Hope this isn't a taboo topic

[Tiger-Heli]

I know patents that are filed by individuals who work at a company behave this way.  I've filed patents through my company.  When the patent is awarded, I'm listed as the inventor but my company owns the patent and I have no claim or right to use it.  I could however license it from my company.

But that's because the company you work for made you sign an agreement that anything you develop while working for them becomes their property.

[MikeQ]

Sure that is true, but Company A would do the same.  The guy who owns Company A wouldn't have all the copyrights in his name.  They would be in the companies name.  If they were in his name, Company B wouldn't want to buy Company A because Company A has not value without the copyrights.  If Company B did buy Company A  for other assets and the copyrights were kept in Guy A's name.  Company B would have no right to them.

The post below comes from www.copyright.gov.  Actually, there is no clear rule here.  It basically says that the transfer of copyrights is done by contract.  So whatever is agreed to between two parties is legal.  This could be both retain full rights, partial rights, one has no rights, etc...   So this would be really ugly to figure out.  On a ROM by ROM basis, you would have to track a ROMS ownership back to the source and find all the agreements in place that govern that ROM.  Some companies may have chosen to retain some of their titles while getting rid of others.  Not only that, if the transfer isn't exclusive, you don't even have to have anything it writing.  Also, everything is subject to state law.  So different states could have different interpretations of ownership.


"Any or all of the copyright owner's exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. Transfer of a right on a nonexclusive basis does not require a written agreement.

A copyright may also be conveyed by operation of law and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.

Copyright is a personal property right, and it is subject to the various state laws and regulations that govern the ownership, inheritance, or transfer of personal property as well as terms of contracts or conduct of business. For information about relevant state laws, consult an attorney.

Transfers of copyright are normally made by contract. The Copyright Office does not have any forms for such transfers. The law does provide for the recordation in the Copyright Office of transfers of copyright ownership. Although recordation is not required to make a valid transfer between the parties, it does provide certain legal advantages and may be required to validate the transfer as against third parties. For information on recordation of transfers and other documents related to copyright, request Circular 12, "Recordation of Transfers and Other Documents."

[MikeQ]

This probably explains why no one is trying to stop the proliferation of illegal ROMS.  The cost of determining who owns what and what they are legally allowed to do with it is to great to make it worth their while.

[Tiger-Heli]

This probably explains why no one is trying to stop the proliferation of illegal ROMS.  The cost of determining who owns what and what they are legally allowed to do with it is to great to make it worth their while.

Also, you are focusing on copyright, but Intellectual Property, and/or Software license and DCMA clauses could also be applied and differ slightly.

Also given that in general to win a suit you have to be able to show "proof of loss".  I.e. if I own the rights to Asteroids, and am producing and selling new repro Asteroids cabinets for $3000.00 - I might be able to show that website A illegally allowed my IP to be downloaded 2500 times, and maybe 5 percent of those people would have bought a machine from me if the ROM were not available, so I lost 125 sales or $375,000.

Of course, to do this, I have to 1) Actually own the rights to Asteroids and be prepared to prove I do, 2) Actually be selling cabinets for that price (and probably prove that people are actually paying that, not that I just have them for sale).  3) Pay attorneys to take the issue to court. 4) Convince a jury that the number of people that I said actually would buy a cabinet from me if the ROM were unavailable (I think that is a big stretch).

And if the website is overseas, the country involved may not respect U.S. copyright law, so I can't sue.

And even if I win, I get a judgement against the website, and the site owner will likely say: "Okay, I'll take the site down, and I owe you $375,000 dollars.  I have about $1000 and then I am filing bankruptcy, but I'll try to send you $25/month until I've paid you back".

Of course, just filing the suit without any chance of winning would probably be enough to get the U.S.-based website taken down.

[brian23]

And even if I win, I get a judgement against the website, and the site owner will likely say: "Okay, I'll take the site down, and I owe you $375,000 dollars.  I have about $1000 and then I am filing bankruptcy, but I'll try to send you $25/month until I've paid you back".

Of course, just filing the suit without any chance of winning would probably be enough to get the U.S.-based website taken down.

Actually, they'll garnish tax refunds and other financial assets to pay for the lawsuit. At least they won't put you out of house and home fortunately.

[SirPoonga]

is this the rant thread?

I haven't read this all but it seems like people trying to profit off og legit multigames was not considered too.  The reason it is taboo is it creates unfair competition.  For the home user jus tdownloading the rom, if the company doesn't exists, there's no one to enforce the copyright.  But in the business world there is action that can be taken (see Ultracade).

Who says company's aren't enforcing their copyright and not trying to shut roms sites down?  Just becuase the couple you frequent aren't shut down?  It isn't that easy in some cases.
For example, there's a well used bit torrent tracker in sweden.  They get many threats to shut the site down because they are providing illegal content (which is funny to read their comments on the their site).  But, according to sweden laws they are not, since the actual content is not on their servers.  However some country laws would call what they are doing aiding and abedding and is against the law in that country.  However since the site isn't under that country's jurisdiction they can't do anything.  That's the case with many of these rom sites.  We don't want them linked here to cover our butts.

Look at the list you have in the first post.  Most of those are from companies that are actively enforcing copyright (Namco, Disney..).  The site probably got a ceise and desist letter and just removed that company's content.

