Free Public Mame Cab

[Nbk_Orchid]

I know that most people on this board disapprove of anyone charging or making a profit from others playing their mame cab, as do I.  I get pretty frustrated myself seeing the links people have posted showing mame cabs that accept peoples quarters and take advantage of all the work put in by the mame development team.  But the last few days I have been wondering how the community would feel about a mame cab in the public that was free to play. 

Lets say hypothetically  I have a few friends that own a really nice, low key bar.  The kind of place that the average person like to go after work to have a few beers with friends.  In this hypothetical situation my friends may have been over having a few beers and playing the cabinet at my house when we started talking about how fun it might be to put a mame cabinet in at the bar.  The more I thought about it the more excited I got about it.  I mean what could be more fun than drinks, people, and free classic gaming.  It has been years since my town has had an arcade so i dont think it could possibly be stealing from other businesses or anything.

So what is the view on this sort of thing from the community?  Should mame be reserved for home and private use only or is it fair game for being put in the public.  Perhaps exposing more people to mame would actually benefit the community.  I'm a little compromised at the moment on the ethics of all of this so I would love to hear what other people think.              

[EwJ]

As you posted, charging or making a profit from a Mame cab is plainly wrong and has you frustrated.
From the remainder of your post, it appears that you are unfamiliar with the Mame license with regard to commercial or public settings:

This is clearly covered here .

To quote from the FAQ:

 Q. 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.

Q. Can my non-profit use MAME or an arcade cabinet running MAME to help raise money?
A. No, sorry. Even for the most worthwhile cause, this still is a commercial use of MAME and is prohibited by the license.

Q. How do I obtain a license to the MAME source code?
A. You can't. See the Copyright section above.


It looks like hypothetical Mame cabinets must remain in hypothetical basements.
If your hypothetical bar owning friends had a hypothetical office or a hypothetical area not open to the public in said hypothetical bar, then it's less clear.  Perhaps someone with some hypothetical legal training will comment.

Anyhow, happy gaming! (just not Mame gaming in hypothetical    public places)   

[Ginsu Victim]

Private use only.

[nitz]

Mame in a public place is a no-no as mentioned...but I've often wondered if you could set up something like this using other emulators. I think most of the popular arcade games run in emulators other than mame. So if they have nothing in their license that prohibits commercial use, that should be ok, right?

[Howard_Casto]

Well not really.  Without a clear public liscense owners of emulators can take legal action without warning.  Just because someone doesn't say you can't do something doesn't mean that you've been given permission to do it.  It's the equivelent legal defense of saying "nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, so I thought it was ok."

That being said, I've always thought mame's liscense is far too restrictive.  I understand WHY it is so, particularly with the whole Mr. Foley incident, but I think they could lighten up a bit on the restrictions. 

I also think there is an opportunity to be made there.  Seeing as how so many game developers in the arcade business are aware of mame and so few have ever shown hostility towards the project, I get the feeling that they sort of unofficially support it.  I also get the feeling that when these "classics" releases on the pc and console come out that developers of the the "official" emulators made for the compilations look at mame's source to figure out how to write thier emulators.  (Afterall many of these companies are really old, keep bad records and don't retain the source code to their old titles.)  Seems like it would make more sense to me to remove the curtain of grayness and cooperate with each other. 

[Haze]

Well not really.  Without a clear public liscense owners of emulators can take legal action without warning.  Just because someone doesn't say you can't do something doesn't mean that you've been given permission to do it.  It's the equivelent legal defense of saying "nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, so I thought it was ok."

That being said, I've always thought mame's liscense is far too restrictive.  I understand WHY it is so, particularly with the whole Mr. Foley incident, but I think they could lighten up a bit on the restrictions. 

I also think there is an opportunity to be made there.  Seeing as how so many game developers in the arcade business are aware of mame and so few have ever shown hostility towards the project, I get the feeling that they sort of unofficially support it.  I also get the feeling that when these "classics" releases on the pc and console come out that developers of the the "official" emulators made for the compilations look at mame's source to figure out how to write thier emulators.  (Afterall many of these companies are really old, keep bad records and don't retain the source code to their old titles.)  Seems like it would make more sense to me to remove the curtain of grayness and cooperate with each other. 

