http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?r...entry=76627578
Oh dear. That's the CEO of Ultracade, by the way.
(Reported at http://www.zophar.net .)
MAME Trademark in Jeopardy
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?r...entry=76627578
Oh dear. That's the CEO of Ultracade, by the way.
(Reported at http://www.zophar.net .)
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Lets hear it for blatant theft!
::crickets::
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Number 1 in the 'hood g!
On what grounds is he suing Mame? Was Ultracade around before Mame? Or is he just suing them because mame gives the cow away for free?
He's not suing...yet. He's applying for a patent on the name and logo design, both of which were around for at least four years before he started his company. Right now he's going around getting "MAME cabinet" auctions removed from eBay, claiming "IP infringement" even though the trademark hasn't gone through yet.Originally Posted by Graham Mitchell
Here's a few more discussions about it:
BYOAC thread
MAME World thread
MAME.net thread
Since the news of this is spreading so rapidly (it's already been Slashdotted), there's likely no way that it'll go through, if people contact the attourney and the trademark office.
So, basically he wants to "steal" the logo for Ultrarcade? I hope not a soul will buy anything from them and that he ends up broke and miserable. Some nerve!
Sony, we will NEVER forget nor forgive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G0LlXv-nyI
Here is the explanation from the CEO of Ultracade:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.p...d&cid=11734594
From a business and legal standpoint, I am mostly in agreement with his reasoning. With classic gaming increasingly gathering steam in the mass market, expect more of this. When MAME first came out it was a hobbyist thing and no one really cared. Now there is money to be made.
Fair enough... But what is there to stop someone from building a cabinet that runs RAINE instead of MAME, or simply a rebranded program titled "EALOAM" (Emulates a Lot of Arcade Machines)? Or is he trying to patent the concept of a multiple arcade machine emulator in general (which might well mean that some of Namco's cabinets would be in violation)? I can't see this ending well.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
I agree with the guy's problem and his plight, I just don't agree with the actions taken to fight the problem. The guy's issue is, he's trying to compete with his legal product (Ultimarc) against people illegally selling MAME cabinets. I agree with that, that's a problem. I just don't know that copyrighting someone else's logo and such is the right way to fight that fight.
I agree with you Jorpho, I think this action just leads to people changing their MAME logos and calling those cabinets something else to avoid eBay cancellations.
"and have invested millions of dollars creating a
market for retro games"
why thank you sir, I as many others would have had no intrest if it wasnt for your company...(which I had never heard of before 10 minutes ago).
so he's bought the licences to games that are in reality only viable in the public domain and not commercial market.
he claims that its people benefiting from others hard work.. that he's bought the rights too... hello ?
what I find hard to beleive is that no-one had trademarked the "MAME" name before.
for "Software Hardware Arcade Machine Emulator"..
just posed this question on that forum
does this sound reasonable ?Because the MAME product has been a "public domain" item previously, Software rights owners such as yourself and others, who have legitimate claim to the ROMS that are being unlawfully distributed, frequently supplied with these units, have had no principle figure head to sue for breach of copyright.
Does that mean since you are now atempting to take ownership of the MAME trademark you will be the figure head for wich copyright owners can now sue ?
since it will be your tradename product expiditing this distribution.
http://www.videopac.org The Worlds only dedicated Videopac & Odyssey 2 forums.
To say the licenses he bought aren't commercially viable is inaccurate. I agree that a number of them are old arcade licenses that are only of interest to hobbyists, but there are others that are still commercially available through compilations (and they must be selling because Namco, Capcom, Atari, etc. keep churning them out)."and have invested millions of dollars creating a
market for retro games"
why thank you sir, I as many others would have had no intrest if it wasnt for your company...(which I had never heard of before 10 minutes ago).
so he's bought the licences to games that are in reality only viable in the public domain and not commercial market.
he claims that its people benefiting from others hard work.. that he's bought the rights too... hello ?
what I find hard to beleive is that no-one had trademarked the "MAME" name before.
for "Software Hardware Arcade Machine Emulator"..
just posed this question on that forum
does this sound reasonable ?Because the MAME product has been a "public domain" item previously, Software rights owners such as yourself and others, who have legitimate claim to the ROMS that are being unlawfully distributed, frequently supplied with these units, have had no principle figure head to sue for breach of copyright.
Does that mean since you are now atempting to take ownership of the MAME trademark you will be the figure head for wich copyright owners can now sue ?
since it will be your tradename product expiditing this distribution.
To answer your question about the question you posted, no it doesn't sound reasonable. He has already purchased the rights to the games in the Ultracade cabinets. Even if he takes complete ownership of the MAME name (not likely IMO) I'm not sure why any copyright owners would sue him...there's nothing illegal about the emulator itself.
Once again, Flack said very well what I was going to say.
My question is, why did'nt the main people behind MAME copyright the trademark and name back when they first STARTED? Could'nt they see this happening at some point? Sure, MAME is legal but most of the ROM's used on it (and I admit I myself play) are not. I'd cover my ass in a situation like this.
"Four o'clock and all is well.....wish I was in bed, Sir."
