Legality of Mame cabinets

[Lactose]

Has there ever been a court case involving mame cabinets, or has their legality been decided?

I'm looking into building one that would go in an office and I don't want to expose the company to risk. I figured that probably meant ditching the Nintendo games, but what about the rest of them?

Any insight into this would be appreciated.

[Sensei]

Mame (the emulator) is completely legal.
Playing Mame emulated games is completely legal.
Playing and possessing ROMS you paid for is completely legal.

But I suppose possessing (and therefore playing) ROMs you do not own I do believe is illegal.

So, it would be the equivalent of the question:
Is it ok legally for my company to possess stolen goods.

Probably not.

[Bones]

There is no law against putting your computer and monitor in a big box shaped like an arcade cabinet.

However, legally speaking, you must own the game PCB's to have legal rights to the ROMs. (There are some ROM's that are exceptions.)

Somebody else will speak up here and correct me if I am wrong but this is my understanding. I have also assumed you will not be charging people to play the cabinet.....

[DreamArcades]

Visit www.starroms.com for legal roms. Also, there are some capcom ROMS you can buy, such as street fighter, and 1942 that run on the HiVE emulator.

There's also a lot of games that have been ported to the PC, such as Dragon's lair and Midway arcade treasures.
As far as putting it in your office, I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly sure you are OK.

I have one machine with over 100 legal games on it, most are emulated.
-Mike

[RayB]

I want you all to think about one thing...
There's a difference between CRIMINAL law and COPYRIGHT law.

With a Criminal law, a police officer can arrest you on sight for your offense.

With a Copyright law, a police officer cannot touch you. It is up to the copyright owner(s) to initiate a prosecution.

Getting caught with cocaine in your possession is Criminal.
Getting caught with ROMs in your possession is copyright infringement.

Nothing will happen.
Make sure the cabinet is set to free play.

[elvis]

Or build a single-game cabinet from real arcade board.

You can even charge for play (whatever your smallest coin currency unit is, for a laugh), and at the end of the year use all the money for a night on the piss with your workmates! 

[Lactose]

Yeah I know that the common conception is that if you own the rom you're free to play it emulated. In fact I do own a decent sized handful of roms, but swapping them out of cabinets is a bit tiresome. What I really want to know is, has there been any legal precidence on this? A case that was won or lost?

Like in music, you see companies suing people for copying MP3s. Has there every been anything like that to decide the status of ROMs? Nintendo has succeeded in getting a lot of ROM sites to shut down their Nintendo sections, but I haven't heard of much more than that.

[TurboC--]

With a Copyright law, a police officer cannot touch you. It is up to the copyright owner(s) to initiate a prosecution.

Nothing will happen.
Make sure the cabinet is set to free play.

How about if it's set to accept coins but the coin door is unlocked?  That's what I am planning to have.  Free but donations accepted  (and it's just cooler to have it still be coin operated... both my coin slots still work in my original Midway coin door, woot!)

[tristan]

I would assume based on judgements in other copyright cases, that as long as you broke no encryption, you own the ROM legally, and you did not attempt to profit or commercially gain, you would be OK. US law, before the DMCA protected fair use, but was severely limited by the DMCA. If the original producer did not take steps to limit your use, you were basically free to use it as you want, for non-commercial uses. I would say that if you were not profiting from it, you would be OK.

I am not a lawyer, but am very interested in copyright law and fair use. Take my comments as such.

[SirPoonga]

there's a bunch of legal alternatives
like having arcadelike games, see the software forum sticky.

Also you can get those atari roms.
Get the 80 atari rom collection from best buy too.
Tons of ways of making it fun and legal.

[RayB]

What I really want to know is, has there been any legal precidence on this? A case that was won or lost?

I've never heard of such a case.

