Legalities of making money from MAME??

[stellarola]

Hey ya'll. I was looking to put my mame cabinet in a comic book shop or something. Well I was just wondering the legalities of making money off the cab. Im thinking of only having about 8 games to play. The thing is, can I just buy the game boards off ebay, so I basically own the game, its just not in the cabinet. Some of you are thinking why dont you just buy a jamma harness and hookup these games, well I just think it would be easier to do it using a front end. So my question is, is it legal to make money off of my mame cab if I own the actual game boards?


Thanks ya'll

-Ben

[Rocky]

no

[SirPeale]

No.

[Shape D.]

NO!

[JoyMonkey]

Nope.

[nostrebor]

Umm... NO.

[Jabba]

Nein!

[mmmPeanutButter]

Yes!!




I mean, NO!

[stellarola]

holy crap. And how are you sure?

[DaemonCollector]

II. Cost
--------
   MAME is free. Its source code is free. Selling either is not allowed.

from mame.net

[Mameotron]

Here is a really good discussion of the whole legal issues of Roms in the first place.

[dabone]

I thought if you own the actual board then you have the right to run it.
Now say I bought a Donkey kong board, and fixed a cab up to run it,
do you consider that legal to run?

Now say I bought the same board but instead of hooking up the actual game board to the controls, I used an emulator to run it. The game board still belongs to me, and is still residing in the cab running the copy of the roms off of it.
How is this different than people saying that it is legal to use roms that you own in your home.

If someone said that you don't have the legal right to run donkey kong, you would just have to show them the original board that resides in the same cab as the emulator.

Just my thoughts, some one please explain why they are wrong.
(But please do it in a non emulator specific way.. i.e. Mame vs sparcade vs, etc..)


Later,
dabone

[Mameotron]

OK, this is what Howard_Casto says about it.

[Thenasty]

How do you feel about it if it was your HARD WORK and someone else making money out of it ? We did not even touch the legality issue there.

Here is a good example that something you buy and use it to make money.
Buy a MOVIE in DVD or VHS (you bought it) and still you can't make money from it having your own little movie house in the corner of your book store.


Bottom line is, sure anyone can do it, but if the time comes that you get caught, just hope you made enough money from it to cover for the expenses and hope you are not gonna be someones B!CTH in the BIG HOUSE.

Bottom line again, its not worth it.

[paigeoliver]

People is often wrong about things.

You don't have to reverse engineer SQUAT to get most rom images. Most of them can simply be read in an EPROM reader. The eprom is merely a form of media.  EPROMS are not read nor copy protected. A very small percentage of them are encrypted, which are the only ones the bit about reverse engineering would even apply to.

Also, IIRC the DMCA was revised to exclude obsolete computer systems and gaming consoles, so that doesn't even APPLY to anything other than a tiny handful of arcade systems that are still sold/supported my their manufacturers.

Also, getting off these boards and the constant rom hippocracy here and talking to REAL operators, here is their take on it.

Their take is. DON'T BOTHER, people will constantly put money in the machine while it is on the menu screen and then want refunds or beat on the machine. Doesn't matter how clear of a sign or instructions you put in place, people will STILL stick money in it on the menu screen.

Now there IS still a use for mame on location, and that is running a single game. It is cheaper and more reliable to put a computer in a Pole Position than it is to repair the original boards constantly. Same thing about many other games.

If you REALLY want to operate a Multi-Game then look into getting a JAMMA Multi-WIlliams, I have one and it is sweet.

I also think Mike Doyle's 96 in 1 Multi-Pac is in Pac-Mame. That wouldn't do too bad on location.

Really though, my BEST suggestion for location action is this. Get a JAMMA cabinet with a nice size screen and start out with some sort of late model JAP Jamma game. Puzzle games are good choices (like Uo Poko, Puzzle De Bowling, or Magical Tetris). Operate it until you have taken in enough money to buy a second board. Then put the second board in it and take the first one out for a while. After that earns enough money for a 3rd board then buy a 3rd one, and then rotate them whenever you come to collect the money.

