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New rules regarding copyright and the DMCA: How is MAME effected?
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Patent Doc:
Every 3 years DMCA is evaluated and recommendations are made to change the rules.  This occurred on 11/27/06.  This year the door for MAME and all of those ROMs just opened a little bit wider.  Below is a quote from the copyright office.

The Librarian of Congress, on the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years.
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

What does this mean?  Well, if you are a library or are archiving then DMCA doesn't apply to you.  Circumvent away.  Still need to own the work.  Anyway, the argument could be made.

Patent Doc

 :cheers:
Fozzy The Bear:
I answered this one a few days ago..... It's of no help to us whatsoever.... See http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=60467.0

It is only about the control of access via obsolete copy protection methods. It is NOT about freedom of or exemption to Copyright in the material itself.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
Patent Doc:
Fozzy, I'm sorry if I missed your post, but you are wrong, it does apply to us.  True, this doesn't affect copyright infringement, I never said it did.  However, one of the issues with respect to owning ROMs is that there was "circumvention" associated with the movement of the rom from the chip on the board to your PC.  This is because originally you needed the hardware to access the game.  Owning a mame rom gets around this.  So even if you own the game you may have been violating DMCA.  As the game itself is obsolete and no longer being manufactured (exception being pac man, ms pac, galaga and some others) then as the rule reads you are no longer in violation of DMCA.  Admittedly not a huge deal, but for those of us who own the pcb or the game, an argument can now be made that the roms for those games, now being used with mame are ok.  Still have to own the orginal game or pcb (maybe), but before, even this wasnt enough to avoid infringement because the act of transformation was a violation of DMCA.
Fozzy The Bear:

--- Quote from: Patent Doc on November 29, 2006, 07:06:46 pm ---Fozzy, I'm sorry if I missed your post, but you are wrong, it does apply to us.  True, this doesn't affect copyright infringement, I never said it did.  However, one of the issues with respect to owning ROMs is that there was "circumvention" associated with the movement of the rom from the chip on the board to your PC.  This is because originally you needed the hardware to access the game.  Owning a mame rom gets around this.  So even if you own the game you may have been violating DMCA.  As the game itself is obsolete and no longer being manufactured (exception being pac man, ms pac, galaga and some others) then as the rule reads you are no longer in violation of DMCA.  Admittedly not a huge deal, but for those of us who own the pcb or the game, an argument can now be made that the roms for those games, now being used with mame are ok.  Still have to own the orginal game or pcb (maybe), but before, even this wasnt enough to avoid infringement because the act of transformation was a violation of DMCA.

--- End quote ---

The act of having a copy of it (a ROM) at all, is a violation of DMCA because the copy you have has been made without consent of Law or of the owner of that work. The amendment does not apply to ordinary citizens making copies of ROM's so that they can play games. It's very specific about who is allowed to circumvent the protection and for what purpose.

"Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works" It can very easily be argued that, our uses are most certainly "Copyright Infringing" and therefore, we are exempted from applying this ruling in any way to our use of ROMs.

The fact remains that 99.99% of us don't own the original arcade boards and are therefore not operating under the terms of fair use and are (probably) infringing copyright under DMCA.

Of course... Nobody here has ROMs that they don't own the original arcade boards for do they ;)  :laugh2:

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
lloydcom:

--- Quote from: Fozzy The Bear on November 29, 2006, 08:34:36 pm ---
Of course... Nobody here has ROMs that they don't own the original arcade boards for do they ;)  :laugh2:

--- End quote ---

I have some dead boards in the loft which I can now play on MAME, and some laserdiscs which I can play on Daphne.  So your above post is a bit off target.  If the hardware dies we can play those games without the DMCA getting their hooks into us if they walked in one day, if that would ever happen...

Granted you are in the UK, as your response on the previous thread suggests, but this site is based in the US, and is quite important. Since your comments are UK biased we can exclude them in this discussion as it doesn't impact you.

As I cannot see the DMCA's reach being able to grab you Fozzy, but their are others in this hobby who like to stay legal with a valid moral reason to do so.  But to entertain the thought, a visit by PC plod would cause you no end of bother, even if the odds are a million to 1.

I'm sure there are others on this board that are in the same boat, which play MAME legally.  My previous post was exactly in the same vein as the original poster on this thread.

Can you qualify yourself Fozzy with the both comments made on both threads?

Are you a solicitor or some way trained in US copyright law?
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