Keep in mind that ca$h dictates who and why people get sued. One guy with a MAME cabinet in a public place making money... yeah it's illegal, but why would a big corporation spend thousands and thousands on lawyers, only to get this one guy to stop making his measly $30 a week? That just doesn't make sense. But if we're talking about one guy making and selling hundreds of cabinets, we're talking about a much bigger target.*

Just compare it to the MP3 suits. They didn't sue everybody or just anybody. They went after the ones who they saw were sharing thousands and thousand of songs. In other words they struck where they would make the biggest impact for the least effort. It's like killing ants. Better to go around stomping on anthills than it is to try and stomp on each individual ant.


*Exceptions are that they can still send out a "cease & desist". That doesn't cost them much.

[AlanS17]

With a Copyright law, a police officer cannot touch you. It is up to the copyright owner(s) to initiate a prosecution.

Nothing will happen.
Make sure the cabinet is set to free play.

How about if it's set to accept coins but the coin door is unlocked?

[DaveMMR]

A MAME cabinet in an office?  What a great alternative to productivity.   

But seriously, the answer lies in what kind of people walk through your office on a daily basis.  If it's just for employee use I don't see any problems.  You can even keep the coin box active (lock it though) and give the money back by throwing occassional pizza parties or happy hours with the funds (it's a good way to keep play down to a minimum).

Of course, having the ROMs wouldn't be legal (unless they were gotten through the proper channels such as starroms - though techically you still can't be charging for it with a proper license).  I don't think anyone's going to be knocking down your door with a battering ram anytime soon though. 

It must be noted that IANAL, but I enjoy pretending that I am.

[Lactose]

We already have multiple arcade machines (all on free play). This isn't a money making venture, it's a "hey these old games are pretty fun" venture. I was already planning to build a 4 player cabinet for all to enjoy and I figured hey, why not make it a mame cabinet instead? Multiple birds would die by a single, albeit more expensive stone.

It'd suck to have some disgruntled former employee raise a stink about it, but I'm less worried about it if there's no precedent of people losing court cases or being forced to settle over it.

[Lilwolf]

Basically no way to make it legal while accepting money.

Can't do it with most PC software (thats cheap enought that you would be interested).  Almost every license agreement will prohibit this.  ESPECIALLY free or shareware programs.

Can't with mame.

This hobby is a hobby... not a business.  Keep it that way and you will stay happy, and you wont piss off all the people who have spent years to make it possible... for free...

[Tiger-Heli]

It is a MAME^TM trademark infringement to have a MAME cabinet.  It is acceptable to have an arcade cabinet with MAME installed, or a generic emulator cabinet which runs MAME.   

[SirPoonga]

If you really want to be legal have the company get an ultracade.

* SirPoonga puts on flame resistant suit...

Anyway, the only way to be legal is get starrom roms or buy a hotrod with the capcom games.

Like I said you can always get collections.
Atari
Midway

[Lactose]

Basically no way to make it legal while accepting money.

I never said it would be for-profit. The legality of that is obvious enough that I wouldn't bother to ask. I'm not even putting a coin door on the machine.

[Crazy Cooter]

Think of it like playing a VHS copied movie.

[RandyT]

I'm with CC.  In any public setting, it's always best to play by the rules. 

The last thing you want is a disgruntled employee making noise about the thing (and they will) and responsibility for it landing squarely in your lap.

Maybe there would never be a problem, but then maybe you could end up with no job, or worse, in court.

Is it really worth the risk?


RandyT

[StephenH]

Building or selling a home arcade cab built with legal hardware is legal.  Including ROMs is another matter.   Additionally, you cannot call it a MAMEcab, as MAME is now trademarked, although you can say "MAME Compatible".  Selling MAME is also illegal.

So If you want to be legal, I would do the following:

1) Do not include any ROMs.

2) Do not use the name MAME to describe it.

3) Use only legal items on it.

4) It is OK to refer one to StarRoms, or to inform them about the Capcom Coin-op Classics CD-ROM, or to dump your own boards.