Albuquerque, NM
Does anyone know if these 60 in 1 JAMMA boards are legal? For instance can I buy these boards and install them into cabinets and resell?
(Topic ID: 104599)
The only ones that have gotten arrested for it are the guys that made the Ultracade games.
It's a grey area. If you have a strong moral compass, no it's not legal. Doesn't stop every other douchebag from destroying perfectly good classic games and selling their 150$ cabinet with a 60$ multicade board in it for 900$ though.
The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
I believe so, but the end user couldn't charge for them on location. Please don't take this as legal advice. I looked it up awhile back, and I don't remember the specifics
Quoted from BobC:The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
If that were true, the emulation wouldn't be so piss-poor on some of the games.... They're emulated....
Quoted from BobC:The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
Even if that were true, what about trademarks?
Quoted from Frax:The only ones that have gotten arrested for it are the guys that made the Ultracade games.
It's a grey area. If you have a strong moral compass, no it's not legal. Doesn't stop every other douchebag from destroying perfectly good classic games and selling their 150$ cabinet with a 60$ multicade board in it for 900$ though.
More info on ultracade: http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/27/ultracade-founder-gets-two-years-in-prison-for-game-counterfeiti/
Quoted from tamoore:If that were true, the emulation wouldn't be so piss-poor on some of the games.... They're emulated....
They appear to be MAME ROMS (minus the trade Marks, and Manufacturer names). Ever notice the games have the same glitches as the games have running on MAME?
Quoted from BobC:The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
If that were true, they'd still be illegal, because they are copies of gameplay, titles and design. Even old arcade games like Pac-Man written for the Atari 2600 had to be licensed.
Quoted from girloveswaffles:They appear to be MAME ROMS (minus the trade Marks, and Manufacturer names). Ever notice the games have the same glitches as the games have running on MAME?
Sometimes even worse glitches. The sound in Gyruss comes to mind on the 60-1 emulation...
Quoted from Frax:Doesn't stop every other douchebag from destroying perfectly good classic games and selling their 150$ cabinet with a 60$ multicade board in it for 900$ though.
My understanding is that the 60-in-1 boards are just knockoffs - there was no royalty paid to the original license holders and shouldn't be on location. As far as those that are gutting working classic games, that's too bad. I have myself taken a few old cabinets that were going to be junked and converted them to multigames using these boards for friends. Better to have the cabinet survive than be completely destroyed.
60 in 1 boards and all others except the arcadeSD are running a very old version of mame.
That's why the emulation sucks, because it's old.
If they updated the boards and used a new mame build, the emulation would be great.....
But, they would still be illegal...especially to have on a location.
Quoted from tamoore:Sometimes even worse glitches. The sound in Gyruss comes to mind on the 60-1 emulation...
I haven't found any emulation that comes close to capturing the sound from a real Gyruss machine. Maybe the speakers and their alignment has something to do with it too.
From that article, that guy was involved in a lot more shadiness than just bootlegging games. Taking $3,000,000 fraudulently from the bank is bound to get you time.
It's not legal... whether or not it's ethical is up to you though. I'm sure a 50%+ people here used MAME or these boards. The original authors of most of these games aren't getting much in the way of royalties anymore, and sales an old original cab/board doesn't earn them anything either. IMO you aren't affecting anyone's livelihood by using these.
Quoted from asay:It's not legal... whether or not it's ethical is up to you though. I'm sure a 50%+ people here used MAME or these boards. The original authors of most of these games aren't getting much in the way of royalties anymore, and sales an old original cab/board doesn't earn them anything either. IMO you aren't affecting anyone's livelihood by using these.
Under the current laws of the US, this is 100% incorrect.
Quoted from facelift:60 in 1 boards and all others except the arcadeSD are running a very old version of mame.
That's why the emulation sucks, because it's old.
If they updated the boards and used a new mame build, the emulation would be great.....
But, they would still be illegal...especially to have on a location.
I've got a 60-1 and the emulation of some games is pretty bad (gyruss and 1943 sound). Other games the sound cuts in and out. Is the ArcadeSD board better? Been thinking about picking one up and dumping the 60-1.
Quoted from tamoore:Under the current laws of the US, this is 100% incorrect.
What part isn't correct? My first words were that it isn't legal.
They aren't licensed to use as a 60 in 1. They fall into a grey area however if you only use a single game on them. Say the cabinet is a pacman and the original board is busted. You leave the original board in the game and use the 60 in 1, but only have it set to run pacman and not the other 59 games. As an owner of the original game with the original roms you have a right to use those rom images to run Pacman in that cabinet. If you use those rom images in a mame emulation I don't believe you are breaking any licensing laws as it's really just a roundabout way to repair your machine.
Hypothetically you could load up a cabinet with original boards for all 60 games and then run the mulitcade 
Quoted from asay:What part isn't correct? My first words were that it isn't legal.
Sorry. Something with the way my brain saw that told me it was the opposite. My bad. Retracted and redacted.
Yes, the arcadeSD is much better at emulation than a 60 in 1 board but costs quite a bit.
Quoted from aztarac:I've got a 60-1 and the emulation of some games is pretty bad (gyruss and 1943 sound). Other games the sound cuts in and out. Is the ArcadeSD board better? Been thinking about picking one up and dumping the 60-1.
Quoted from facelift:Yes, the arcadeSD is much better at emulation than a 60 in 1 board but costs quite a bit.
It's dramatically better, and well worth the cost. But if you're doing a multi-Williams, you want the JROK board. Both were created as a labor of love. I have both, and nothing bad to say about them.