I think very few game developers have shown hostility towards it *because* the license is so restrictive.  It's very much a 'we won't step on your toes' license.  Of course many use the MAME source as reference, that's explicitly allowed, and if the original rights owners ask then there is a fair chance they'll be granted permission to use at least parts of the code.

[nitz]

Well not really.  Without a clear public liscense owners of emulators can take legal action without warning.  Just because someone doesn't say you can't do something doesn't mean that you've been given permission to do it.  It's the equivelent legal defense of saying "nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, so I thought it was ok."

While it's true that nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, there is definitely a law against me going into someone's house and stealing some item(s). So I don't think that analogy really holds up.

You may be right about owners of emulators being able to take legal action without warning - I have no idea, I'm not a lawyer. To me that seems wrong though. What's to stop an emulator author from taking me to court then over anything I do with an emulator that they don't like? Where does the line get drawn?

Having said all that, I do think a person should ask the emulator author if it's ok to do something like this just as a courtesy whether they legally have to or not.

[Howard_Casto]

Well not really.  Without a clear public liscense owners of emulators can take legal action without warning.  Just because someone doesn't say you can't do something doesn't mean that you've been given permission to do it.  It's the equivelent legal defense of saying "nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, so I thought it was ok."

While it's true that nobody told me I couldn't walk into the house and take their tv, there is definitely a law against me going into someone's house and stealing some item(s). So I don't think that analogy really holds up.

You may be right about owners of emulators being able to take legal action without warning - I have no idea, I'm not a lawyer. To me that seems wrong though. What's to stop an emulator author from taking me to court then over anything I do with an emulator that they don't like? Where does the line get drawn?

Having said all that, I do think a person should ask the emulator author if it's ok to do something like this just as a courtesy whether they legally have to or not.

Morally wrong and legally wrong are two different things.  I never mentioned if I thought such a thing was wrong or not, I'm just telling you that it's considered illegal.  My analogy holds up perfectly btw.  Stealing is stealing was my point, you don't have to specify everything you aren't allowed to steal because stealing is illegal.  You are confused because you think that one has to be aware of a law for it to matter.  Not the case... the term "ignorance of the law is no excuse" comes to mind.

I am by no means a lawyer or anything but I can give you the gist of it.  Basically anything I create in terms of intellectual property (ideas, art ect) is mine for the entirety of my lifetime.  Now I can sell or give away those rights, but that must be done with a legally binding contract or statement.  If not and I give you copy of the work, it basically automatically falls into a standard "fee use" contract.  Basically it means you get to keep that copy for personal, non-profit use. 

Ok here's where it gets tricky so follow me a bit.  Because there isn't an official eula, the user can basically do what they want with it though so long as nobody contests them.  By this I mean it isn't considered federal or state copyright enfringment, so only the author can go after you, not the goverment.  Here's the strange catch though.  The author can sue you at any time, so long as the property has never had a liscense attached to it.  So yes, to answer your question, the author can sue you at any time for any reason, so long as they've never attached a liscense agreemetn to it.  If they have then they must claim copyright/trademark and constantly renew it.  So by NOT having a liscense, they've essentially protected their property for their entire life.  It would actually be more trouble legally for them to attach one.

Amazing how bass-ackward the american legal system is isn't it?   

[nitz]

Morally wrong and legally wrong are two different things.  I never mentioned if I thought such a thing was wrong or not, I'm just telling you that it's considered illegal.  My analogy holds up perfectly btw.  Stealing is stealing was my point, you don't have to specify everything you aren't allowed to steal because stealing is illegal.  You are confused because you think that one has to be aware of a law for it to matter.  Not the case... the term "ignorance of the law is no excuse" comes to mind.

No, I'm not confused about that. I don't think one has to be aware of the law for it to matter. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for obvious reasons. I just misunderstood what you were trying to say with your analogy. If you were trying to make the point that someone not knowing something is illegal is no excuse, then the analogy is fine. I thought you were trying to say something like "People not telling you in the license to not use it commercially=The law not telling us specifically not to go take someone's tv". So I was just pointing out that these aren't really the same thing, as the latter is definitely against the law, whereas the former is not as clear cut. I think we're actually on the same page here.