-- Guard in the Imperial City, Oblivion
he's a big dick who is only in it for one thing.... $$$$$$$$
whereas the people behind MAME are not.
Seems a lot of people are "dicks" according to you.
This is someone who happens to be in the BUSINESS of making the classic games we all enjoy publically available.
The problem with the gaming community is that too many of us are accustomed to getting something for nothing.
First of all, IANAL just to cover my ass.
Foley is breaking the law. How?
He is trying to illegally trademark MAME using a mark that is copyrighted by someone else, and other than the copyrighted logo, this situation has nothing to do with copyright or patent law. Regardless of his ulterior motive, he is going about it the wrong way, and basically committing the same acts that he claims he wishes to prevent (that is, copyright infringement).
Plus, in the process of filing for a trademark you must declare, under penalty of perjury, that you are the lawful owner of the intended mark. Which means he can go to jail over this, should the MAME team push back hard enough.
This has nothing to do with preventing people from selling MAME cabinets with a full ROM collection preloaded. He is already trying to take action against people selling marquees that incorporate the MAME logo. He is also trying to take action against people who legally sell cabinets with ROMs acquired from StarROMs (which can be done if the ROMs are purchased in the customer's name).
This guy is a dick. He's trying to monopolize the custom arcade cabinet market, under the auspices of trying to fight against illegal resellers. I hope this guy gets crushed.
BINGO.
And you'd be surprised how many corporate entites don't do this, or willfully step right in the middle of the little guy's back anyway because they figure he won't fight back, or can't afford to.
I suspect he's not too far off the mark when he says that a lot of people do include them or instructions on how to get them.
Shutting down an eBay auction and shutting down a Chinese website are two entirely different matters.Let him go after all the romz sites if he's so concerned about it.
Huh? I thought he said that you can in fact run the Capcom, Midway, Tatio, etc. games on Ultracade legally because he can actually sell the licenses legally. (It's not like people are buying MAME cabs to satisfy their cravings for pornographic Mahjongg games; the ones Ultracade has licensed are probably the ones that people are most interested in playing.)Besides, he even admits you can't run 99% of the games out there on Ultracade legally either, so who's going to spend 4x as much for one of his "legal" machines?
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." --Bertrand Russel (attributed)
Copyright != Trademark
I completely understand this guy's reasoning, and I fully support what he is doing. If MAME is not actively protecting its trademark, this guy can take it, especially if it is hurting his bottom line, he should be able to protect it. Even the authors of emulators like zsnes go after auctions where people try selling the emulator illegally. It sounds like this guy paid for a liscence to use MAME, so he wants to protect his investment.
<Evan_G> i keep my games in an inaccessable crate where i can't play them
None of that matters. He's doing it in the wrong way. He is violating the law and claiming to do it in order to keep other people from violating the law. That would likely not be a defense in front of a judge.
Had he created his own MAME logo, and used that, then he'd probably have a lot easier time getting the trademark (although he's still lying when it comes to his declaration of ownership, which can result in fines or imprisonment). As it stands now, he's using someone else's copyrighted logo and claiming it to be his own mark. Not only that, but he has told eBay that he does indeed have the mark, and used that to shut down legal auctions, when in reality the mark is pending and has not been granted yet. This means that, hypothetically, if the MAME dev team (the true rights holders) chose to sell MAME on eBay, that he could have their auction shut down.
I can support his stated reasons behind what he's doing, but actions speak louder than words, and since he's going after people who are not distributing illegal ROMs with their cabinets, I conclude that his stated reasons are just a smokescreen for his real motive, which I believe is merely wiping out competition in the market of multi-game cabinets. The person selling cabinets with legal StarROMs even has explicit approval from StarROMs to do so, provided that the ROMs are licensed in the name of the buyer, yet his auction was cancelled.
The MAME dev team does not support his chosen method of tackling illegal distribution of ROMs, so it stands to reason that he is doing the wrong thing, both legally and morally.
http://www.ultracade.com/mame.htm
Heh he's fulla shit. And of course if you've been following this the past few days, you'd see how the guy has 100% backpedaled after being exposed.
So.. the best way to prevent copyright theft (already illegal ) is to trademark "MAME'? Hmmmm in that case..... I will patent the concept of emulation. Fucking cunt deserves a kickingLike the guy who tried to take the Linux name...
You can wipe multigames off ebay.. big fn' deal. He can put his finger in that dyke all he wants but it won't stop the flood of those crappy multicabs (the bane of any serious arcade collector). Anyway his biggest dumb move is claiming ownership and taking legal action on it when he's not been awarded anything. Remember Intel trying to trademark numbers? ;-) or the names of towns/cities in CA. That was my favorite.. I could just see the city of Modesto receiving a letter from Intel attorneys. "You must now use the correct wording of 'the city of modesto (tm) Intel 1998."
The sad thing is I know the people who created and painted that. They have since dropped off the online scene though. Who knows where they are..Had he created his own MAME logo
So he's not going to get the trademark for MAME?
Possibility is infinity! You must be satisfied!
You just can't handle my jawusumness responces. -The Sizz
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