MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: driver by Aaron Giles?

> > > I mean you could have written mostly the same slippery-slope tirade the first day a
> > > copyright holder sent in a C&D.
> >
> > Which no copyright holder has ever done.
>
> Oh really? Ever try to distribute (free or not) any Gottlieb ROMs (especially the
> pinball ROMs)? Ever try to distribute (again, even free), PDF copies of any Gottlieb
> manuals?

You're conflating developing/distributing an emulator (original work) and ROM definitions (facts) with distributing ROMs and manuals (copyrighted material). They aren't the same thing at all.

> And why have several ROM web sites gone away in the past couple of years? It wasn't
> because the owner of the web site retired or just lost interest. It was because Namco
> or Nintendo (I don't remember which or it might have been another company all
> together), started threatening them.

Namco went after the people importing and distributing X-in-1 bootleg arcade boards in the US. This is commercial-scale copyright infringement. It qualifies as felony copyright infringement, so it's a criminal (rather than civil) matter.

Nintendo specifically went after a site that was offering a paid in-browser emulation experience including ROMs, and using Nintendo characters (including Mario and Donkey Kong) in their marketing material. This is copyright infringement and trademark violation. The trademark violation alone would've been easy to prosecute - using unlicensed trademarked characters to sell something is clear-cut. Nintendo has successfully gone after other individuals/groups for using characters from the Pokémon and Mario franchises to promote products/services.

The other site Nintendo went after recently was a site distributing ripped Pokémon assets in a form designed to be used with a specific role-play game engine. Nintendo still develops Pokémon RPGs, so having fan-made RPGs using their characters and assets dilutes the brand. Note that they didn't go after community sites like Bulbapedia or Bulbagarden which also host ripped assets. Bulbapedia in particular has ripped sprites of every Pokémon from every RPG. Nintendo didn't go after these sites because they're not directly diluting the brand.

> I know for a fact that the Gottlieb copyright holder sends C&D letters. And just from
> what I've read, the ROM web site owners got something even stronger than a C&D
> letter. Enough so that even ROM sites that hadn't received such a letter yet closed
> up shop.

What's "something even stronger than a C&D" supposed to mean? There's a polite requests, a DMCA takedown (demanding that a site remove material), a C&D (more general, usually an explicit or implied threat of legal action), there's a civil filing ("suing"), and there's criminal prosecution.

I really doubt criminal prosecution happened, because the copyright holder would have to show that it's a criminal matter, and the charges would have to be brought by a DA/crown prosecutor/etc. (and possibly have to pass a grand jury/magistrate/etc. before that). You'd definitely be hearing about it if this happened, as we did in the Namco case.

Did the copyright holder actually file civil action? This can end in three ways: plaintiff dropping the case, formal out-of-court-settlement, or a judgement in a court of law. It's expensive to file, so they're not going to just file and drop civil action as a show of force to scare two-bit website operators. It gets very expensive very quickly.

Nothing short of civil action is "stronger than a C&D". But none of this is relevant - distributing copyrighted materials and distributing an emulator are two very different things.