cant seem to grasp why mame is 'illegal' for commercial use

[jcterzin]

So I own a couple of arcade machines I use in my shop to let clients play while they wait. They are not these two games but lets say they are TMNT and MK since they are both similar and made by the same company, and I want to convert them into just the one cabinet. (assuming I got permission from the developer of the specific frontend I would use) why would it be illegal to use mame for this process and make it used for commercial play? I own the pcbs of the original games, I just changed platforms from which they run right?

edit* reading over this, I bet it doesnt make much sense. I just think it would be easy to setup up mame in one cab and emulate the games I already own.

[Havok]

Straight from the people that created Mame:

Can I put an arcade cabinet running MAME in a public location?
A. No. This this a commercial use of MAME and is prohibited by the license. Even if you don't charge money, putting a machine in a public location is "operating" an arcade machine and falls under commercial rules in most locations.

If you wanted to run both games, you would have to run a switch to the actual pcbs. since you didn't state the games, if they are jamma it wouldn't be that hard.

[Ginsu Victim]

They are not these two games but lets say they are TMNT and MK since they are both similar and made by the same company, and I want to convert them into just the one cabinet.

They're not by the same company.

[Thenasty]

buying one of those 1million to one GAMES is considered illegal too (you know which ones).

The ones you want to be all legal are the Ultracade/Hanano machines. Usually you can find this at Costo, BJ Wholesale etc.... and WWW.

[jcterzin]

your right Ginsu. my apologies to Konami for thinking that TMNT was a midway production! (blushing)

anyways, I was thinking it was an issue with the front ends. I didnt realize that the developers were actually against this. I was assuming that commercial use would have been a priority considering that finding specific dedicated cabinets with running pcbs is becoming more and more difficult for older games. How hard is it to find a good running paperboy? Its tough where I live, thats for sure. But with this program making it easy to just 'emulate' the game, that allows for it to be almost ressurected. Im just rambling, but all I am saying is that one day, 15 years from now, when I can no longer find a working CRT or isolation transformer, or whatever part I need to fix my 'true' pcb arcade machines, what will we do then? I guess just forget about the games, except for home use.

[DJ_Izumi]

anyways, I was thinking it was an issue with the front ends. I didnt realize that the developers were actually against this.

If the MAME could be used for commercial operations, then some MAME developers would be like 'Wait, if someone can make money off of this, I wanna get paid for my efforts in building it for him'.  Then it'd snowball as developers dropped out feeling they should get paid, if some got paid they'd argue over who should get paid what, or if those who only made minor contributions should get paid, and of course who made what game work which is being used while someone who made another Majong game run that no one cares about or never use get paid and... It'd be a big mess.

Everyone is a lot happier to volenteer their efforts when they know everyone else is getting paid nothing too.

[Blanka]

If it is for wait, they should be on Free play anyway. Waiting is not really a service
Guess you won't make a ton of money on it. And even if you do, putting the money in your regular service (say you're a car mech working for 35$/hour, make it 36$!) and put the games on free play will give more consumer satisfaction, and they won't notice the price increase.

And beside that you can always just do it.

"What are you gonna do? Bleed on me?"

[Blanka]

If the MAME could be used for commercial operations, then some MAME developers would be like 'Wait, if someone can make money off of this, I wanna get paid for my efforts in building it for him'.

I Thought MAME IS ALREADY used for commercial operations. I believe Taito Legends for example is nothing but MAME. The game owners will say FY to the mamedevs probably, as they cannot organise to file lawsuits against them.

On the other hand. Think of this scenario: Steve JOBS want's MAME on his iPad store (iPad is auto-rotating 4:3 screen: made for classics!). He pays the mame-org a sum of cash, they think of a nice formula to divide it over members (Nicola getting millionaire and letting go his weird Trademark), and he arranges Taito, Capcom and co send in technicians to better mame even further. Mame goes full GNU open source and the deal is that Apple makes ROMS available for commercial use without DRM in their iPad store, so each Mamer can obtain legal titles. I think it will give more people access in a decent way to our great game heritage. In the end Jobs is only interested in 30% of each ROM sold, whether it is DRM'ed or not, music, app or crap. Does not matter.

