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Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
#354621 - 05/24/16 11:48 PM
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Hello, forum!
I am an absolute noob to everything arcade and MAME, but I'm looking for clarification on the finer points of MAME's license.
Let me elaborate. Recently, I had idea of making a custom table-top MAME cabinet to use (commercially) at a local business to help pay for college and provide a use for my languishing Raspberry Pi. Now I know that this forum's rule 8 says, "No discussing MAME builds that violate the license!" but I'm not sure yet how the license works.
Now, I'm not asking about the GPL/BSD licenses that MAME uses. I'm asking about how to use ROMs in a "commercial" setting, and if there's even a way to do it.
Boatloads of research later, and I haven't found a single post online that explicitly says how the new MAME license applies to commercial use. MAME's website has provided some confusing/contradictory answers (for example, on MAME's legal page it says it's okay to put a machine in a public location "as long as you have rights to the ROMs", this was considered "commercial" prior to the license change. However, on their ROM FAQ that it's "against the MAME license to use MAME for commercial purposes". This either suggests that MAME has not completely updated their FAQs or there's something more complicated going on).
I'm just trying to find a definite answer to the following questions:
1. If you have an arcade PCB, is it okay to copy the ROM from the PCB for MAME's use? You need permission from the original company to do this, right?
2. Can MAME be used in this way commercially (legally, that is)? Not every file is licensed under BSD; are any of these files integral to MAME's operation?
3. On said legal page, what is the exact meaning of "rights to ROMs" in regards to placing a machine in a public location? Before the license was changed, this constituted commercial use, so how does this stack up with the second-to last question in the FAQ (about using MAME to replace a PCB) and other FAQ answers where it's implied or outright stated that commercial use is a no-no?
4. If this is not too much to ask and commercial use is indeed feasible in some manner, how does one go about obtaining these "rights to ROMs"?
(I apologize in advance if I'm missing something obvious. I just want to get a definite answer.)
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354622 - 05/25/16 12:14 AM
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> This
> either suggests that MAME has not completely updated their FAQs or there's something
> more complicated going on).
In that case, the MAME team simply haven't updated the FAQs completely yet. I'd like to know exactly what URL you saw that info at so that I can raise it with the guy in charge of our documentation.
> 1. If you have an arcade PCB, is it okay to copy the ROM from the PCB for MAME's use?
To my understanding, yes.
> You need permission from the original company to do this, right?
To my understanding, no.
> 2. Can MAME be used in this way commercially (legally, that is)? Not every file is
> licensed under BSD; are any of these files integral to MAME's operation?
3-clause BSD is a more permissive license than GPLv2+. MAME's previous issue with commercial use arose from the fact that it previously had a BSD license that was custom-modified to have a "no-commercial-use" clause. In principle, there's nothing against either the 3-clause BSD or GPLv2+ licenses that prohibits commercial use, other than the requirement by GPLv2+ that any code using it must also be open-source (if I understand it correctly).
> 3. On said legal page, what is the exact meaning of "rights to ROMs" in regards to
> placing a machine in a public location? Before the license was changed, this
> constituted commercial use, so how does this stack up with the second-to last
> question in the FAQ (about using MAME to replace a PCB) and other FAQ answers where
> it's implied or outright stated that commercial use is a no-no?
"Rights to ROMs" as in "you have received explicit permission from the original game manufacturers to operate the ROM set(s), on location, commercially. You have to understand that most of the legalese there is to protect our, the MAME team's, collective asses against any companies that want to sue us over having a project that is (officially) simply a hardware documentation project, with games being playable as a "nice side effect", to use the classic MAME team quote. None of us are attorneys, none of us have even the remotest capability of giving you legal advice. We're all programmers and geeks, not attorneys, so we are in no way able to give you legal advice. We can advise you as to our current understanding of how and why the MAME license is the way it is, but that's really all we can do.
> 4. If this is not too much to ask and commercial use is indeed feasible in some
> manner, how does one go about obtaining these "rights to ROMs"?
Seriously, go talk to an attorney, not us.
> (I apologize in advance if I'm missing something obvious. I just want to get a
> definite answer.)
Then go talk to an attorney. Your questions are way more centered around how you can somehow use MAME to turn a profit in whatever way that you'd prefer not to detail (which throws up red flags), so please go and detail those ways to an attorney who can advise you in the best course of action, because we sure can't.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#354623 - 05/25/16 12:53 AM
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Quote:
In that case, the MAME team simply haven't updated the FAQs completely yet. I'd like to know exactly what URL you saw that info at so that I can raise it with the guy in charge of our documentation.
