MAME(tm) and the trademark issue.

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Well I just read an interesting thread on MAME.NET, where Kevin S was
trying to have a reasonable conversation with some 'dev's.

It occurred to me that no good can come of this whole mess... (OOps is
mess trademarked too ;-) ).

I fully understand the need to protect your trademark, however you do
not see usually fascist enforcement of 3rd party compatible accessories
if they are not harming your product (whether your product is free or
not is not relevant to enforcement, you have the choice). As you all
know by now, I have been with MAME since 0.1, and this latest stunt by
some knob somewhere could create more problems than it solves...I know
it wasnt MAMEDev that kicked this whole thing off.

If I were an arcade manufacturer (Taito for example), I would be in a
great position to 'stick the knife in' as it were, as MAMEDev are
perilously close to an organization now. Did it not occur to MAMEDev
that this move could be deliberate to effectively cut the heart out of
the MAME community? The analogy is like saying a company that is
selling a DVD copying kit is suing a DVD+R manufacturer for stating that
the DVD+R works with the copying kit!

The paradoxes and non clarity of the current situation cannot be
stressed enough. Although I understand the official stance on Pokeroms,
no complaint has been made in tools that facilitate the organization
of a complete set... surely this is more offensive to MAMEDev than some
silly bloody steering wheel sale? I am a pokerom collector and
MAMEDev's official attitude to my hobby does not affect me at all, and I
will not comply with their wishes.

Real fans are being hurt here, and the pirates that wave the jolly roger
are not going to give a rats-toss about any trademark infringement
issues. I assume MAMEDev got permission to use the word 'Taito' for
example in both drivers and descriptions?

You will forgive me if this whole thing doesnt look like some farce...
in effect we have some piracy enabling mechanism "MAME(tm)" being
protected by trademark law, yet not respecting anyones copyright or
trademark except in the form of some legally dubious disclaimer?

Wierd times indeed.

BTW I love clrmamepro, but I needed an example that shows no consistancy
or even handness.

MCR - MAME fan...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:50:30 +0000, MCR wrote:

> Well I just read an interesting thread on MAME.NET,

I just posted what I think is a reasonable question.

Investigative lamb!

*tee hee*

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

innocent_lamb wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 03:50:30 +0000, MCR wrote:
>
>
>>Well I just read an interesting thread on MAME.NET,
>
>
> I just posted what I think is a reasonable question.
>
> Investigative lamb!
>
> *tee hee*

Good point Lamb.. I cant put my finger exactly on this, but the entire
situation is making me a little uneasy.

While my original post may seem a little like I am whinging, I feel this
may come and 'bite them in the ass' so to speak. Your question
highlights another problem with this whole trademark debacle.

As they have successfully requested registration for a trademark against
the name 'MAME', have they registered (M)ultiple (A)rcade (M)achine
(E)mulator too? What about the word Emulator? ;-)

Sarky-MCR

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

MCR wrote:

> As they have successfully requested registration for a trademark

A trade-mark? Isn't that (and I have only a sketchy understanding of these
issues) an indentifying "name" which is used to trade under? Trading what? I
see the need to protect the name "MAME", but I would have thought that
copyright would be adequate?

> against the name 'MAME', have they registered (M)ultiple (A)rcade
> (M)achine (E)mulator too? What about the word Emulator? ;-)


They better not register "Emulator", or I'm in trouble

D.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

MCR wrote:
> Well I just read an interesting thread on MAME.NET, where Kevin S was
> trying to have a reasonable conversation with some 'dev's.

Got a link to that thread?

Interesting that the whole "Mame is used for documentation and diagnostics"
etc.

Granted that you can use the binary to reproduce what a board or cab should
be doing, but it doesn't have to be playable. There's an awful lot of code
in there to do "gaming" things like hiscores, cheats, sound buffering, frame
synch, recordings of gameplay etc.

Is MAME not actually intended to be able to do all that?

Any arcade emulator, IMHO, is a tool specifically intended to allow people
to play ROMs - legal or not. With computer emulation you have the get-out of
being able to use the computer (and some are legal to emulate, with freely
distributable system ROM images), without ever having to touch an illegal
image of a game or other software package. Arcade machines don't do much
without those games to run.