[DJ_Izumi]

I Thought MAME IS ALREADY used for commercial operations. I believe Taito Legends for example is nothing but MAME. The game owners will say FY to the mamedevs probably, as they cannot organise to file lawsuits against them.

Googling for 'MAME Taito Legends' doesn't turn up much, one thread someone links something and makes the accusation and other dismiss it.  Whatever he links to seems to be a dead link.

http://curmudgeongamer.com/2006/01/taito-legends-operation-wolf-and-pc.html

This suggests the PC version contains MAME compatable ROMS, but the ROMs being MAME compatable does't make the emulator.  Several emulators use ROMs in the same format as MAME.

On the other hand. Think of this scenario: Steve JOBS want's MAME on his iPad store (iPad is auto-rotating 4:3 screen: made for classics!). He pays the mame-org a sum of cash, they think of a nice formula to divide it over members (Nicola getting millionaire and letting go his weird Trademark), and he arranges Taito, Capcom and co send in technicians to better mame even further. Mame goes full GNU open source and the deal is that Apple makes ROMS available for commercial use without DRM in their iPad store, so each Mamer can obtain legal titles. I think it will give more people access in a decent way to our great game heritage. In the end Jobs is only interested in 30% of each ROM sold, whether it is DRM'ed or not, music, app or crap. Does not matter.

But companies like Taito, Capcom, Konami and Namco have already built working emulators for their platforms, they've been building console and PC compilations for years afterall.  Just port their own emulator technology to the iPhone.  This is what Sega's done on their own afterall, they're rumored to have made a Genesis emulator for iPhone that will feature it's own 'store' internally for buying games to run on it.

I don't see why you think Jobs would be instrumental in this at all. o.O

[Blanka]

I don't see why you think Jobs would be instrumental in this at all. o.O

Because right now he's the only one understanding content dealing in the 21st century, and how to make money of millions of small software buys. And he's perfectionist enough to keep us away from lame retro-game-pack userinterfaces and the need to have a CD in our PC for every gamepack, with their non-uniformity in design. He's has enough goodwill in the industry to get loose bare ROM licenses (except from Nintendo, they are a pain in the ass to everyone, much like Steve himself )

[DJ_Izumi]

Because right now he's the only one understanding content dealing in the 21st century, and how to make money of millions of small software buys. And he's perfectionist enough to keep us away from lame retro-game-pack userinterfaces and the need to have a CD in our PC for every gamepack, with their non-uniformity in design. He's has enough goodwill in the industry to get loose bare ROM licenses (except from Nintendo, they are a pain in the ass to everyone, much like Steve himself )

Have you not seen the vast ammount of inane and crappy apps for the iPhone?  Sure there's a lot of great apps for the iPhone but they sit atop a mountain of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

[Gatt]

It's actually pretty simple,  two reasons.

1.  Copyright law prevents the use of anything owned by someone else if there's profit involved.  If Mamedev weren't vocally against it,  then the companies could sue Mamedev and win.  Being vocally against commercial use keeps them out of this problem.

2.  How would you divide up money anyways?  There's so many contributers over the years how would you quantify it at all?  It's impossible.

Mame's got alot of benefit's going for it.  It stays niche,  Mamedev makes efforts to insure it's just difficult enough not to mainstream,  and has stated it is against their terms of use to use it for commercial uses,  companies don't sue Mame,  and apparently choose to make money by sometimes harvesting Mame to create their little platform releases.  I've heard of a few instances where the games in some company's "Arcade pack!" turn out to be Mame code.

Right now,  there's a healthy balance between everyone,  certain set of rules are followed and basically everyone ignores what the other guy's doing.

Take a moment to think about it,  it's a fairly healthy symbiotic relationship that under normal circumstances would never exist in the buisness world.  Mame's an amazing piece of work on so many levels...

