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MAMEDev's pull auctions without MAME

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monkeybomb:

I don't know of your fight with interplay, can you give me a link?

markrvp:

I think one of the things to consider here is that all the talk is surrounding EBAY.

Crazy Cooter:


--- Quote from: markrvp on June 07, 2005, 02:08:15 pm ---What will stop the Ebay abuse is when someone sues the MAMEdevs directly for loss of income due to having auctions pulled and/or accounts suspended that do not violate the TM terms. 

--- End quote ---

Depends on if the Mamedevs singled them out personally or if it was caught in a filter.  If it was caught in a filter, then ebay might be on the hook.  Depends on how it all works internally.


--- Quote from: Chris on June 07, 2005, 02:05:13 pm ---So they could go after a marquee with the MAME logo, but couldn't go after a marquee with the Pixelhugger Atomic MAME logo (although Pixelhugger could).

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Actually I think they could.  Isn't that why the entry is text only?  I think it would be similar to me tring to sell my "atomic ford" vehicles with a brown rectangular emblem.  Something like an implied affiliation or some crap.

Chris:


--- Quote from: monkeybomb on June 07, 2005, 02:08:04 pm ---I don't know of your fight with interplay, can you give me a link?

--- End quote ---
There isn't a site for it, although there is a brief mention of it at http://www.mobygames.com/game/demise-rise-of-the-kutan/trivia.

Tiger-Heli:

No hard feelings, CyberPunk, don't take any of this as hostile.

Okay, first-off, despite the previous posts by Cyberpunk - I still believe the name mameroom  was a combination of mame (the emulator) and Gameroom.  I don't think I'd want to argue in court that there was a gameroom in my business's town where people got stabbed, and it was referred to as the maimroom and I thought that would be cool to name my business after, but I got sloppy on the spelling.

Also, I think the links to mameworld and such will be removed from www.mameroom.com less to please MAMEdev, and more as a way for CP to try to distance his company from the MAME project, should things take an ugly turn.

A bit of history - CyberPunk caused a bit of trouble on this forum in years past over forum members either giving away or reselling his cabinet plans after purchasing them.  (Again, not trying to whack the hornet's nest, just trying to fill in the newbie's who may not be aware of past history).


--- Quote from: monkeybomb on June 07, 2005, 12:49:10 pm ---I can't see the difference in any of this stuff in the big picture.  Why are you giving cyberpunk a hard time and not Andy and Randy?

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Andy and Randy aren't threatening to sue the MAME team for trademark infringement (although their company names don't contain MAME in them, so they would have a tough time of it.)

--- Quote ---From what I can see if MAMEdev could try to go after them they would.  It seems that they are mad that people have made money on emulation at all.  *wrong*

--- End quote ---
I know this got struck-thru, but MAMEdev is trying to eliminate people saying "MAME arcade wheel MAMEcab Emulator www.mame.net" on E-bay to sell minimally related hardware.  They have not said anything about Andy or Randy, but look at GGG's site:  There is one paragraph that says the KeyWiz is mame-ready out-of-the-box.  No other mention of MAME.  Look at the I-PAC page - There is a reference under programming which says you can set a jumper to enable the MAME codeset, and another reference under the LED header, which says that MAME flashes the LED's on coin insert in some games, to explain how they might be used.  This is basically in keeping with MAMEdev's comments about "you can say "works with MAME one time."

--- Quote ---In my eyes they all have businesses based on emulation in general.  Without the free exchange of ROMS and willingness for customers to pirate the games, I don't think any of these businesses would exist.

--- End quote ---
Keyboard encoders have uses outside of emulation - PC games, CNC machines, kiosks, etc, but yeah, it would take a huge chunk out of their profits.

--- Quote ---Having said that, I don't quite get what the expectations of MAMEdev was when they released all this.  They give the documentation angle, but I've never bought it.  Why release it in the way that it is?  What is documentation without the ability to play the games?  Who are they documenting this for anyway?
My problem is how hypocritical all this is.

--- End quote ---
Well, it's like this - we can say we wrote a cool program to play tons of copyrighted games, but we'll probably get shut down in a few months when the copyright owners learn about it, or we can call it a documentation project, and maybe they'll let it slide.

I posted recently that JC Whitney used to sell a "test" pipe that was an exact fit - length and mounting flanges - for the factory catalytic converter.  They didn't market this as "Dump your catylytic converter for this straight pipe and save yourself $380.00 (but you won't be in compliance with emission laws)" - They marketed it as "Install this test pipe and if your car runs better, you know the catylytic converter was blocked and can spend $400.00 on a new one."

Or the "roach clips" with feathers that were sold as rear-view mirror decorations.

It's the same thing - a product has to have some legal purpose to continue to exist.  MAME's legal purpose is documentation.

--- Quote ---as a completely different theory.
Is it possible that they have been given advice to be as aggressive as possible to document an attempt to keep the project "about documentation".  It seems that they are truly at risk of huge lawsuits.

--- End quote ---
What they are looking at is if any of these companies goes down - lets say Namco sues DreamArcades, or Tokn 16, or Happ - if these companies have MAME links and MAME references all over their sites, there is a very real possibility that MAMEdev will be cited as a willing party and accomplice to the copyright infringement (good chance they might be anyway but it is prudent to minimize this).

Also - unlike a copyright or patent - unless a trademark owner actively takes steps to ensure the trademark is protected from unauthorized use, they run the risk of it being ruled as public domain and not trademark-protected.

--- Quote ---Do they really think they can win a lawsuit against Cyberpunk or do they just feel they need to file it anyway.  Or at least document that they explored the opportunity.

--- End quote ---
MAMEdev is not sueing Cyberpunk. 

CP is in this difficult situation -
MAME was created and became popular.
CP started MAMEroom as, <cough>, a reference to a gameroom stabbing site.
MAME is trying to limit useage of it's name (or derivatives?) in commercial venues.

Too early to tell how this will play out for them both.

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