How can MAME ever claim to be intended as a documentation/diagnostic
project? If that were the case, they'd only be distributing minimal source,
not anything like enough to actually play any games? Or do they do that now
and it's the evil pirates who are compiling the playable versions?

But yes, they would do well to distance themselves from any illegal
activities - and in my book at least, they shouldn't be linking to the
binaries if that's their intention.

D.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Paul Dunn thought about it a bit, then said...
> Got a link to that thread?

http://tinyurl.com/9wrjy

or

http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showpost.pl?
Board=mamegeneral&Number=174550&page=0&view=expanded&mode=threaded&sb=7
#Post174550

--
Kevin Steele
RetroBlast! Retrogaming News and Reviews
www.retroblast.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

On 2005-06-06, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> As you all know by now, I have been with MAME since 0.1 [...]

And in which way did you contribute to Mame, if I may ask?

OG.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

> BTW I love clrmamepro, but I needed an example that shows no consistancy
> or even handness.

I am in contact with mamedevs/trademark holders already.

clrmamepro isn't a redistribution of MAME and doesn't contain any parts
of MAME binary/sourcode or the MAME logo.

There will be some changes to clrmamepro concerning the "ClrMamePro is
made to create romcollections from MAME" in the very short future.

clrmamepro doesn't break any part of the mame licence. The only point
to discuss is the usage of the 4 letters inside the name.
And that's being discussed at the moment.

So much for now...

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Olivier Galibert wrote:
> On 2005-06-06, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>>As you all know by now, I have been with MAME since 0.1 [...]
>
>
> And in which way did you contribute to Mame, if I may ask?
>
> OG.

I play tested. I would have thought a man of your intelligence
would be able to understand inm what context I was talking about. When
I say I have been with MAME, I mean I downloaded the first executable
from Atmospherical Heights...

Do not take my previous rant as a slur on MAMEDev specifically, I am
suggesting that you watch your back. (Not from me of course!)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

On 2005-06-06, Paul Dunn <paul.dunn4@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Interesting that the whole "Mame is used for documentation and diagnostics"
> etc.

Yes, our aim is to document what the hardware does.


> Granted that you can use the binary to reproduce what a board or cab should
> be doing, but it doesn't have to be playable. There's an awful lot of code
> in there to do "gaming" things like
> hiscores,

Don't tempt me.

> cheats,

Useful to be able to go to a point in a game where emulation problems
occur. Save states are in the same category too (and where designed
just for that in the first place, debugging the level 4 of Xexex).

> sound buffering, frame synch,

Pretty standard on anything that does real-time video, I fail to see
what your point is.

> recordings of gameplay

Same as save states, people finding bugs send us replays to reproduce
the problems.


> Any arcade emulator, IMHO, is a tool specifically intended to allow people
> to play ROMs - legal or not.

Guess what, your opinion is wrong.


> How can MAME ever claim to be intended as a documentation/diagnostic
> project? If that were the case, they'd only be distributing minimal source,
> not anything like enough to actually play any games?

And we'd know how accurate the emulation is how?


> But yes, they would do well to distance themselves from any illegal
> activities - and in my book at least, they shouldn't be linking to the
> binaries if that's their intention.

There aren't any binaries on mamedev.com.

OG.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Olivier Galibert wrote:

> On 2005-06-06, Paul Dunn <paul.dunn4@ntlworld.com> wrote:

>> Interesting that the whole "Mame is used for documentation and
>> diagnostics" etc.

> Yes, our aim is to document what the hardware does.

Excellent. A noble cause, and one that I applaud. I also love the way you
included enough emulation not only to document, but to emulate too. Don't
get me wrong, I'm not condemning you lot as pirates out for one thing only -
but I don't suppose for one moment that anyone here is in it solely for the
documentation

>> Granted that you can use the binary to reproduce what a board or cab
>> should be doing, but it doesn't have to be playable. There's an
>> awful lot of code in there to do "gaming" things like
>> hiscores,

> Don't tempt me.

You don't like the hi-scores? I think it's great Was that implemented by
the MAMEDev team? or as part of the third party builds?

[Snip points duly noted - thanks]

>> Any arcade emulator, IMHO, is a tool specifically intended to allow
>> people to play ROMs - legal or not.

> Guess what, your opinion is wrong.