[Jack Burton]

The way I understand it is that the DMCA says any device or program that has the sole purpose of circumventing a copyright is illegal. 

I would say a MAME cab falls into this category pretty easily.  It doesn't matter if you owned the original board. 

[saint]

The way I understand it is that the DMCA says any device or program that has the sole purpose of circumventing a copyright is illegal. 

I would say a MAME cab falls into this category pretty easily.  It doesn't matter if you owned the original board. 

There is (or was) a clause in the DMCA that allowed technology circumventing a copyright if the original technology was obsolete and not available anymore. MAME fit into that category.

[Haze]

So I own a couple of arcade machines I use in my shop to let clients play while they wait. They are not these two games but lets say they are TMNT and MK since they are both similar and made by the same company, and I want to convert them into just the one cabinet. (assuming I got permission from the developer of the specific frontend I would use) why would it be illegal to use mame for this process and make it used for commercial play? I own the pcbs of the original games, I just changed platforms from which they run right?

edit* reading over this, I bet it doesnt make much sense. I just think it would be easy to setup up mame in one cab and emulate the games I already own.

It's quite simple.  MAME can't be used for commercial use because the MAME license state that it can't.

There are many reasons for this, one being that the development team don't want manufacturers of commercial MAME cabs with illegal ROMs turning using 'MAME facilitates and promotes this' as some kind of legal defence.  The program hasn't been designed as an engine to drive illegal commercial activities, and while it is sometimes used as such (and there are even occurances of this documented in MAME) it is completely unapproved by the development team.  MAME wants to be as far away from the commercial bootlegging operations as possible.

There could also be further complications with local laws, some places require licenses to operate PCBs, and only licensed PCBs can operate.  A PC running the same games is not the same PCB, and again further legal issues could occur for the operator which again the team have no desire to be a part of.

Also a project making money is a more attractive legal target in general for lawsuits, no matter how frivilous they are.

So MAME is quite happy operating as a non-commercial, non-profit project.

[jcterzin]

sounds like there is a ton of grey area here.

[saint]

sounds like there is a ton of grey area here.

There is zero grey area here.

1. It's against the MAME-Dev license.
2. It's against the law.

[RayB]

I guess what it boils down to is average folk dont understand what a "license" is. They are used to just installing and running programs and so long as they paid to get it, and it works, that's all that matters to them.

So to put it simply, when a person, or persons or a company creates a program, or a work of art, or a piece of music, etc, they automatically have copyright of that program. This gives them legal control over how/where their work is used. Traditionally this comes in the form of "If you pay me $X, you can use this for Y".

MAME creators decided they are not charging for MAME. It is free. But it is not a free-for-all. In exchange for $0, you can use it BUT NOT COMMERCIALLY. That's what they decided. End of story. It's their work, their rules.

[Ginsu Victim]

sounds like there is a ton of grey area here.

Here's what you don't realize:

Haze is a MAME dev.

It's not like you're talking to someone unrelated to the project just giving their opinion.

[J.Max]

This is very simple:

1. MAMEDev owns the code and trademark, in short, they own MAME.

2. They have the right to say what you can or can't do with their property.  "Open source" doesn't mean that no one owns the right to the intellectual property, it just means that anyone can contribute.  Google owns Android, and they say that you can't use it on Netbooks, therefore you can't do so. (I use this comparison because Android is also open source, I believe.)

3. They (MAMEDev) say that you can't use it commercially.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

[ark_ader]

Well not really straight cut as you would think it would be.

This is my opinion on the subject,

In a real world scenario a guy running a pizza parlor wants to have a few arcade games like Donkey Kong or some other obsolete game that nobody has seen or possibly played before...  ...just gets a broken cab and fires it up with MAME and some roms.  Happy days.

Unless the guy is a complete moron and puts MAME CAB on the machine, nobody would be the wiser and the guy would crank in some quarters.  If the dude puts it on free play more the better as there would be no licensing or maybe just a permit.  The mamedevs have no calling back code in MAME nor does it flash MAME IS NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE every 5 minutes.  

