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Custom Cabinet Legality Question
aphraxad:
Thanks for the pointers guys. I'm not so worried about it that i'm going to spend a bunch of money having a lawyer look into it. I'm just searching for options to have my machine able to play a variety of legitimately purchased titles. I'm just trying to figure out the cheapest way to get a custom machine to play above board software that I purchased.
stavros693000:
in my neck of the woods here in australia the local time zone (arcade) had an old cab converted to mame with hyperspin, i couldnt believe it when i saw it they where charging $1 per play (mutha fookers).
anyway it i noticed recently it has been removed (not making money or got in trouble :dunno)
but just build some mame cabs with maybe some other emus and controllers and like you said free play for all i pretty sure you cant get in to much trouble if your not profiting from them....and like someone else mentioned NO ONE POLICES this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- anyway.
go for it i think its a fantastic idea.....i always thought it would be a great idea to but one in an office or some sort of buisness for customers to play while they wait (free of charge of course)
IAmDotorg:
--- Quote from: ABACABB on December 04, 2014, 07:56:07 pm ---Any lawyers in the house care to comment on this?
--- End quote ---
That's a decision relative to the anti-circumvention clauses of the DMCA, which makes it illegal to remove DRM and other restrictions (like jailbreaking your phone, etc). They're just establishing a set of conditions in which the mere act of stripping digital protection out of a system isn't illegal. It doesn't actually have anything to do with what this thread is talking about, or the legality of using publically anything.
Example -- if I told you how to strip the DRM off a BluRay disc, even telling you how to do that is illegal. But if you knew how to do it, and did it, it doesn't suddenly make showing that movie in public legal.
The one place this probably does impact MAME is in the case of people reverse engineering the ROM encryption on games that are no longer commercially available. Creating a MAME module for running those encrypted ROMs would be illegal under the DMCA without an exception like this. But it has no impact on the legality of you using it.
Edit: I should add, IANAL, but a significant portion of my job deals with IP rights and soul-crushingly-long meetings with IP attorneys.
RoyalScam:
Even if with 'Legal' ROMS you can't have MAME in a public location.
From MAMEDEV.org;
Q. Can I put an arcade cabinet running MAME in a public location?
A. No. This this a commercial use of MAME and is prohibited by the license. Even if you don't charge money, putting a machine in a public location is "operating" an arcade machine and falls under commercial rules in most locations.
Regards,
Scam
matsadona:
What about a couple of PC's running this webpage? https://archive.org/details/internetarcade
Here in Sweden the biggest problem is a government xxxx controlling all amusement games with the official intention to prevent hazardous environments for youngsters and minimize gambling addiction. Which is pure BS if you ask me - it is just about the money. I.e. the government wants to keep the monopoly over poker games etc (since it is a lucrative business) and videogames and pinball machines was affected by this law as well as a collateral damage.
So in order to have an arcade machine you need to pay an annual fee that is ridiculous, which eventually killed this industry more or less completely since no one can afford having an old classic in a café just for fun (since the income will probably be less than the fee).
So putting up a MAME machine wouldn't make any legal acts here I think, but if you don't report it and pay the fee all hell will break loose... :angry: