Roms, Mame, what's legal, what isn't?

[ArcadEd]

Howdy gang, I really need your help on this.  I'm a builder, not a legal brainiac .

In the past, I have always built my arcade boxes and sold them without any software what so ever on them, just to be safe.

However, I'm having a lot of customers ask me about including games.  I have no problem buying Windoes XP OEM when I purchase all the computer hardware and installing it.  Where I start to go black is MAME, and some roms.

Now, I would never charge for MAME.  If I put it on the system, it would not increase the price of the box in the slightest.  Is it ok to do it this way?  Should I still contact MameDev about including it?  I'd even be willing to send some Money MameDevs way per box sold, because I think sales would go up if mame was inlcuded, and that is only fair.

What about roms, have StarRoms been deemed legal if I purchase them on behalf of my customer?  What about buying PC arcade collections like Atari Collections and Midway arcade classics.  Is it legal to include that software, but use the roms out of a frontend with Mame instead?

Should I just drop it, and go back to "System is ready for OS installation" and leave it alone.

Thanks for the time guys.

[SirPoonga]

What about roms, have StarRoms been deemed legal if I purchase them on behalf of my customer? 

Legal, always has been.  DreamArcades does this.  Or you could just point the customer to starroms...

What about buying PC arcade collections like Atari Collections and Midway arcade classics.  Is it legal to include that software, but use the roms out of a frontend with Mame instead?

No, not the same thing.  You can sell them the collections though.  But what they use and what mame uses isn't the same.

[ArcadEd]

Thanks SP,

Question about the collections, as I have never seen them on the PC, only consoles.  Are they arcade cabinet friendly?

Meaning, could they be installed and configured to work?  If so, maybe I'll just write a little front end that would call each of those applications after installation.


As for starRoms, thanks.  I was reading through a bazillion threads and it seems like their collection has never changed over the past few months, so I was kind of wondering.  Thanks.

[SirPoonga]

http://www.atari.com/us/games/atari_80_classic/pc
http://www.atari.com/us/games/atari_arcade/pc
http://www.atari.com/us/games/atari_anniversary/pc
http://www.midwaygames.com/rxpage/Game_MidwayArcadeTreasures.html
http://www.midwaygames.com/rxpage/Game_MidwayArcadeTreasuresDeluxeEdition.html

Not sure how frienly they are.  I have one of the older Atari collections and it needs a mouse to navigate.

[ArcadEd]

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.

[ArcadEd]

Well some good new, the second one on your list can be reconfigured.  But all those games are available via StarRoms LOL.

I'll head the CC tonight and pick up one of the midway classics.

One nice thing about the Atari collection is each game has it's own executable.  So a frontend could probably be setup to run them pretty easily.

[Popcorrin]

I don't think it is legal to include the pc collections either.  I could be mistaken but I believe they are non-transferrable.  You would have to check the licensing agreement.

[ArcadEd]

Ok, but if you don't open and install the software, you never accepted the EULA, therefore could include it, right?

Or do you have to have some kind of special license to sell software? 

[ArcadEd]

I got Taito Legends from Best Buy, here is a snapshot of the install directory.

[cdbrown]

I don't think it is legal to include the pc collections either.  I could be mistaken but I believe they are non-transferrable.  You would have to check the licensing agreement.

I'm sure if you provide the originals with the pc when you sell it then that's fine.  Buying 1 copy of the collections and then loading them onto various machines for sale would be breaking various rules.

[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]

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 .

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]

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.

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! 

[Tiger-Heli]

My SUGGESTION (not legal advice) is to inform the customer of the legalities of various roms and provide links to MAME and maybe other sites.

[subcriminal]

I wondered when someone would mention distributing MAME with a cabinet. I've had nothing to do with the development of MAME but it really pisses me off when I see junk cab's being eBay'd with the advertisment that 'MAME is installed but no winth ROMS so I'm not breaking the law' (Has the capability of playing 5000+ games etc) Lets see how many buyers you get based on craftmanship!
Not dissing the quality of your cab's, I've probably never seen one, just based on general fleabay stuff but I think if someone wants to buy a MAME cab they should at least learn about the history of MAME rather than handing over a wad of notes and impressing people with their new toy.

[elvis]

'MAME is installed but no winth ROMS so I'm not breaking the law'

It *IS* breaking the law.  MAMEDev own the MAME copyright.  The software is open source, but not free.  You are not allowed to bundle either the binary nor the source together with a physical computer without permission from MAMEDev.

It ain't rocket science.  If you want to use MAME, you need to ask permission from the people who own it.

[SirPoonga]

starroms.com solved part of the problem today.

[ArcadEd]

Thanks for all of the replies guys, I sort of forgot about this thread for a bit .

Yeah, I will contact MAMEdev, but at this point I might not even bother putting MAME on the machines.  I'll link it, and all that stuff.

But with StarRoms gone, there is no reason for me to spend the time and effort to install and configure mame.  I'll just provide instructions.

SubCriminal-  I understand where you are coming from, and I totally agree.  Thankfully I have more morals than people like that. I respect all that MameDev has done.  And you can always click the link in my signature to see how the craftsmanship stacks up.  I take lots of pride in my arcade boxes, and no full well they would have never happened without Mame.