If the location is an earner you can keep the game their eternally, swapping the boards every time you collect, perhaps adding a new board to the mix every great while.

If the location is a REAL earner then you could think about putting in a second game (even 2 JAMMA games is a cheaper investment than one mame cab).

Playchoice 10 is a good nostalgia choice. I haven't seen one on location in years, but I am betting they would do "ok" again now.

[paigeoliver]

Here is a good example that something you buy and use it to make money.
Buy a MOVIE in DVD or VHS (you bought it) and still you can't make money from it having your own little movie house in the corner of your book store.

But you can open a video store and rent it out. How is that different? 

[D_Zoot]

Consider this:

The DMCA point is moot, copyright still applies, even tho it's true most of the copyright holders aren't enforcing their rights.  They tend to ignore us as hobby/home users.  But ask those that were distributing roms for free on the net how the copyright holders really feel about it.

The copyright laws in the US allow you to have one backup copy of a given work for your own personal use.

[Thenasty]

You know what I mean. If you want to dish out 80-100 grand to start a video store, and have a license for it, then all the legalities are taking care off. But in this case, we are talking about things that you don't have a right to do (but you can do it anyway) nor a license to do it or approval to do it.

Best best for him just spend around 5k and get one of the Ultracade system (conmes with 80 games I think) then, I guess you still need to get a license to operate it in your bookstore.

[D_Zoot]

Here is a good example that something you buy and use it to make money.
Buy a MOVIE in DVD or VHS (you bought it) and still you can't make money from it having your own little movie house in the corner of your book store.

But you can open a video store and rent it out. How is that different?

[RayB]

I'd like to throw a couple more wrenches into the works here folks.....

Back in the day, didn't operators often HAVE to burn new EPROMS because the manufacturer corrected bugs or tweaked gameplay balance and put out new ROM images? Just look at all the revisions to some Midway games for example. Operators didn't buy new board after new board. They replaced the EPROMS. So the idea of burning game board data isn't new or exclusive to emulation.

Second point, to Stellarola (Stellaroni? I forget...) is that most local government (state or city) regulate coin operated amusement devices. So you'd have to get a permit or a tax sticker or something like that to even be able to put it on location. (Correct me if I'm wrong folks... That's the way it is here in most Canadian provinces).

Last thing I want to say is DMCA be damned. It's a ---smurfy--- over-reaching "law" that was designed for big corporations to screw us. Considering what I said above about operators burning Eproms even two decades ago, I don't see why it would suddenly be an issue...

~Ray B.

[paigeoliver]

Exactly, an EPROM is just a COMMON form of removable media. The average joe might not have the hardware to deal with them, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no reverse engineering required to read them. Only to decrypt a very small percentage of them.

And yes, operators often DID burn their own EPROMS for updates.

I have the original paperwork for many of my games. Nowhere is it expressed or even IMPLIED that the software on the EPROMS must be used on the board that came with the game. There are warnings against unauthorized bootlegging, but having a copy of your own software is not unauthorized bootlegging.

If both sides had equal lawyers it would be almost impossible for the game companies to win the suit against someone with the computer and original Donkey Kong board inside a cabinet. Matter of fact, you can make it amost IMPOSSIBLE for them to have a leg to stand on simply by doing 2 things. Removing all the EPROMS from the board, and sticking them in an enveloped labeled "BACKUP". Then run your video ground to the boardset of the game and THEN to the monitor. So the game stops working if you pull the boardset. Now you have effectively done a very esoteric repair to the original boardset. Feel free to make it even more complicated if you like.

Wow, sounds like a stupid esoteric solution, doesn't it. So are the idiot laws about this stuff.

[Mameotron]

Well, D_Zoot brings up a really good point.

[paigeoliver]

You do have to have a sticker on your games in many locales. I have a collection of them dating back to the 1960s.

There were no real licenses with the games back in the old days. It isn't like today. If you want to read exactly what you got with a game then go download the service manual. Add a 90 day warranty card and THAT is what you got.

Actually, most games had a service manual, warranty card, and the full schematics of the circuit board.