Say they guy gets caught with his pants down and the MAME machine is discovered.  What then?

A warning? Jail time?   Nope.  How many local cops you know that would do anything?  

Besides its a civil issue.

Mamedev is a collective, each developer that submitted code (and there is quite a few) would have to testify.  Then comes the media circus when some company who owns the rights to Donkey Kong or whatever wakes up and sees serious money on the TV.  Guess who would be sued for breaking copy protection?  Nintendo is notorious for such behavior.  Who?  The guy in the pizza parlor?  Seriously, who?

As mentioned by Saint - the Library of Congress would be the only group that would be in the position to include or protect MAME:

The Copyright Office is conducting this rule-making proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

The purpose of this proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of access controls.  

The Notice of Inquiry in this fourth anti-circumvention rule-making requests written comments from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether non-infringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works.  http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, also kicks in here.  A real mess if the media got wind of a real scoop and you would get some Michael Moore type reporter locating all these long-gone holders of old arcade technologies (remember this is prime suing time for those with losing holdings in the entertainment business, software houses including) asking for their views.  Basically a witch-hunt.

The rest of us who have Mame collections will keep quiet.  Maybe we will see a renaissance for all these games, with Mr. Foley riding shotgun.  

I personally love what the Mamedevs have done.  They are a part of our history, and the revenue generated with all these new ports of old games are a testament to this, something which is not lost on the copyright holders.

I'm not that happy with the cracking of games in the 2000-2009+ era, as the console software houses love kicking these ports out.  I have said in the past and I will say it now: Stop bringing out new stuff and fix the old code.

What I am getting at is the stone throwing mentality that some Mamedevs have, considering they are not officially in the Library of Congress (again correct me) negates this fact and have the right to break copy protections.  

I live in a dying holiday resort town.  I'm used to seeing arcades go bust and I also see some questionable arcade machines in my journeys.  Am I responsible to report it?  Is there a Mamedev reward hotline?

That's how I see the whole Mame vs the commercial use world.  Hypocrisy?

But we are talking about those offenders who operate Mame in a commercial setting as less than 1% - (please correct me) over the millions of Mame users out there all playing robby roto - its a logical conclusion.  

Edit:
I read this again and how I see MAME operating this policy of archiving and saving history is to complete work on such game and break the code so roms could not be played.  The machine is archived but the operating code is not available to the general public only to the copyright holders or PD.

[Ginsu Victim]

In the example above, wouldn't the guy need a tax stamp on the machine? Do they inspect the machine before issuing it? I'm not sure how it all works.... 

[CheffoJeffo]

Regardless of the legalities (where I happen to agree with saint, Haze, et al), the best solution to wanting to run two games that you already have working boards for in a single cabinet, particularly JAMMA games, is just to drop in a JAMMA switcher.

It is the easiest solution and, depending on how much your time is worth, quite possibly the cheapest.

I would also point out that, depending on where you are, you may be breaking the law just by charging people to play the machine anyway ... unless you have all the required permits, tax stickers, insurance, etc.

EDIT: Ginsu got to this latter point first

So, what are the games ?

[ark_ader]

Then I had a thought.

Where do we stop with copyright infringement?

How about this scenario:

Hypothetically Ram Controls gets a call from a guy who says he has the rights to the Star Wars Yokes.  Threatens to sue if he releases the yokes unless a royalty is paid for each controller sold (like 90%) or just slaps him with a C & D.  The yokes were made for the military originally.  Who owns the copyright now?

How many arcade suppliers have made repro controls?  Cabinets?  Artwork?  PCBs?  Mods? Music? Fridge Magnets?

Where do we stop and why do we need these arcade repro items if the main work of MAME is for arcade preservation?

Yes I know I'm throwing stones now.. 

[kingbob]

So, what are the games ?

(After all this talk of legality)  Probably a couple of bootlegs.  JK

[DJ_Izumi]

Hypothetically Ram Controls gets a call from a guy who says he has the rights to the Star Wars Yokes.  Threatens to sue if he releases the yokes unless a royalty is paid for each controller sold (like 90%) or just slaps him with a C & D.

