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Roms, Mame, what's legal, what isn't?
ArcadEd:
Yeah, my plan always was to buy a copy per customer.
So even though the Taito Legends collection uses rom files, and from what I can tell the same rom files used in mame, it still wouldn't be legal to provide that CD, and use the roms in mame?
Man, there is so much grey area in all of this. Maybe I'll just stick with doing the hardware and leaving the rest alone :).
SirPoonga:
--- Quote from: ArcadEd on February 14, 2006, 12:26:09 pm ---Man, there is so much grey area in all of this. Maybe I'll just stick with doing the hardware and leaving the rest alone :).
--- End quote ---
Right, you can always point your customers to the collections.
Howard_Casto:
Well you can't strip the taito collections roms away from the main program, but what you probably could do is have a cd-based mame installer custom configured for you cab that includes a rom path in the mame.ini that points to the place where you install the taito collection by default and instruct your customers to install the taito collection to the default path.
This way mame isn't bundled with roms (to keep from violating it's agreement), taito's collection is fully installed (thus keeping from violating it's agreement), and mame can use those roms.
It is a legal greyness, but since the roms aren't encrypted, I don't see how using another player to access them could be considered illegal. I use the term player since the best example I can give is a cd. It can be played on any media program, you don't have to use sony's software to play sony cds, or what have you. Now if the cd was encrypted, it might be illegal, but since most aren't, it isn't.
Make any sense?
Crazy Cooter:
http://mamedev.org/license.html
"Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity."
In order to distribute is with your product at all, you need to contact the MAMEdevs. They do allow it, as shown by their list of companies that have been "authorized" to do so:
http://mamedev.org/licensees.html
"Anybody who includes MAME with a commercial product and is not on this list is in violation of the license. MAME may not be sold or used commercially without an exception to the license which can be granted by contacting the MAME team and following this licensing procedure."
Shoot them an email. Expect up to ~2 days to hear back. They'll tell you what they want you to do. IIRC, all you'll need to do is compile your own version of MAME that would work with only the ROMs purchased from STARROMS.
elvis:
--- Quote from: ArcadEd on February 13, 2006, 07:30:26 pm ---sweet, thanks for the links.
What the Mame thing, should I contact them? Is that needed since I am not charging for it? I'd be more than happy too if there is even a question.
--- End quote ---
If you include MAME with a cabinet, you **MUST**
1) Get permission from MAMEDev and
2) Recompile MAME to ONLY work with the games that you supply (ie: if you supply just the two legally free games and the 26 odd StarRoms games, you must edit the drivers.c file and comment out the non-legal games so that they cannot be added later).
These points are made very clearly on the MAMEDev website as well as in the agreement you must sign to be allowed use of the MAME software and trademark (I know, because I've signed one).
And one further suggestion: if you want legal advice about MAME, contact the people who make it. BYOAC is not affiliated with MAME, and none of the legal advice you seek here should be seen as even close to being accurate (including mine above, as it was over a year ago that I was in that situation).
CONTACT MAMEDEV! Only they can give you the proper legal advice! :police:
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