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Is Foley really the devil..?? (Previously: RetroBlast is a traitor..??)

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Timstuff:
I think that if the copyright owners of ROMs ever do take notice to MAME then it will be similar to what happened with the MP3 sharing craze. Napster was really popular and many people used it, but when legal problems showed up they were eventually able to come back as a legitimate pay-per-download service and has reached an even broader audience. I do know that the days of free roms are probably numbered, but that doesn't mean all bad things. One day we may well have a service similar to I-Tunes or the current Napster where ROMs from all our popular arcade games are avalible to download for about a buck to two bucks a piece, like how Star Roms is going. Game publishers are noticing that it's not just commercially avalible PC ports, but the raw ROMs themselves that are generating alot of demand.

Foley may be a big fat jerk, but in terms of legality he's 100% legit. Most people who run MAME are roughly 25% legit, but more often than not less than 1%. It's only logical that as MAME becomes more popular eventually we're gonna have to start paying money for it. That's just plain how free stuff always works. It can be free in the short run, but eventually someone's gonna have to pay for it, and usually it's the people who use it.

CheffoJeffo:

--- Quote from: DarkKobold on June 12, 2005, 09:22:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: KevSteele on June 12, 2005, 05:12:53 pm ---I also stand by what I said in my editorial: MAME has gotten too popular to survive as it is now, and we are going to have to adapt or be sued out of existence. It doesn't even matter who is right and who is wrong: no one involved in the project can survive a corporate lawsuit of any kind (none of the companies or MAMEdevs are rolling in cash, I'm certain).

--- End quote ---
This just isn't true. Look at Bleem! for example. Sony sued them, and lost.  Precedent means a lot in the justice system.

--- End quote ---

Can the next person who chooses to cites Bleem! vs Sony PLEASE remember that Sony did NOT lose  ... they did not win the majority of the legal cases, but Bleem! is gone.

Sony got exactly what they wanted -- they won and it didn't cost them all that much.

Can we stop pointing to these cases (there were, after all, more than one) as a reason not to worry about MAME, because it is the perfect example of what can happen.

Cheers.

Tommy Boy:
As long as we're at it, can we also stop using analogies to the music industry while discussing this issue.  The retrogaming roms market is not even 1/1000th the size of the music business.  The economics are entirely different.

It means that the business and legal models that worked for music do not necessarily hold for this market. There isn't enough market potential to pay for the litigation and jockeying that we've seen in music distribution over the past 5 years or so.

Tommy Boy:
One more point:  Kevin had a news item on his site last week saying that Nintendo was GIVING AWAY its retro titles with its console emulation package for the new Revolution box.

What does that tell you about Nintendo's estimation of the retrogaming opportunity?  It's a freebie toss-in.  Nintendo will likely not be pursuing vigorous litigation for infringement of its retro titles.

Guys, if the heavyweights were interested in this market, we would already have an iRoms-like service (or more than one!).  And the piracy would have been cleaned up by them years ago.

KevSteele:

--- Quote from: CheffoJeffo on June 12, 2005, 09:47:07 pm ---
Can the next person who chooses to cites Bleem! vs Sony PLEASE remember that Sony did NOT lose
--- End quote ---

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