I'd point out that any patent on the controller for Star Wars expired after twenty years and is well expired by now, then tell him I won't fall for his scheme.  Because you can't copyright design of something. |:

[Malenko]

you guys are gettin a little off topic, besides some people say the yokes will never come out


While it may seem "morally right" to use MAME in leiu of an actual PCB , you cant in a commercial setting. Its not because of the DCMA or any law or lack of permits you dont have to take the argument that far, you cant because when you run MAME you agree to their license, which is "you cant use this for commercial purposes"


I have real arcade machines, I have a MAME cab, I can admit I play games I shouldnt but I play the ones I own a lot more (Im tired of dumping hundred of dollars on broken KI 1 and 2 PCBs and fighting ebay sellers over them, so I settle for MAMEd KI1/KI2)

[ark_ader]

you guys are gettin a little off topic, besides some people say the yokes will never come out


While it may seem "morally right" to use MAME in leiu of an actual PCB , you cant in a commercial setting. Its not because of the DCMA or any law or lack of permits you dont have to take the argument that far, you cant because when you run MAME you agree to their license, which is "you cant use this for commercial purposes"


I have real arcade machines, I have a MAME cab, I can admit I play games I shouldnt but I play the ones I own a lot more (Im tired of dumping hundred of dollars on broken KI 1 and 2 PCBs and fighting ebay sellers over them, so I settle for MAMEd KI1/KI2)

Yeah my bad, but it did merit a mention.

I like your point about being morally right about using MAME for a swap PCB.  But you have to look at it differently.  The PCB is protected (maybe not) with means to stop people creating copies.  Mame does not emulate the protection does it?  The protection would have to be broken or modified in order to get the game to run in MAME.  So morally doesn't come into this.  Mame just emulates the hardware or the software inside the hardware.  So if MAME is just for preserving hardware or the software inside the hardware, why has an industry spawned around it?

Why are the ROMS available?  Why are the roms being updated and not broken to prevent what the original mainboard of the PCB represented?

We know its popularity.  We all want to play the games.  That is a given.  Why not include the protection now?

Maybe a Mamedev can explain this.

Why emulate a mainboard for preservation purposes, when the process did not include the protection (if any) as was intended (or included)?

Is that why it cannot be used for commercial purposes?

http://mamelife.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-bruteforce-cps2.html

[J.Max]

Well not really straight cut as you would think it would be.

This is my opinion on the subject,

In a real world scenario a guy running a pizza parlor wants to have a few arcade games like Donkey Kong or some other obsolete game that nobody has seen or possibly played before...  ...just gets a broken cab and fires it up with MAME and some roms.  Happy days.

Which he shouldn't have done and is violating the MAME license.

Unless the guy is a complete moron and puts MAME CAB on the machine, nobody would be the wiser and the guy would crank in some quarters.  If the dude puts it on free play more the better as there would be no licensing or maybe just a permit.  The mamedevs have no calling back code in MAME nor does it flash MAME IS NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE every 5 minutes.

True.  Doesn't make what he did right or legal, just unenforceable.  

Say they guy gets caught with his pants down and the MAME machine is discovered.  What then?

A warning? Jail time?   Nope.  How many local cops you know that would do anything?  

Besides its a civil issue.

Mamedev is a collective, each developer that submitted code (and there is quite a few) would have to testify.  Then comes the media circus when some company who owns the rights to Donkey Kong or whatever wakes up and sees serious money on the TV.  Guess who would be sued for breaking copy protection?  Nintendo is notorious for such behavior.  Who?  The guy in the pizza parlor?  Seriously, who?

The guy in the pizza parlor could be sued by both Nintendo (for using a ROM) and MAMEDev.  He probably wouldn't be sued by MAMEDev, but they have the legal right to do so.

