The Legality of MAME

Has anybody here played around with MAME? For those who don't know, it's an emulator that runs the programs from a lot of the stand-up arcade games we played as kids (at least the younger ones of us were kids at the time...). It's a lot of fun to be able to run these old games on my desktop, but this leads to my question: what is the legality of MAME software? I know that emulation has been judged generally legal, but what of the individual games? A great many are available for download but I can't seem to find specific information about the legal status of these downloads.

I tend to be a stickler about intellectual property issues, and I'd like to have this strait. Does anyone have any information that could help?

 

It's the same exact law as any other emulator - perfectly legal as long as you own the original game. Since most of those arcade cabinets have an MSRP thousands of dollars, having just a few games is a pretty "big" offense.
Apparently though there is not a huge movement against the piracy though like in some other areas (Sony systems, for example).

 

I second what Hep! said. I let my friend borrow my SNES, so I've been fiddling around with Super Mario World on the SNES9x emulator. So convienient and fun. Just buy a simple game-pad and you're set.

If you want to read pages on the matter

Use of a Game Over: Emulation and the Video Game Industry, A White Paper

 

The use of the emulator is legal. It just depends upon whether the game (or rom) you use is legal. If you own the game, you have nothing to worry about. I was at a police station and playing MAME on their laptops. There were a lot of games on that laptop, if you know what I mean. If the cops do not know the difference, I do not think you should either. LOL.

Even George W. Bush infringed copyright laws when he had the Beetles on his iPod. Just because it is illegal does not mean it is morally wrong.

 

SO TRUE.

10 char.

 

Nonetheless, even if something is malum prohibitum and not malum in se, breaking the law is morally wrong (no, you don't get to the level of unjustness in the law of copyright that would justify the violation of that law; see, e.g. Thomas Aquinas on Unjust Law and Just Revolution.)

 

I guess I'll be the comic relief and say that you just reminded me of a clip from Legally Blonde. Morals are unique to each individual. One could possibly argue that breaking the law is not morally wrong if they believe that that particular law is unjust. Yes, I'm just trying to give you a hard time.

 

Fair dinkum.

 

Case in point, Miss Rosa Parks. Enough said.

Gary

 

This is not entirely true. If the law makes so little sense that everyone, including the authorities, routinely breaks it without even thinking about it, then there is nothing morally wrong about breaking it. Many jurisdictions have laws that nobody knows of or follows anymore -- stuff like "it is illegal to fish in pajamas". Copyright law in general doesn't fall into this category, but this particular application of it (emulation of the really old games) probably does.

 

Not so; that is also morally wrong within the meaning of Aquina's proposition because such behaviour ratifies and reinforces the behaviour of scofflaws, which creates disrespect for the concept of law and the rule of law, and thereby causes or increases social unrest. As a result, such behaviour, by itself, is morally wrong. The appropriate response to such a law is either (i) a declaratory suit seeking to have the law declared invalid under the doctrine of desuetude[/url} (if such is available), or raising the same issue as a defense to a prosecution for a violation (even if that violation was "arranged" in order to create the court case, as the Scopes trial was "arranged"), or (ii) having the appropriate legislature repeal the law.

 

just enjoy the games. If they have a problem with it, they'll go after the people providing the games.

 

By your logic, the MPAA/RIAA should have arrested/sued George W. Bush (as a standing president) for having a few mp3s on his iPod. I would have loved to see this PR disaster!

 

Shyster is a lawyer (I think I heard that somewhere?), he's supposed to uphold the law... unless he's a defense attorney. Then he's supposed to uphold all of the loopholes in the law.

 

... I was wondering what Shyster was hiding up his sleeve. I don't think wikipedia is a very valid reference source to use in your arguments... of course, that's about as simple as one can make it.

 

it's abandonware so it's free and legal

 

Just keep telling yourself that.

Gary

 

That doesn't follow. The rule imposes an obligation on the law-breaker, it doesn't impose any obligation on those whom the statute is designed to protect. In other words, whomever owned the rights to the unlicensed songs that Pres. Bush allegedly had on his iPod could have sued Pres. Bush but was under no obligation to do so.

Since I don't know any of the relevant facts, I won't speculate (too much), but I would imagine that if it were discovered that Pres. Bush happened to have unlicensed songs on an iPod belonging to him, the Whitehouse would have straightened that out lickety-split.

On the other hand, if Pres. Bush continued to be a scofflaw, then he is a perfect example of why it is still morally wrong to violate a law that is malum prohibitum (i.e., not evil in itself) and is widely violated - such behaviour merely increases the acceptability of scofflaw behaviour. The President should not be a scofflaw.

 

It's sufficient for the purposes to which I put it. As a source for a simple definition, Wiki almost always suffices; as binding precedent to a court, clearly it wouldn't suffice. Also, each Wiki article needs to be weighed on its own merits, and not simply categorically dismissed because it's on Wikipedia; some of the articles on Wiki are very well written and supported.

 

I'll just let you do what you do best and I'll stick to finding small exceptions and flaws(if any) . Point taken... I use Wiki for just about anything anyway.