NAMCO VeROing Pac Machines+Sues ArcadeGrafix.com

[MameFan]

Newsarticle below regarding ArcadeGrafix, but ALSO posted in r.g.v.a.c tonite -- Namco is VeROing (forcing eBay to remove over 'assumed' copyright infringement) legitimate Pacman/Ms.Pacman machines that they feel have possibly used _ANY_ unlicenced artwork (on sides, bezel, cp, etc...)!!!!

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NAMCO SUES OVER ALLEGED COUNTERFEIT GAMES

(posted Wednesday, April 9, 2003 -- 3PM)

Video game maker Namco, which owns the rights to the popular Pac-Man and
Galaga video games, announced today that it had filed a suit and obtained an
injunction against a seller of alleged counterfeit arcade video games, PC
Amusements of Orlando, Florida, and its owner, Luis Molinary. The
counterfeit video games were being sold to the public from various outlets,
including Internet auction sites. Namco filed suit in the Orlando Federal
District Court, and the court granted an order allowing the United States
Marshal service to seize and impound the video games and parts in question.
Namco America's president Kevin Hayes said: "The Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and
Galaga video games are still popular in the United States even after 20
years from their introduction. Namco continues to sell various models of our
20 Year Reunion: Class of '81 Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga, incorporating Pac-Man.
The market has responded by buying over 13,000 of the new game consoles, and
sales are still brisk. Namco will not hesitate to enforce its strong
intellectual property rights, trademarks and copyrights against those who
seek to trade on its valuable video game properties." Neil A. Smith,
intellectual property specialist attorney at Howard Rice Nemerovski Falk
Canady & Rabkin in San Francisco, counsel to Namco, said, "The courts will
grant immediate restraining orders and seizure orders when provided with
strong evidence of trademark and copyright counterfeiting, as is the case
here." When contacted by RePlay today, Molinary said that his company had
ceased making replacement graphics for Pac-Man games more than six months
ago, but conceded that they had reproduced graphics in the past and in some
cases used them in conjunction with boards purchased from importers. PC
Amusements repairs or restores and then resells arcade video and pinball
games, and often reproduces graphics for those games as well as for other
companies. "Everybody and their dog had been doing the same thing (with
Pac-Man artwork) and we didn't know it was illegal," he said. "All they
needed to do was send us a letter. If we are infringing on somebody's
copyright we want to know. We cease and desist as soon as we receive a
letter." Molinary said he hoped to see the issue settled out of court. The
suit seeks an injunction, money damages and attorneys' fees. In addition to
the Seizure Order, the Federal Court issued a Restraining Order. Namco
cautioned its customers to buy only from authorized Namco dealers and
distributors. For more information contact the Namco America sales office at
630/238-2248.

[Xphile]

<snip> have possiblyused _ANY_ unlicenced artwork <snip>[/quote

that's what pisses me off totally, Namco doesn't even need proof of unlicenced art, They see anything that competes with their Reunion - be it a great looking restoration or rapid fire/speedup chips in the boardsets and you can bet they're searching for *ANY* hint of a reason to Vero and ebay cancels your auction as if you are guilty of selling M$ cdr's or something.

it's happened quite a few times in the last little while in rgvac...

[MameFan]

The word on the newsgroups is mixed so far, but this seems ominous.

Did anyone notice that last week (search closed) there was a huge "dumping" of "JAMMA" based bootleg MsPac boards by 2 sellers specifically? Wonder if that had anything to do with the recent action (either a cause of or an effect of pending action)?