This has always bugged the hell out of me

Scotty

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This goes all the way back to the early 80s. I am not a lawyer and I dont even play one on TV, but I have to ask.... Why were games like Hangly-Man, Piranha, Maze Man, New-Puck-X, New Puck2 etc... classified as bootlegs or illegal? First of all.... They were rom swaps. They were not an illegally copied board and source code. The only exception might be Pirahna as it was produced in a dedicated cabinet. The rest needed a dedicated machine. Namco or Midway already made their money on selling the machine to the arcade operator. The operator OWNS the machine. It is his to do with what he wants. If he wants to set it on fire, push it out a 5th floor window, or tie it to the back of a truck and drive it down the street, he bought it, he owns it, IT IS HIS!! A small group of hackers creates a modified chip(s) that can be added to the machine to enhance the game. HE OWNS IT!

Is Ford and GM going after end users or JC Whitneys or Summit Racing for making and selling enhanced parts to modify a Corvette or a Mustang? Are they suing Sony and JVC because they make radio's that replace the original equipment?

The same holds true with General Computer when they made the Super Missle Attack upgrade for Missle Command. Atari took them to court. FOR WHAT?!!! The arcade operator already bought the machine from Atari. It is his to do what he wants!!!!

Now an all-out bootleg is another story. If a game has a bootleg PC board (not manufactured by the Original manufacturer), that is another story. That would be like pirated DVDs or CDs.

I always liked New-Puck-X and Hangly-Man. They were more challenging and added a new twist to a game that started showing its age. In my opinion, it actually HELPED Pac-Man, as it extended its life by giving more life to a fading game.

The floor is open for discussion.
 
i agree, however not sure of the legal aspects of things, but I would assume if you were on the other end you would be upset? It depends on the situation cause you talked about a couple. If someone was making an upgrade kit using all my hard work suchs as sprites/code/ whatever else it takes and then sold it without obtaining a copy right than I would be pissssseeddd. I think that is why bootlegs are illegal, no rights.
 
It's not the aftermarket modification of the physical board that's the issue, it's the game and gameplay. It's a case of intellectual property rights, which with bootlegs can be a pretty grey area. Of course Ford isn't going to go after Summit, but if someone makes a product similar to something Summit has patented/trademarked/whatever that's a little too close to the Summit one, they'd have a case against the other party. If it's the same maze layouts, sprites, even gameplay, a good enough lawyer can make a case against it. Whether they win that case is entirely dependent on how close they are to "too close".
 
A lot of this stuff was nearly legal before the DMCA...

Funny thing is that the "Playing this game outside of Japan is Illegal". That was true at the time.
 
This goes all the way back to the early 80s. I am not a lawyer and I dont even play one on TV, but I have to ask.... Why were games like Hangly-Man, Piranha, Maze Man, New-Puck-X, New Puck2 etc... classified as bootlegs or illegal? First of all.... They were rom swaps. They were not an illegally copied board and source code.

All of those bootlegs used the substantively same game code as Pacman, but were just reverse engineered to change the mazes, etc... the sellers of those kits didn't have the rights to redistribute Namco's game code, although you could argue that the buyers had the rights to use it, since they 'own' a license to use the code that came with their games.

...and many of those ROM sets do appear to have originated on bootleg boards, which were violations of copyright in all cases.

The same holds true with General Computer when they made the Super Missle Attack upgrade for Missle Command. Atari took them to court. FOR WHAT?!!! The arcade operator already bought the machine from Atari. It is his to do what he wants!!!!

Once again, if you do a code comparison between SMA and MC, the vast majority of the code is the same... the only changes GCC really made were in the speed and number of enemies -- quite minor code tweaks.
 
^^ What he said. They're taking the software code that Namco or whoever invented and owns, and building on top of it. The game that they sell uses something that Namco owns... so they're effectively selling Namco's property and keeping the money for themselves.

In similar news, the Pez museum in some town somewhere just got sued last week by Pez, because they were taking Pez dispensers, and changing the heads and reselling them.
 
http://laughingsquid.com/pez-suing-burlingame-museum-of-pez-memorabilia/


Another thing to think about is this: If you own a copyright, and you take somebody to court... say 5 years from now, Pez finds somebody making copies of their stuff, and selling them in stores. A blatant theft of their copyright... if they sue them and take them to court, you know what the first thing the lawyer is going to say?

"Pez has abandoned their copyright, because they're aware of the museum in Burlington and haven't done anything to stop them from doing the same thing my client is doing"

When you have a copyright, you have to enforce it in every case you're aware of, or you'll never be able to enforce it.
 
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HE OWNS IT!

He owns the physical unit, he does not own the brand, trademart or IP.

Taking a game like pac man, altering it and then bascially reselling it (by letting people pay to play it) causes all sorts of issues legally.

If it were in his/her home for private use, it would likely not be an issue. Since its out for public use though, all sorts of issues come into play. The biggest issue is dilution of trademark and issues involving brand confusion/dilution (people not understanding that 'puck man' isnt the same or released/endorsed by the same company as 'pac man' and therefore diluting the brands goodwill/reputation in the marketplace. Legally this is also looked at in the light of, how likely is someone going to be confused. AKA: 'likelihood of confusion').

It would be like a private theater buying rights to a movie and then having their IT guy add CGI scenes to it that they thought 'enhanced' the movie.
 
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Do these chips actually have any original game code in them?

Under the old laws... You could make a device to create dervitives works... As long as the code it's self wasn't sold.

See Galoob Vs. Nintendo.
 
Do these chips actually have any original game code in them?

Under the old laws... You could make a device to create dervitives works... As long as the code it's self wasn't sold.

See Galoob Vs. Nintendo.

Galoob v Nin is different. It's a single user with a home use license. If somebody puts a custom rom into a pac man for basement use, nobody is getting sued.
 
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