As mentioned by Saint - the Library of Congress would be the only group that would be in the position to include or protect MAME:

The Copyright Office is conducting this rule-making proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

The purpose of this proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make non-infringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of access controls.  

The Notice of Inquiry in this fourth anti-circumvention rule-making requests written comments from all interested parties, including representatives of copyright owners, educational institutions, libraries and archives, scholars, researchers and members of the public, in order to elicit evidence on whether non-infringing uses of certain classes of works are, or are likely to be, adversely affected by this prohibition on the circumvention of measures that control access to copyrighted works.  http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, also kicks in here.  A real mess if the media got wind of a real scoop and you would get some Michael Moore type reporter locating all these long-gone holders of old arcade technologies (remember this is prime suing time for those with losing holdings in the entertainment business, software houses including) asking for their views.  Basically a witch-hunt.

The rest of us who have Mame collections will keep quiet.  Maybe we will see a renaissance for all these games, with Mr. Foley riding shotgun.  

All of this is incorrect, except the witch-hunt part.  You're right that it could turn into a circus, but more likely, it becomes one of those "weird" stories.

I personally love what the Mamedevs have done.  They are a part of our history, and the revenue generated with all these new ports of old games are a testament to this, something which is not lost on the copyright holders.

I'm not that happy with the cracking of games in the 2000-2009+ era, as the console software houses love kicking these ports out.  I have said in the past and I will say it now: Stop bringing out new stuff and fix the old code.

What I am getting at is the stone throwing mentality that some Mamedevs have, considering they are not officially in the Library of Congress (again correct me) negates this fact and have the right to break copy protections.  

I live in a dying holiday resort town.  I'm used to seeing arcades go bust and I also see some questionable arcade machines in my journeys.  Am I responsible to report it?  Is there a Mamedev reward hotline?

That's how I see the whole Mame vs the commercial use world.  Hypocrisy?

But we are talking about those offenders who operate Mame in a commercial setting as less than 1% - (please correct me) over the millions of Mame users out there all playing robby roto - its a logical conclusion.  

Is using MAME worse than using a bootleg board?  Not really.  Two wrongs don't make a right.

Edit:
I read this again and how I see MAME operating this policy of archiving and saving history is to complete work on such game and break the code so roms could not be played.  The machine is archived but the operating code is not available to the general public only to the copyright holders or PD.

Right.  MAMEDev owns the code to the emulator...they have nothing to do with the ROMs.  The emulator is perfectly legal because it's not made to circumvent digital copy protection.

[jcterzin]

the games are centipede and pacman, both original.

[Jack Burton]

I believe a good alternative to using MAME in public would be to use some public domain arcade style PC game and put it on free play.

Grid Wars would be pretty cool I think: http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/grid/wars.htm

I have even thought sometimes of making my own little arcade game and putting it in a cab and donating it to a college or community center.  How cool would that be?

[CheffoJeffo]

the games are centipede and pacman, both original.

So, you have two original, working classic cabinets with very different control sets and want to merge them in to a single cabinet ?

 

[Ginsu Victim]

the games are centipede and pacman, both original.

So, you have two original, working classic cabinets with very different control sets and want to merge them in to a single cabinet ?

 

+1

WTF?!?

[jcterzin]

pacman has just the joystick, and centipede has the trackball and button. I couldnt mame it so that i have just a single joystick and a single button?

[jcterzin]

what about RAINE? its freeware and says the original author abandoned it and released the source code. If I reconfigure RAINE, could anyone see legal issues with that?

[Ginsu Victim]

what about RAINE? its freeware and says the original author abandoned it and released the source code. If I reconfigure RAINE, could anyone see legal issues with that?

Centipede isn't emulated in Raine, first off. Second, it would still be a coin-op machine without a tax stamp (running pirated software, no less).

[CheffoJeffo]

So long as you have no compunction with the legality/morality -- the smart idea is to trade those two classics for a 60-in-1 and some cash. -- you get what you want, pick up some cash and you avoid doing something really offensive.

