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Discussion: Ultracade and the Mame Trademark
DarkSoul1:
Are Mr. Foley's cabinets based on a specific design that may be licenced to someone else? Perhaps someone could apply for a patent/trademark over his particular style of cabinet AND THEN STOP HIM USING THEM.
Totally disgusted by this guy's attempt to hijack the MAME scene.
RetroJames:
Open Letter to the Slashdot / MAME Community (Score:2, Informative)
by davidrfoley (861405) on Tuesday February 22, @07:57PM (#11751164)
I'd like to take a moment and respond to the dribble that has been sent our way in response to this weekend's flurry about our trademark application with regards to MAME. I'd appreciate it if this would be spread to the same websites, blogs, and newsgroups that the unfounded rumors were that resulted in the very juvenile attacks on me personally, and my company. I have been in communication with one of the original MAME authors, and we are will be working together to ensure that the MAME trademark is assigned to the proper individuals and protect it from commercial exploitation, as was our intent all along. We have even offered to pay for all costs associated with that process. During the past three days, I have received many personal attacks and insults from several immature individuals that read a simple headline, and then go off on a child like rant about what they think we are doing. This was followed by several denial of service attacks on our corporate resources, phone calls to my office and cell phone. I received 270 emails in response to this. Most of them were single line insults against me personally. A few were misguided, but well articulated remarks. Even fewer were questions, asking for more information. I took the time to answer each and every message personally, explaining the facts. Many return to email addresses were not valid. Some people refused to listen to my explanation, or didn't care to believe what I told them. A few even apologized for their statements and we started a productive dialog and exchange of ideas. In summary, what we are doing moving forward is: Working directly with the original authors to secure the TM assigned in their name and protect the mark from commercial exploitation as expressed in the MAME distribution license Continuing to work with all major publishers to eliminate all illegal distribution of ROMs. Working on accelerating the rollout of our iROMs(TM) service to bring ROM distribution to the MAME community, following the music industries success in content distribution. We have put together a business model and later this summer will start to roll out affordable, legal ROM images for personal use on PC's running emulation software. We are working with all of the major publishers to get as much contact as possible, available to the general public. Continuing to police eBay and the Internet for sites that reference unlicensed games
danny_galaga:
i really hate to say ' i told you so' but i recall some guys here saying that no one would EVER bother trying to crack down on MAME. I'm sad that it's happening, but it was never out of the question...
Crazy Cooter:
ROM's haven't been proven to be illegal. They haven't been to court. It's just been courtesy that the ROM sites pull them down when asked. There is no way I will use an iROM service from this guy, even if the MAME dev's get "a cut". It's their emulator, not his. He's trying to bully himself into a middleman position.
His statement:
"I have been in communication with one of the original MAME authors, and we are will be working together to ensure that the MAME trademark is assigned to the proper individuals and protect it from commercial exploitation"
Who are these "proper individuals" he is talking about? And who is one of the "original authors"? Did he find someone that contributed something in the beginning, but now is pissed and they want to try and take the whole thing away?
KevSteele:
Aaron Giles is working to get the MAME trademark assigned to Nicolas. I have no idea what level of "cooperation" they are offering to Mr. Foley.
Until I see confirmation that he has withdrawn his trademark application, I don't really trust anything he has to say...
Kevin