Sure. For http://mamedev.org/legal.html:
Quote:
Q. Can I use a PC running MAME to replace a real arcade PCB?
A. In order to do this you would have to use a copy of the original ROMs, which would require obtaining permission from the original manufacturer. Once you had permission from them, if it was used for non-commercial purposes, then you would not technically be violating the MAME license. However we still do not explicitly give permission to use MAME in this way because of the possibility of the game being sold sometime later, which would constitute commercial use of MAME. If you sell your game later you must sell it without MAME included.
And for http://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/FAQ:ROMs:
Quote:
Isn't copying ROMs a legal gray area?
No, it's not. You are not permitted to make copies of software without the copyright owner's permission. This is a black & white issue.
Quote:
If I buy a cabinet with legitimate ROMs, can I set it up in a public place to make money?
Absolutely not. Not only is it against the MAME license to use MAME for commercial purposes, but ROMs are typically only licensed for personal, non-commercial purposes.
I hope that's helpful.
Quote:
None of us are attorneys, none of us have even the remotest capability of giving you legal advice. We're all programmers and geeks, not attorneys, so we are in no way able to give you legal advice. We can advise you as to our current understanding of how and why the MAME license is the way it is, but that's really all we can do.
Understood, and I appreciate that you take the time to try to answer these questions anyway. =)
Quote:
Then go talk to an attorney. Your questions are way more centered around how you can somehow use MAME to turn a profit in whatever way that you'd prefer not to detail (which throws up red flags), so please go and detail those ways to an attorney who can advise you in the best course of action, because we sure can't.
Well, red flags are not what I intended. Detail time it is then.
Basically I was trying to find out if I could put one custom system together using a Raspberry Pi/PC, a CRT TV, and a few PCBs (kind of like this Instructable, but with a coin acceptor) as a summer project to make a few bucks while I'm at school, without dealing with boatloads of legal red tape and breaking a bajillion copyright laws.
Given that you advised an attorney (which isn't feasible for me since I'm not trying to make that kind of a profit), I will either get the manufacturers' permission and proceed (not likely that they'll respond/agree, though) or just forget about it.
Regardless, I thank you for your time and prompt reply.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354625 - 05/25/16 01:11 AM
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> Basically I was trying to find out if I could put one custom system together using a
> Raspberry Pi/PC, a CRT TV, and a few PCBs (kind of like this Instructable, but with a
> coin acceptor) as a summer project to make a few bucks while I'm at school, without
> dealing with boatloads of legal red tape and breaking a bajillion copyright laws.
>
> Given that you advised an attorney (which isn't feasible for me since I'm not trying
> to make that kind of a profit), I will either get the manufacturers' permission and
> proceed (not likely that they'll respond/agree, though) or just forget about it.
If you're that technically inclined and would actually be buying the PCBs, why not use it as an educational opportunity to build a proper JAMMA cabinet and a set of custom-to-JAMMA edge connector converters for the games you want to run. Depending on how old (or new) the games are, you may not even need that last step.
In that case, it entirely obviates the need to contact the original manufacturers, who have a next to zero-percent chance of responding or saying okay in the first place. Be aware, though, that the more popular classic games are getting more and more rare by the year, so the actual cost of obtaining the original PCBs for you to then dump the ROMs for use with MAME would be cost-prohibitive if this is something you were actually hoping to make any money on. Even if you did end up going the MAME route, a Raspberry Pi is not going to provide anywhere near an acceptable level of performance on modern versions of MAME, so then you're out of pocket to build the computer inside as well. You're looking at a lot out of pocket just to make your idea work, even if we ignore the potential legal issues.
Anyway, person-to-person, my advice is to go the whole nine and make your own cabinet that runs actual PCBs, or make your own MAME cabinet that you operate for the fun of it, or shelve the idea entirely for now. The level of interest that the majority of people at universities actually have (rather than profess to have) in classic arcade games other than a handful of mega-classics is rather low, after all. If it were high, the arcade business would still be booming, but from everything that I've seen, arcades are in fact shuttering left and right.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354626 - 05/25/16 01:18 AM
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I'm jumping in here, which will no doubt annoy many. 
I think you're being inconsistent with your use of acronyms.
You wrote: "using a Raspberry Pi/PC, a CRT TV, and a few PCBs".
However, from what I can make out, what you really mean is: "using Mame and ROMS I've downloaded for free."
