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MAMEdev is Pulling Auctions!
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Chris:
More on fair use:

1. Trademark Fair Use

While a trademark will protect a word which is used by a manufacturer or merchant to identify goods and distinguish them from others, trademark law will not prevent the use of such a word in good faith with a primary purpose of describing a product or service, and not to infringe the trademark resembled by it. Several different factors are considered in determining whether a court will determine that a use is an infringing use or a fair use.

(emphasis added)

Thus, "Floormats for Ford Taurus" and "Keyboard Encoder for MAME" are allowed, and "Ford Taurus Floormats" and "MAME Keyboard Encoder" could be pulled.

From doing some reading, it seems like the rule of thumb is that if the trademark is used as an adjective, it's probably infringing, and  if it's used as a noun it's probably not.
patrickl:
Chris,

I agree with you, but wouldn't you rather have the mamedevs spending their time on refining MAME than on going through adds seeing if they are "fair" or not?

I mean, the mamedevs probably don't really have the right to enforce the TM as agressively they do now, but the alternative is for them to actually read and judge all the ads. Let alone the endles (time wasting) debates you get on why such and such auction is allowed and another is not.
MonitorGuru:
Okay, I fully support MameDev's efforts (as noted by my previous posts). Listing things with MAME in the name clearly will only lead to the destruction of Mame as a project once Atari, Nintendo, Sammy, etc... start-a-suing.
Chris:

--- Quote from: MonitorGuru on June 04, 2005, 08:56:38 pm ---PS: I also believe multiple snapshots from emultated games included on their WIP pages probably violate "fair use" rights from these manufacturers as well.

So, if you are going to go after others (which I do support), you d*mn well better get your own house clean before doing so, or you will look the fool, much like Foley with his illegal play that started all of this.

--- End quote ---
Yes, we and the MAMEDevs should be very thankful that the multitudes of game manufacturers don't treat us the way the MAMEDevs treat people regarding trademarks.  This whole scene would be over in a heartbeat.
Haze:

--- Quote from: MonitorGuru on June 04, 2005, 08:56:38 pm ---But I HAVE A (non-rehtorical) QUESTION FOR HAZE (or other MameDev's):

If you are sending out terms that state you cannot mention/include Artwork, etc..  then why the H*11 does Mame.Net offer downloads of ARTWORK and SOUND SAMPLES.... *CLEARLY* copyrighted material NOT OWNED BY THE AUTHORS OF MAME, on a site that HAS been directly controlled by MameDev???

PS: I also believe multiple snapshots from emultated games included on their WIP pages probably violate "fair use" rights from these manufacturers as well.

--- End quote ---

I've said several times I don't think mame.net should be hosting the artwork etc.  Its not like that section is ever even maintained.

Anyway, if you haven't actually noticed we've moved away from mame.net, the only official Mame site is now mamedev.com, which we have direct control over (unlike mame.net)

Screenshots, I can't think of a single case where somebody has kicked up a fuss over screenshots unless its been from an alpha / beta under a non-disclosure agreement so I'd say a precedent has been set in that posting screenshots is just fine.  People using MAME screenshots on ebay auctions is irritating tho, can't really see which version of a game something is, or if it works at all.
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