievements - even when the original host disappears.

Regarding missing credit files

Stripping out the .txt/.nfo files was never intended to erase authorship. I agree that credits belong with the patch archive. I also agree we should update the contribution guidelines to make it explicit that any PR adding or updating a patch must include all original documentation, or a link to it if the file is too large.

Regarding "explicit permission" for active projects

The intent of RAPatches is preservation, not "owning" or reappropriating anyone's work.

RetroAchievements sets are transformative user-generated content, comparable to Let's Play videos, speedrun leaderboards, or the ROM hacks themselves. U.S. copyright scholarship increasingly treats non-commercial mods and overlays as fair-use when they add new purpose or meaning to the underlying work¹.

Requiring an "ask-first" step (or an opt-out) for every active ROM hack team would:

• Freeze community development any time a dev goes on hiatus or can't be reached.
• Break existing achievement sets whenever a patch quietly disappears.
• Remove what is, for most hacks, a free stream of new players, testers, and Twitch/YouTube coverage which the hack authors themselves directly benefit from.

Instead, our policy is:

1. Mirror the exact patch version an achievement set targets.
2. Encourage collaboration. Authors who want a newer version, extra files, or updated links can PR them anytime and we'll merge them very quickly.
3. Handle legal takedowns when they actually arrive. Like most preservation projects, we will comply with a properly-scoped DMCA notice. Short of that, we keep the mirror so the set, and your hard work, remains playable.

What you can expect next

• We'll have an internal discussion regarding a "docs-required" policy change, which will require all new PRs to include supplemental .txt/.nfo documentation from the original source(s).

Footnotes

1. Furman 2024 on modding after Google v. Oracle: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/jipl/vol31/iss1/5/ ↩

[wescopeland]

cc @televandalist

[televandalist]

removing all traces of the accompanying materials that had the full credits of these patches:

For what it's worth, I added a source for your Silent Hill translations, but our "Resource URLs" are not yet publicly visible:

Sometimes I include the original patch and accompanying documentation/extras, sometimes I don't, and sometimes I add them later. I don't always have time to do this for every linked hash, but that doesn't mean I'll never get around to it. As I've said in the past, it's a public repository that anyone can submit changes to, it's just that they usually don't do it. If there is inaccurate or missing info, then those will be fixed fairly quick, but I won't fix something if I don't know it's wrong, and I won't know if it's wrong if no one tells me 🤷

---

A few things I wanted to add to what @wescopeland said, mostly regarding preservation:

• There are a lot of patches that use very old, bad dumps for a base, which can be very frustrating. I try to make it so all patches use current No Intro or Redump bases.
• I remake almost every NES patch that is submitted before adding it to the repo by using this method.
• If SNES patches add a header, I remove them so the RA Hash and MD5 are the same. This almost never happens anymore, but they do pop up on occasion.
• With the exception of NES, I convert IPS patches to BPS to ensure the exact base is used. I also convert PPF and UPS to BPS or xDelta where I'm able because let's face it, those formats are terrible.
• Some patches for disc-based games do not change the RA Hash. In these cases, I make a small tweak to ensure that they do.

I have zero interest in taking credit for any of the work done by translators, hackers, etc. The above tweaks are minor, sure, but I've never had the audacity to credit myself for the patches. The only time I added my name to patches was for the German and Spanish translations for Jack Bros. (Virtual Boy), but this is because the original patches enable a debug mode, which I removed before linking their hashes to the set and adding them to the repo.

Anyway, the main thing being preserved is the ability to get a matching RA Hash when loading a patched game. Also, if a hash is unlinked from a set, then the associated patch is removed during a future sweep.

---

I'm all for additional guidelines/policies for hashes/patches so long as they start at the actual linking of the hashes. If it were 100% up to me and I knew how to put it all together, I'd prohibit a hash from being usable for achievements until the required info is filled out and verified.

[televandalist]

Stripping out the .txt/.nfo files was never intended to erase authorship. I agree that credits belong with the patch archive. I also agree we should update the contribution guidelines to make it explicit that any PR adding or updating a patch must include all original documentation, or a link to it if the file is too large.

Due to the adjustments that I mentioned making, it should be noted that a lot of patching instructions often included in said .txt/.nfo files are made irrelevant.

[rfontanarosa]

@televandalist @wescopeland I really like your idea and I'm very interested (I'm the webmaster of romhacking.it) in creating some PRs that include our translations (Secret of Evermore, Seiken Densetsu 3, Star Ocean, etc.). However, what @IlDucci says is correct: at the moment, there's no way to find the paternity of the patch. Even in the repository, the archive doesn't include any TXT or NFO file. In 99% of cases, patches are free to use; the only thing to do is leave that file or a reference to the authors. I think that finding a solution to this, in my opinion leaving a readme file in the archive, is more than enough.

Let me give you an example of why they are so important. I discovered from this repository that an Italian translation of XCOM for PlayStation exists. I didn't know that and I would like to add it to romhacking.it. However, there isn't any reference about where it was downloaded or who the author is.

Anyway, please let me know how you'd like to handle this lack of information. I can't wait to add our best translations to your repository.