Ok here's where it gets tricky so follow me a bit.  Because there isn't an official eula, the user can basically do what they want with it though so long as nobody contests them.  By this I mean it isn't considered federal or state copyright enfringment, so only the author can go after you, not the goverment.  Here's the strange catch though.  The author can sue you at any time, so long as the property has never had a liscense attached to it.  So yes, to answer your question, the author can sue you at any time for any reason, so long as they've never attached a liscense agreemetn to it.  If they have then they must claim copyright/trademark and constantly renew it.  So by NOT having a liscense, they've essentially protected their property for their entire life.  It would actually be more trouble legally for them to attach one.

Amazing how bass-ackward the american legal system is isn't it?   

I am aware of the fact that you can basically do whatever you want with someone's IP as long as they don't take any action against you. I was not aware of the fact however that they can sue you at any time for any reason. That seems absolutely bonkers to me. I guess that they would still have to have some kind of rational reason for suing you to be successful, but just getting sued would suck because of what it would end up costing you to fight it - only the lawyers win.

Bass-ackward indeed!

[Nbk_Orchid]

Thanks for the replies guys.  I guess now I know that any public use of mame is against the license even if it is not for profit.  I'm sure 99.99% of mame users are already in direct violation of the license anyway, as it is not legal to download or play any rom that you do not already own  .  I'm sure having a cabinet in a public place would put someone at a much greater risk for legal retribution than someone playing mame in the privacy of their own home though.  I guess what I was really wondering was if this sort of thing is frowned upon by the community.  Despite what the license says do you feel that a mame cab free for people to play at your business would be a negative to the hobby?  How would you feel if you walked into your local watering hole/pizza restaurant/laundry mat and there was a mame cabinet there for people to play for free while they were staying?  Sorry if I'm thinking about this too much, I get pretty bored at work and have a lot of time ponder these types of things             

[abispac]

I'm sure 99.99% of mame users are already in direct violation of the license anyway, as it is not legal to download or play any rom that you do not already own

this is so true, just dont ask and follow your harth......

[garwil]

One of my local pubs used to run a free N64 tournament on a Thursday night. I'm not sure on the legalities but considering they were owned by a large chain I'm sure they wouldn't do anything TOO dodgy. Perhaps you could put one of those "Arcade Classics" compilations on a cab. It's probably still not legal (even if you're not charging) but I'm guessing if it's a small enough venue nobody will even notice...

[Howard_Casto]

I guess that they would still have to have some kind of rational reason for suing you to be successful, but just getting sued would suck because of what it would end up costing you to fight it - only the lawyers win.

See now you are getting it.  Some people don't realize that you don't get a trial just because you have a greviance with someone, you go to a hearing first.  In terms of copyright cases if there's a eula typically they read it and throw out the case or decide to proceed based on whats inside.  If there isn't a eula, all the author has to do is prove they are the author and the case pretty much has to go to court. 

Then there's a big lengthy trial to determine if the author needs to be compensated and if the property has fallen into the public domain or not.  It could really go either way, but as you pointed out the legal expense is what kills it regardless. 

Regarding this and some of the other followups, keep in mind taht 9 times out of 10 you are breaking copyright regardless of what the product is if you use it in a public place.  This has less to do with people doing something bad, and more to do with the urgent need for copyright reform.  That being said emulator authors are real nice and they give us cool programs to play with for free.  Try not to piss them off. 

[SlayerAlex]

Definitely not allowed. Some people might come to the bar just to play some games. Would you give a cut of the profits to the mame devs for getting more buisness?

hah naa, not legal. But i suppose you can risk it, i imagine the odds of facing legal action being minimal.

[jimmy2x2x]

Don't you think there is more risk of the ROM's copyright owners enforcing legal action?

[ragnar]

Don't you think there is more risk of the ROM's copyright owners enforcing legal action?

That was my thought.