Back in the 70s, 80s and even early 90s they did not speak in the terms of licenses, not at all. They didn't put any usage restrictions at all down, and the first ones that were put down were country based ones (to date I don't think that has ever been prosecuted), mostly because the JAP conversion kits came out 12 months before the US ones and by the time the US ones were out the Jap operators were ready to dump their old boards for the new ones.

You can't go back in time and make things about modern "software" apply to mediums that were not sold with such restrictions.

[stellarola]

Wow. You all insipired me to put my cab in a comic book shop, THANKS 


HAHAHA....I dunno, we'll see. It looks like a real cab.

[D_Zoot]

You can't go back in time and make things about modern "software" apply to mediums that were not sold with such restrictions.

Remember, the root core of this discussion is the ROMS.

[paigeoliver]

The LLC that is ruining the formerly good Gottlieb name can certainly do that if they want to. I won't even argue it.

The core issue I am talking about is not Jimmy the ROM weasel who wants to put his 10,000 ROM mame cabinet on location. I am talking about James the game owner who actually OWNS the dedicated board. You can't go back in time and place a usage restriction on the software, thus there is no reason why he cannot run that software on other hardware.

Back to Gottlieb.

Yes, the idiot LLC owners of Gottlieb's stuff can try to milk the collectors of Gottlieb for money by selling them copies of software that they ALREADY BOUGHT in the first place. They can even do it legally.

But guess what? I can also legally replace the corrupt EPROM on my own Gottlieb pin, or a Gottlieb pin belonging to someone else by burning that exact same data onto an eprom and installing it.

I am actually so glad you brought up Gottlieb as it is a classic example of abuse of copyright. You CAN'T bootleg a pinball machine, Gottlieb's software has no value outside of the specific machine it is supposed to drive and every machine came with a copy of that software. So they are essentially charging full price for the software again to customers who already purchased it once (and got defective media too). Every other pinball machine company on the planet distributes these files for free. Gottlieb would too if they were still a company and not a name owned by a money grubbing idiot hell bent on destroying the collectability and memory of the Gottlieb line to make a tiny profit.

Gottlieb pins are almost entirely ignored by collectors now. You can't get the rom repair data for them easily. Hardly any parts are available since the LLC goes after anyone making repro parts, but making them under license would price them so high that there would be no market.

Now, back on roms.
It is legal to make your own circuit board to place the Gottlieb rom on to drive your pinball machine (and people have done so).
It is legal to replace the media that your Gottlieb rom is on with a new piece of media.
Hard to make an arguement that it is illegal to replace both the media and the hardware when you can replace either one, isn't it.

Guess what, you can even get rom cards for computers to read the original roms. I have an ISA rom card at home. It will hold like 8 roms. I could, if I wanted install that in my computer and let my computer read the actual rom chips. Or I could simply have the data on the hard drive.

The end result is no different.

[stellarola]

Paige, you are my demigod. 

I talked to a few different arcade shop owners about it. They said basically what you said dude.

[paigeoliver]

Having the rights still doesn't fix the core peopleware issue that most people will put the quarter in while the machine is on the game menu, or while the selected game is still booting up, thus they won't get to play and they will want refunds and your machine will get a bad rep.

There is still the issue of the mame license itself, but that is not a defendable license.

[stellarola]

Well I suppose one game at a time. Wont be too bad.

[Gunstar Hero]

Legal issues aside...

People doing home made arcade cabs on location will eventually destroy this hobby. Once Namco/Midway/SEGA ect. sees that there is money to be made they'll want their slice, crack down to protect their copyrights and that's that.

PLUS, the people who make MAME and the emulators and FEs and utilities we use feel very strongly that you should not be using their programs for commercial use in most cases, and you're doing them a grave disservice by doing so.

If you want a cab in your comic shop, go for it. But set it for free play or give out free tokens upon request and use it to spread the word of how great a hobby emulation can be.

[seibu]

Just get on ebay and buy some boards. Charging for MAME cabs on location will one day bring about the end of coin-op emulation, mark my words!