Please do be mindful that we don't destroy what we're trying to re-create.  Many classic arcade machines are rare and worth a heck of a lot more intact than altered.  Ideal candidates for this type of project are machines that have already been abused by previous owners - artwork destroyed, poorly converted, etc...  If you have a classic cabinet in good shape, you can probably sell it to a collector and get a trashed but usable cabinet in the bargain.

[saint]

The legal issue is the ROMs. You have no legal right to use the ROMs in a commercial setting, and frankly unless you've purchased the ROMs no legal right to use it in a personal setting.

[Malenko]

The legal issue is the ROMs. You have no legal right to use the ROMs in a commercial setting, and frankly unless you've purchased the ROMs no legal right to use it in a personal setting.

well its a two fold issue. Legally speaking I have the ROMs and HDs (and actual dedicated cabs to boot) to both Killer Instinct 1 and Killer Instinct 2 so I can use them in a commercial enviroment with the proper permits and what not. So long as I have the permits and the PCBs are in there its legal. Now if I pull out a PCB and pop a PC running MAME and just running the KI or KI2 game its illegal , (pretend I dumped the ROMs myself or had Hobbyroms.com dump them for me , for argument's sake) the roms have nothing to do with the legality because the MAME license trumps that. Running an Xin1 board is just illegal in so many ways, from the ROMs on it, to the fact it in itself is a violation of the MAME license,etc,etc

RAINE is actually a good point to make. If you have the actual PCBs/ROMs to a game RAINE runs, and you only run that game in the cab AND you have the permits to have the machine in a commercial setting....is it legal? I cant say I ever read the RAINE license, but if the author says no commerical use , then it puts it in the same threshold as MAME.

[SavannahLion]

, (pretend I dumped the ROMs myself or had Hobbyroms.com dump them for me , for argument's sake) the roms have nothing to do with the legality because the MAME license trumps that.

Now if I pull out a PCB and pop a PC running MAME and just running the KI or KI2 game its illegal , (pretend I dumped the ROMs myself or had Hobbyroms.com dump them for me , for argument's sake) the roms have nothing to do with the legality because the MAME license trumps that.

The rights of the ROMs (or more accurately the copyright holder) play a more significant role than you're really implying here.

No, the MAME license does not trump the ROM copyrights. Even if a team of developers get together and create a MAME-run-alike that has absolutely no license, or if MAMEDev suddenly decide to release a commercial version of MAME, it doesn't change the legal status of the ROMs in question in any shape or form. The legal status of ROMS is fairly well established through various court cases over the past twenty plus years. No amount of file sharing, trading, dumping, or pseudo-legal mumbo jumbo bull ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- about keeping ROMs for 24 hours before deleting is going to fly in any court (note, I'm in the U.S.).

(not really directed at Malenko specifically)

What it is is that it's really a legal minefield. In no particular order. You have the MAME license that specifically restricts a commercial setting. Then you have the copyright owners of the specific games in question (let's assume that all of the games in question are currently owned by someone, somewhere) to contend with. Newer games have additional DMCA protection (as annoying as it is, it is what it is). Then you have local city, county or state ordinances governing the cabinets themselves. Tax stickers aren't just randomly stuck on cabs to be scrapped of by collectors you know. They're there for a reason.

Seriously, why is the legal status of anything we do here even debated, ever? It strikes me that too many people confuse the reality of the situation with its legal situation then go around arguing the reality as an example of the law.

(I'm rambling, you can stop reading here)

In the U.S. (and Mexico) marijuana is illegal. Period. As far as the federal government of either country is concerned, it's generally not open to interpretation. It's legal in CA for medicinal mj, but it's still illegal under federal law. How stupid does one have to be not to realize this potentially important note and not to realize the potential consequence of it? I spent two weeks getting hounded by some lawyer because some dumb ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- thought his CA medicinal mj license would be valid in Mexico. Now the stupid ass is rotting in a jail because he failed to recognize the law. The drug situation in Mexico probably isn't all that different than the U.S., but that still doesn't change the fact that if you get caught by federal agents, they'll toss your ass in jail.