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sort of legal roms question
shardian:
You see, there is a catch to this: If you've ever known a true business person, they tend to decide to hold onto things/ask for money once they find out someone is interested in something they have...even things collecting dust they didn't remember owning.
MovingTarget:
--- Quote from: shardian on October 17, 2006, 12:21:39 pm ---...So has anyone on here ever tried to track down th owners of some old games to try to buy the rights to them? It would be really neat if we could all band together to get some games and then turn them over to public domain.
--- End quote ---
If someone here starts up a campaign to buy the rights to some games I would totally be willing to throw some money at that. How cool would it be if this community actually bought up the rights to some of these games and made them free to use and maybe charge some small fee for commercial use so we could then purchase more titles?
Doubt it will happen but if it does I'm behind the idea!
GoPodular.com:
I'd be behind the idea as well, but as soon as it gets listed in public, somebody is going to try and capitalize on it. We'd do the work with the intention of making them free, they finalize the idea and charge money. As a control manufacturer, I'd love to point customers to a pile of freely available ROM's. I'd benefit more by having them free, BUT... someone else may benefit more by starting a fee based service. You wouldn't want to help them by posting the info in public.
The biggest problem is that eventually somebody will sue, claiming they have the rights to distribute the ROM. It wouldn't matter if they were right or wrong if you don't have the money to go through court.
Chris:
And ownership of the ROM isn't enough. If the game features licensed characters or trademarks, like Indiana Jones or NBA Jam, distribution of the game may be restricted by the terms of the license. Rarely does a license turn over unlimited rights to the licensee.
GoPodular.com:
True. Very true.
I'd imagine the NBA contract read something like:
"Terms of this license is restricted to... resale in arcade cabinet labeled NBA Jam... commercial use... manufactured by... distributed by... all other uses are prohibited."