I dunno, I'd have to disagree there. I've not written arcade emulation up to
now - I've stuck with computer emulation, and only ones that I can legally
lay my hands on the system ROM images for. I'm not sure where I'd stand
emulating a machine that I couldn't legally test. Back in the early 90s I
worked for a company that wanted to run it's older software (which was
written for an archaic MSX machine) on their newer 286PCs. We considered a
form of emulation, interpreting the opcodes for the z80 and others powering
it, and found that, of course, we needed system ROMs to do it properly. The
project got canned, as the legal team advised against taking copies of the
ROMs - although we owned the machines in question, taking copies to be run
outside the original hardware was considered a breach of copyright. It was a
very large company, and I'd not be inclined to think their legal advice was
flawed. Mind you, I'm not a lawyer - and I expect that copyright law, etc,
has changed since then.

The "only own ROM images if you own the hardware" is a lawful statement,
isn't it? Everyone seems to be using it, I wondered if anyone has actually
tested this in court.

>> How can MAME ever claim to be intended as a documentation/diagnostic
>> project? If that were the case, they'd only be distributing minimal
>> source, not anything like enough to actually play any games?

> And we'd know how accurate the emulation is how?

Well, assuming you have the hardware (as it would surely be illegal to test
your code otherwise) then you yourselves can test it. There would be no need
to distribute code that can actually play them - you could just document it.
Am I right in thinking that a great many of the chipsets used in arcades
have no formal documentation? It would be a better idea to provide that
documentation than something that everyone uses to infringe copyright? It
would, of course, go some way to distancing the good name of "MAME" from
illegal activity.

Of course, I'm sure that the community (and myself) would be more interested
in a playable MAME.

>> But yes, they would do well to distance themselves from any illegal
>> activities - and in my book at least, they shouldn't be linking to
>> the binaries if that's their intention.

> There aren't any binaries on mamedev.com.

My mistake, I was thinking of Mame.net, which links to all sorts of lovely
binaries. They, I suppose, must be legal - you'd not be linking the name
"MAME" to anything illegal, after all.

For what it's worth, I think that the emulator itself is a good thing. I'm
under no illusions whatsoever that *my* using it is illegal - and it's been
around long enough now for any interested IP owners to have shouted "cease
and desist" long ago, which they haven't. They likely can't now - they've
not protected their IP, which is what this thread is all about. The
emulation comunity that I belong to has had it good in that respect for a
number of years, but now the companies are catching on, and denying
permission to distribute their software right and left (as is their right to
do so). It's a crying shame, as there's no other way to play many of the
games now, and they're not keen to redistribute old tech. Much the same is
true of the Arcade companies, I suspect.

I do applaud MameDev's efforts to limit the use of the Mame name, but I also
think there's more than a smattering of "pot, kettle, black" to all of this.
I'm not sure that anyone actually believes that MAME is a documentation
project, but it would probably make a nice defense in court, if it can be
proved that MAME is *not* intended to be used to play the games, and has no
association with the people who compile it for such reasons.

Keep up the good work, though. It's great to be able to play those old games
again!

D.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Nope. In fact I (and other persons) don't see problem to use it, since
I don't violate the licence in any case and with 3.66 it lost any
connection to MAME.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

How so? Well....read the docs...there is not a single mention of MAME,
the emulator. There is no text saying use clrmame to manage MAME rom
collections, in contrary there are notes about what and what can't be
scanned with clrmamepro. Same for the binary. clrmamepro doesn't
contain any part of MAME, the mamesourcecode or its binary. The name
clrmame stands for cool little rom manipulation and management engine
btw. Same for the homepage, no connection to MAME either.
So what do we have. A domainname and a software product which uses 4
letters inside its name which are the same 4 letters. It doesn't even
match the letter case of MAME.
As said before....I do discuss the facts with the trademarkholders. You
can't compare redistributions of MAME which really break the licence
with programs which technically don't have anything to do with MAME.

Maybe people should close down alt.binaries.emulators.mame instead 8)

 

[Mike]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:45:54 GMT, Olivier Galibert wrote:

> And in which way did you contribute to Mame, if I may ask?

He's been whining at the dev's on here since approximately v0.01.


Mike

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

I said alt.binaries.....nbt alt.games....