If you own the original boards, you don't need Mame at all.
Whatever I say here is worth little to nothing. But basically the way I understand it is thus...... Yes, you can use Mame in a commercial box. No, you can't just download a ROM, load it up into Mame, and charge people for playing it. This is because you don't own the game code - the ROM. The two legal ways of doing this are - buy the original PCB, which will likely cost a good deal of money, especially if you want several games; b) You get in touch with the owner of the game code, and get written permission from them (so, for example, you'd have to contact Atari if you wanted to have Tempest on there).
The former is possible, but since this is a money-making scheme, I'm not sure it'd turn a profit due to the initial outlay of hundreds of dollars for the boards. The latter option - going to Atari, for example - I'd say would be swiftly refused.
for whatever it's worth............
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: Vaughan]
#354628 - 05/25/16 01:31 AM
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> I'm jumping in here, which will no doubt annoy many.
Nah, we've had many a disagreement before, but in this case you're 100% right on the money.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: Vaughan]
#354630 - 05/25/16 01:52 AM
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Quote:
However, from what I can make out, what you really mean is: "using Mame and ROMS I've downloaded for free."
Nah. If that was the case I wouldn't be asking for clarification; I would have just went ahead and done it. What I really mean is: "Using things I don't know a ton about to do something cool."
My logic for using MAME was based on trying to avoid bit rot, board failures, etc. But since I've never fooled with an arcade machine before, I have no idea what maintenance is like.
I think I'll just take MooglyGuy's advice and go for a less legally sticky solution.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#354631 - 05/25/16 01:52 AM
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Advice taken. I guess the real problem was that I didn't know what I was doing.
I can't resist learning new things, so I might just go the JAMMA way. (If I have time at all, that is.)
Again, thank you for your time (and for MAME). =)
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354638 - 05/25/16 08:45 AM
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keep in mind that the revised license only applies to MAME 0.172 and above.
most of the Pi builds are much older and are still under the old 'no commercial use' clause.
The new builds do not perform well on a Pi. Only a tiny number of games give even close to acceptable performance.
I've noticed a number of people interpreting the license change as meaning they can sell / kickstart / whatever Pi based MAME devices still running the anicent retropi/piplay/mame4all builds. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. The license change is not retroactive, nor does it make new releases of old versions available for commercial use, those all still exist under the old licence only.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354678 - 05/25/16 10:06 PM
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Maintenance is maybe half of it. Burglary and vandalism is the other. Even if it were in an observed rec room or something, people are going to try to do weird shit. Especially with the attention capacity of kids these days, it could get knocked over right in front of everyone....
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: tcpf429]
#354687 - 05/25/16 11:05 PM
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> Let me elaborate. Recently, I had idea of making a custom table-top MAME cabinet to
> use (commercially) at a local business to help pay for college and provide a use for
> my languishing Raspberry Pi. Now I know that this forum's rule 8 says, "No discussing
> MAME builds that violate the license!" but I'm not sure yet how the license works.
The version on the Raspberry Pi is from 16 years ago and is not covered by the current MAME license. It is under the old MAME license, which explicitly prohibits commercial use, so the rest of this is a moot point.
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: Traso]
#354688 - 05/25/16 11:12 PM
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> Maintenance is maybe half of it. Burglary and vandalism is the other. Even if it were
> in an observed rec room or something, people are going to try to do weird shit.
> Especially with the attention capacity of kids these days, it could get knocked over
> right in front of everyone....
Wasn't that the reason the original arcade machines were built like tanks? They all seemed to have weighed in at 250lbs or so. I know my Asteroid machine was a monster....
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Stiletto |
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They're always after me Lucky ROMS!
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Re: Confused about the new MAME license and FAQs...
[Re: R. Belmont]
#354689 - 05/25/16 11:21 PM
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> > Let me elaborate. Recently, I had idea of making a custom table-top MAME cabinet to
> > use (commercially) at a local business to help pay for college and provide a use
> for
> > my languishing Raspberry Pi. Now I know that this forum's rule 8 says, "No
> discussing
> > MAME builds that violate the license!" but I'm not sure yet how the license works.
>
> The version on the Raspberry Pi is from 16 years ago and is not covered by the
> current MAME license. It is under the old MAME license, which explicitly prohibits
> commercial use, so the rest of this is a moot point.
Well, there's this version. It'll probably be updated soon.
http://choccyhobnob.com/mame-0-172-for-raspberry-pi-2/
- Stiletto
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