Also if you were around about 4-5 years ago you'd know about mame.dk.  mame.dk was a mame rom site with tons of other information that was very helpful (which is why MAWS exists).  They were shutdown on a regular basis.  But a couple months later they'd be back up.  Then they went to a subscription where if you were a registered member you could see the downloads, but if not you wouldn't.  They tried all sorts of things.  I think what finally got them was someone made it so they couldn't renew the domain name.

is a legal gray area (including IMHO StarRoms and the Capcom Roms that ship with the HotRod)

Why?  They have permission from the Capcom and Atari.

[MikeQ]

is this the rant thread?

I haven't read this all but it seems like people trying to profit off og legit multigames was not considered too.  The reason it is taboo is it creates unfair competition.  For the home user jus tdownloading the rom, if the company doesn't exists, there's no one to enforce the copyright.  But in the business world there is action that can be taken (see Ultracade).

Who says company's aren't enforcing their copyright and not trying to shut roms sites down?  Just becuase the couple you frequent aren't shut down?  It isn't that easy in some cases.
For example, there's a well used bit torrent tracker in sweden.  They get many threats to shut the site down because they are providing illegal content (which is funny to read their comments on the their site).  But, according to sweden laws they are not, since the actual content is not on their servers.  However some country laws would call what they are doing aiding and abedding and is against the law in that country.  However since the site isn't under that country's jurisdiction they can't do anything.  That's the case with many of these rom sites.  We don't want them linked here to cover our butts.

Look at the list you have in the first post.  Most of those are from companies that are actively enforcing copyright (Namco, Disney..).  The site probably got a ceise and desist letter and just removed that company's content.

Also if you were around about 4-5 years ago you'd know about mame.dk.  mame.dk was a mame rom site with tons of other information that was very helpful (which is why MAWS exists).  They were shutdown on a regular basis.  But a couple months later they'd be back up.  Then they went to a subscription where if you were a registered member you could see the downloads, but if not you wouldn't.  They tried all sorts of things.  I think what finally got them was someone made it so they couldn't renew the domain name.

is a legal gray area (including IMHO StarRoms and the Capcom Roms that ship with the HotRod)

Why?  They have permission from the Capcom and Atari.

He he.  Not the rant.  This could be a fun game though.    It was in the blinkly light thread in response to a question by buddabing

[JoyMonkey]

Hey! I found the rant post here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=37190.msg476960#msg476960

Now what do I win!? Will you put all the AdvMame display features into your Mame build for me!?


( kidding  )

[MikeQ]

You win a free beta test kit of LEDWizMAME.  Minimum of 12 hours of testing required!!

[JoyMonkey]

Oh gee whizz! Wait till I tell the wife! I never win anything!

[Tiger-Heli]

is a legal gray area (including IMHO StarRoms and the Capcom Roms that ship with the HotRod)

Why?  They have permission from the Capcom and Atari.

Regarding StarRoms - I know they have permission from Atari, but the Atari that made Asteroids was split up and sold to several different companies.  Hopefully the one that gave permission to StarRoms was the one that has in writing that they actually own the rights to the Roms, but who knows???

[Havok]

Bah... Abandonware..

Hey, while we're at it, I think an exhaustive search should be made for the inventor of the wheel - people need to be sued...

[SirPoonga]

is a legal gray area (including IMHO StarRoms and the Capcom Roms that ship with the HotRod)

Why?  They have permission from the Capcom and Atari.

Regarding StarRoms - I know they have permission from Atari, but the Atari that made Asteroids was split up and sold to several different companies.  Hopefully the one that gave permission to StarRoms was the one that has in writing that they actually own the rights to the Roms, but who knows???

Midway owns them and has owned them for some time, but they still have tha Atari name and that's who gave the permission.  Hey, now you get why all the collections for the PC are Midway and Atari...

[Tiger-Heli]

is a legal gray area (including IMHO StarRoms and the Capcom Roms that ship with the HotRod)

Why?  They have permission from the Capcom and Atari.

Regarding StarRoms - I know they have permission from Atari, but the Atari that made Asteroids was split up and sold to several different companies.  Hopefully the one that gave permission to StarRoms was the one that has in writing that they actually own the rights to the Roms, but who knows???

Midway owns them and has owned them for some time, but they still have tha Atari name and that's who gave the permission.  Hey, now you get why all the collections for the PC are Midway and Atari...

Probably you are correct that Midway owns the arcade hardware part of Atari, but I am pretty sure Infogrames bought the software rights and released the PC version of Asteroids under the Atari label.  Is the ROM code hardware or software?  (Probably it will never be an issue, but I hope you see my point.)

[SirPoonga]

Probably you are correct that Midway owns the arcade hardware part of Atari, but I am pretty sure Infogrames bought the software rights and released the PC version of Asteroids under the Atari label.  Is the ROM code hardware or software?  (Probably it will never be an issue, but I hope you see my point.)

Right - the PC version, which is a rom embedded in an emulater exe.  How does that have any bearing on the ROMs starroms sells? 
Anyway, click on http://corporate.infogrames.com/ I dare you

You know starroms use to have the entire atari library, right?  Those of us who were around were lucky enough to grab them before Atari decided it didn't want compettion with the console releases.

FYI, what I told you was softa wrong.  Midway owned Atari Games (part of the Time Warner Interactive purchase) until they shut that down a couple of years ago (when Midway got completely out of the arcade business and went console only).  Infrogames bought Atari, Inc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Games
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infogrames_Entertainment_SA