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Mike wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:45:54 GMT, Olivier Galibert wrote:
>
>
>>And in which way did you contribute to Mame, if I may ask?
>
>
> He's been whining at the dev's on here since approximately v0.01.
>
>
> Mike



MCR

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Roman Scherzer wrote:
>>BTW I love clrmamepro, but I needed an example that shows no consistancy
>>or even handness.
>
>
> I am in contact with mamedevs/trademark holders already.
>
> clrmamepro isn't a redistribution of MAME and doesn't contain any parts
> of MAME binary/sourcode or the MAME logo.
>
> There will be some changes to clrmamepro concerning the "ClrMamePro is
> made to create romcollections from MAME" in the very short future.
>
> clrmamepro doesn't break any part of the mame licence. The only point
> to discuss is the usage of the 4 letters inside the name.
> And that's being discussed at the moment.
>
> So much for now...
>

Clrrompro?

MCR

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Olivier Galibert <galibert@pobox.com> wrote in
news:slrnda8od2.6gt.galibert@m23.limsi.fr:

> On 2005-06-06, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> As you all know by now, I have been with MAME since 0.1 [...]
>
> And in which way did you contribute to Mame, if I may ask?

If it wasn't for us insane arcade addicted 30-somethings...Us coin stealin
arcade junkines from the 80s...

lob ;-)

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Roman Scherzer wrote:
> Nope. In fact I (and other persons) don't see problem to use it, since
> I don't violate the licence in any case and with 3.66 it lost any
> connection to MAME.
>

How so? Just curious. Brilliant tool by the way.

MCR

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Roman Scherzer wrote:
> How so? Well....read the docs...there is not a single mention of MAME,
> the emulator. There is no text saying use clrmame to manage MAME rom
> collections, in contrary there are notes about what and what can't be
> scanned with clrmamepro. Same for the binary. clrmamepro doesn't
> contain any part of MAME, the mamesourcecode or its binary. The name
> clrmame stands for cool little rom manipulation and management engine
> btw. Same for the homepage, no connection to MAME either.
> So what do we have. A domainname and a software product which uses 4
> letters inside its name which are the same 4 letters. It doesn't even
> match the letter case of MAME.
> As said before....I do discuss the facts with the trademarkholders. You
> can't compare redistributions of MAME which really break the licence
> with programs which technically don't have anything to do with MAME.
>
> Maybe people should close down alt.binaries.emulators.mame instead 8)
>

Thanks for the clarification

Close this NG and miss all this fun... dont think so!

MCR

 

[mcr]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Roman Scherzer wrote:
> I said alt.binaries.....nbt alt.games....
>

Oops my bad... but maybe we need to get permission to have this group
name too, unless it stands for something different like Mainly Another
Machine Emulator ;-)

MCR

 

[sinner]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

* Roman Scherzer wrote in alt.games.mame:
> The name
> clrmame stands for cool little rom manipulation and management engine
> btw.

Heh, Always wondered where the name came from

--
David
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
-- Milton Friendman

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

On 2005-06-07, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> Oops my bad... but maybe we need to get permission to have this group
> name too, unless it stands for something different like Mainly Another
> Machine Emulator ;-)

How about Moan, Accuse, Misunderstand, and, err something beginning
with 'E'?

We need to get lob in on the job, and get a few weeks worth of MAME
acronyms going...

--
For every expert, there is an equal but opposite expert

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Ian Rawlings wrote:
> On 2005-06-07, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> Oops my bad... but maybe we need to get permission to have this group
>> name too, unless it stands for something different like Mainly
>> Another Machine Emulator ;-)
>
> How about Moan, Accuse, Misunderstand, and, err something beginning
> with 'E'?
>
> We need to get lob in on the job, and get a few weeks worth of MAME
> acronyms going...

Yes, lob is good at making very long threads. Someone even said he got the
world record for the most replies to his own post on the "You know you MAME
too much when..." thread. And there is reason to believe he did grab the
record. I guess maybe he should make a thread with "words that the acronym
M-A-M-E could stand for." Sort of like how you were saying.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.mame (More info?)

Ian Rawlings wrote:
> On 2005-06-07, MCR <markcoleman10@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Oops my bad... but maybe we need to get permission to have this group
>>name too, unless it stands for something different like Mainly Another
>>Machine Emulator ;-)
>
>
> How about Moan, Accuse, Misunderstand, and, err something beginning
> with 'E'?
-----8<-----

'Emasculate'? <GBEG>

--
Thnik about it!
Deadly_Dad