[paigeoliver]

Just get on ebay and buy some boards. Charging for MAME cabs on location will one day bring about the end of coin-op emulation, mark my words!

The horses have already escaped the barn. Coin op emulation is already 95 percent complete and there really aren't any new arcade games coming out anymore (ok, a teeny, tiny few games each year now, almost all of which are on PC hardware).

As near as I can tell we had a giagantic grand total of like 12 games released this year. All of which were rereleases or updates of existing franchises. Klov lists only 43 new games released in 2003, and most of those are incorrect entries listing games as old as 1997.

The industry is dead, dead, dead. There is really almost no new equipment coming out, and most of the existing equipment is emulated. Most of the arcade companies are already out of business, so it isn't even possible to cost them any money/business. When the Golden Tee franchise flounders iT will be dead (and I believe iT has done everything they can to speed their demise, setting it up where the operator has to buy a new $2500 kit EVERY YEAR and pay for a phone line for every machine, AND iT gets a cut of the profits now!!!). Sega could die any minute now, they have been fighting a losing battle for years.

As for the rest of the manufacturers? Forget it. They are all selling games that cost $5000, have trouble earning $200 a month, and are 4 or 5 years outdated before the crate is even opened.

It will really all be over in a few more years. But it is going to be over for them and not us. They'll all be out of business except maybe for Nintendo, who (last I checked) was running dead last out of 3 in the console wars. It wouldn't surprise me if they dropped all their lines except the Game Boy.

And I could really care less about any arcade game Nintendo ever produced. Donkey Kong might still be massively collectable, but it frankly aged very poorly. What else do they have? Playchoice? Hello, buy a NES cart. Killer Instinct? Bah, who cares. 

[Tiger-Heli]

I am talking about James the game owner who actually OWNS the dedicated board. You can't go back in time and place a usage restriction on the software . . .

Actually, to some extent you can.  A key point is we are talking about licensing, not ownership.

A few years ago, I downloaded a freeware add-on for Microsoft Train Simulator.  All the documentation with it said it was free to distribute.  Then the developer decided they wanted to charge for it and REVISED the license RETROACTIVELY.

I am pretty sure I can still transfer the program from one computer to another, and I'm sure I could E-mail the file to one or two people, and it wouldn't be worth their while to come after me, but I think I'd hear from their lawyers if I put the file on a website, even though the documentation I got with it says this is perfectly acceptable.

[paigeoliver]

People try the retroactive thing all the time. Has it ever held up in court? I don't see how it could. You can't sell or give something to someone and then afterwards try to tell them what they can do with it.

If the original file you downloaded says it is free and free to distribute then IT IS. The new non-free basically identical file might not be, but the old one is.

iDiOtFart over at mameroom.com tried pulling the same exact thing, he used to give his cabinet plans away for free, but now he wants $20+ for them. That doesn't make the old ones NOT FREE. I really don't think he would have a legal leg to stand on to be able to stop someone from distributing his old free "free for non-commercial use, distribute freely" version. Now I don't think people SHOULD do that, but only because his designs are ugly, needlessly complex and come out looking like they let the late 80s Atari designers design a 1998 era cabinet and then made it uglier.

[nostrebor]

II. Cost
--------

[Sephroth57]

yeah basicly its illegal, but really whos gonna know. have you ever seen a "arcade machine inspector"? are the arcade cops gonna come get you? =p

basicly, you can do it just dont go around telling everyone its an emulator

[patrickl]

II. Cost
--------

[RacerX]

He would be using the source in a commercial application if he charged to play games on a cab running MAME.

[Tiger-Heli]

The EULA says you can't sell MAME, the source or use the source in a commercial application. How is he "selling" MAME (or the source)?

AFAIK there is no restriction on the use of MAME in the EULA.

The EULA probably should say that any use of the source code or binary for profit is prohibited.

I know that the MAME devs feel that making a profit from having the program in a cab in a route (or even just charging to play it, even if no profit is made), constitutes a violation of the license, but I'm not sure that that would stand up legally.

[Sephroth57]

well this is all nice for a morals debate, but seriously whos gonna know?