[rfontanarosa]

Got it: https://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_nuevas-tradus-2025-actualizado-a-23-05-25_2514640#p1755724883

Actually, it is not a real fanmade translation but a way to unlock the language already included into the American version.

[televandalist]

@televandalist @wescopeland I really like your idea and I'm very interested (I'm the webmaster of romhacking.it) in creating some PRs that include our translations (Secret of Evermore, Seiken Densetsu 3, Star Ocean, etc.). However, what @IlDucci says is correct: at the moment, there's no way to find the paternity of the patch. Even in the repository, the archive doesn't include any TXT or NFO file. In 99% of cases, patches are free to use; the only thing to do is leave that file or a reference to the authors. I think that finding a solution to this, in my opinion leaving a readme file in the archive, is more than enough.

Let me give you an example of why they are so important. I discovered from this repository that an Italian translation of XCOM for PlayStation exists. I didn't know that and I would like to add it to romhacking.it. However, there isn't any reference about where it was downloaded or who the author is.

Anyway, please let me know how you'd like to handle this lack of information. I can't wait to add our best translations to your repository.

The X-COM: UFO Defense patches are less translations and more just toggling flags that enable language support already in the game. See here: https://retroachievements.org/forums/topic/28894?comment=269742#269742

Edit: Okay, looks like you found it.

[televandalist]

I'm very interested (I'm the webmaster of romhacking.it) in creating some PRs that include our translations (Secret of Evermore, Seiken Densetsu 3, Star Ocean, etc.).

It should be noted that before a patch can be added to this repo, its hash must already be linked to an achievement set. For example, these are the currently supported hashes for the games you mentioned:

• Secret of Evermore
• Star Ocean
• Seiken Densetsu 3

This is the main reason that the repo itself doesn't have a whole lot info on the patches, why the zips/7zs are named the way they are, and why it's not exactly user-friendly to navigate.

the only thing to do is leave that file or a reference to the authors

The patches themselves have authors in the names, as per the naming scheme in the main README:

Author name(s) should be whoever released the patch.

• If the author is unknown, then use (Unknown) instead of skipping it.
• If multiple authors are credited, see if there's a team name. You can list multiple authors, but try not to get carried away. Worst case scenario is you can provide more info in the readme.
• Abbreviation is your call, but sometimes it's necessary to keep the character count in the filename down. (Aeon Genesis) and (AGTP) are both preferable to (Aeon Genesis Translation Project).

Anyway, I'm open to suggestions on improving how all of this is managed. Just keep in mind that I do the majority of the work on this repo by myself so it should be at least somewhat reasonable 😆

[IlDucci]

For what it's worth, I added a source for your Silent Hill translations, but our "Resource URLs" are not yet publicly visible:

Why adding RHDN as a source and not the original page source, https://tiovictor.romhackhispano.org/silent-hill-1/ ? That's also another sore point that could be covered by a policy change: adding the original site (even if it's gone, if you are keeping the patch assets, the site is another paternity link).

Due to the adjustments that I mentioned making, it should be noted that a lot of patching instructions often included in said .txt/.nfo files are made irrelevant.

That is true, but it should not be a reason to not add the original included documentation, and should not be a reason to modify that documentation as well, it should be preserved intact, as-is. If you want to add some notices in your frontends/emulators/website regarding that installation/patching instructions are not needed, feel free to do so as well.

The problem is not only in miscrediting (as in, taking credit for something that is not yours); but loss of crediting at all as well.

I have suffered some situations where, because third-party individuals (in their cases, deliberatedly, as it was a repeated pattern) omitted actual credit screens during their gameplay streams (covered by Fair Use, you'd say), people actually thought those patches/translations came from anywhere but the patch developers. That had long-term consequences that I am not in a position to talk about.

I consider adding a group name in the file name insufficient, as fan translation groups can be formed by a fixed group of people or become quite fluid, such is the case of Traducciones del Tío Víctor. That is why I'm in favor of preserving the original readmes/documentations that actually have the full team roster.

I'd prohibit a hash from being usable for achievements until the required info is filled out and verified.

That is a very good point.

[televandalist]

Why adding RHDN as a source and not the original page source, https://tiovictor.romhackhispano.org/silent-hill-1/ ? That's also another sore point that could be covered by a policy change: adding the original site (even if it's gone, if you are keeping the patch assets, the site is another paternity link).

I didn't add it because I wasn't aware of it. The RHDN page doesn't mention it either.

Anyway, what wonderful timing: someone finished compatibility testing for the RE2's Spanish translation and the patches were submitted via Discord. I renamed everything, added .cue files, and added a folder with the original documentation.

• Supported Game Files page on RA site
• Direct download for Disc 1 patch
• Direct download for Disc 2 patch

[IlDucci]

Anyway, what wonderful timing:

Can't say it's a wonderful timing: these are the people who put me in the know of this patch situation because there was a serious bug in Hunk/Tofu's game modes (the timer would not start). Still, I'd say it's a happy happening.

I renamed everything, added .cue files, and added a folder with the original documentation.

The new system seems to be adequate IMHO. The only issue I have with the patch is that someone translated my nickname/website from Tío Víctor to Uncle Víctor, but it's not the first time that this happens. I'll give a holler to romhacking folks to hear their two cents, just in case.