> > > The owner is reviewing a couple of months of security video to see if he can > > > catch him in the act. > > > > What exactly, I wonder, could be done about it? > > In this case (unlike a previous one) it wasn't 'stolen' from an active company > employee, so I'm guessing not much, since the owner of the unit isn't the copyright > owner / associated with the copyright holder in the first place and nothing was > actually stolen. > > It would be up to Atari to enforce this if that is even possible (weren't these > things considered tax write-offs? with the current Atari being an entirely different > company anyway?) > > If something was damaged in the process the collector could probably explore that > avenue tho. > > But no, this isn't the first time something like this has happened, and frankly this > case is far less serious. In a previous case I was even asked to volunteer email / > any logged private conversations between me and a third party for part of an > investigation into what happened (although I had nothing to forward since that side > of things had nothing to do with me and I hadn't been in contact with said person for > well over 5 years)
If - and this is a very big if - the owner of the cab actually owned the rights to the game AND the code then yes, he could potentially file charges against the alleged thief.
That said, depending on the country, he might still have the option of a civil lawsuit - if he can prove that copying the game made the value of his cab go down. (And once this shows up on MAME cabs, or asshats start selling "repro" boards on eBay, then that could happen.)