ArcadeSD:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=197982
http://www.phoenixarcade.com/ArcadeSD.htm
JROK:
http://www.jrok.com/
Quoted from tamoore:Sometimes even worse glitches. The sound in Gyruss comes to mind on the 60-1 emulation...
Gyruss sounds great compared to Moon Cresta and Pleiades, not that that's a stretch 
Quoted from BobC:The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
As others have said, they are running an old version of MAME on an underpowered ARM processor. They are running bootlegs of the original ROMs, but even if they were not, the original games were protected by likeness copyrights where it was adjudged that if there was substantial visual or auditory similarities then there was infringement. Namco used this sledgehammer quite successfully throughout the 80's destroying countless PAC clones.
Quoted from facelift:60 in 1 boards and all others except the arcadeSD are running a very old version of mame.
That's why the emulation sucks, because it's old.
If they updated the boards and used a new mame build, the emulation would be great.....
But, they would still be illegal...especially to have on a location.
They have new versions on significantly better processors. Last time I looked, the 619n1 boards were knocking on the $100 mark. There are even 3000+n1 boards out using a modified PC motherboard running at 1.4GHz. The version on MAME bootlegged is newer, but I can't say the emulations are that much better, just more of them.
ken
Quoted from Frax:The only ones that have gotten arrested for it are the guys that made the Ultracade games.
It's a grey area. If you have a strong moral compass, no it's not legal. Doesn't stop every other douchebag from destroying perfectly good classic games and selling their 150$ cabinet with a 60$ multicade board in it for 900$ though.
My sentiments exactly. So sick of seeing perfectly good dedicated games getting destroyed.
I think the issues are (1) is it infringement of a license - yes and (2) are the license holders doing anything about it? - no. Unless the license holders take action, the infringement will continue and we get to play the games. That does not mean that it is legal to sell the boards.
Quoted from barakandl:60 in 1 board sucks compared to the game elf 412 in 1.
only for more games. 412 in 1 does not save hi scores 
Obviously, Wikipedia has problems, but here is what it says about MAME legality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAME#Legal_status
Summary: the MAME part is legal, but the game ROMs are not legal. Ergo, the 60-in-1 boards are not legal since they contain both.
Quoted from BobC:The boards for sale have games that were re-written new from scratch, not the original code / roms,
and synthesize a reasonable likeness of the original sounds.
That's my understanding of how they get away with it if not licensed?
The boards are running multiple versions of X-Mame. Each version seems to have a hack that removes features from X-Mame, such as allowing vertical and horizontal games. Though if you have both types of boards (H/V) you can easily copy XMame from one board to the other and run even more games.
They did put some protection on the boards to prevent people from copying extra roms but they are pretty easy to hack. It's funny, they are ripping off all the game companies by including roms on their boards, but yet they feel that people should not be allowed to rip them off.
Quoted from kbliznick:As an owner of the original game with the original roms you have a right to use those rom images to run Pacman in that cabinet.
I'm not sure about that, legally speaking. If you own an original, and the boards go, well, what you own is now junk. There is no legal provision to use a bootleg to make you whole again.
Say you own some blu-ray movies, and you left them out in the sun on a hot day and they won't play any more. The discs you owned, those discs, are junk. Sony has nothing in their terms that says you can then go download the same movies from a torrent site.
All of this is moot of course, no one is going to do much about any of this.
I used to make a lot of money selling those boards. Now they go for $59 or less. Pfft forget it.
eBay's policy is not to allow the sale of those cards anymore, as well as any machine running MAME. People still try to sell them but get flagged fairly regularly.
I've seen multicades on quarter play in bars downtown. It's don't ask don't tell. The owner might not think to ask if the games are legal or not, and the seller might not even know either. Hell I didn't know until I asked and was selling 5-10 a day for a while.
So long story short. Multicade boards are not legal. You're taking a risk as a retailer selling them. If you're a hobbiest building one at home or for a friend nobody is going to care.
Amazon doesn't have a issue selling them, but since ebay stopped maybe they are next.
http://www.amazon.com/classic-arcade-video-jamma-board-Pc/dp/B007OX91II
I used to see games for sale with these installed at the Dallas Super Auctions all the time. You can also find a lot of people on CL selling these in various cites. I've also seen these on location from time to time. Technically they are not legal but there is not a ton of risk either.
Quoted from frolic:I'm not sure about that, legally speaking. If you own an original, and the boards go, well, what you own is now junk. There is no legal provision to use a bootleg to make you whole again.
Say you own some blu-ray movies, and you left them out in the sun on a hot day and they won't play any more. The discs you owned, those discs, are junk. Sony has nothing in their terms that says you can then go download the same movies from a torrent site.
All of this is moot of course, no one is going to do much about any of this.
Actually, yes, the one time you can download movies from torrents legally is when you already have purchased the film on other media. Same goes for music downloads. There have been cases fought in court to have the right to make back-up copies of the media for your own use. You even now receive a free digital copy of most movies when you buy a blue ray.
Years ago I legally downloaded my entire collection of cd's so that I could listen to them in MP3 form without having to rip all the discs myself.
As for using a bootleg, you are correct, that really can't be used to make you whole (like my example in the first post since they actually modified the roms to remove the trademark logos and such), but if you make your own Mame computer using the original roms to repair your machine that falls under fair use and is entirely legal.
Quoted from kbliznick:Actually, yes, the one time you can download movies from torrents legally is when you already have purchased the film on other media. Same goes for music downloads. There have been cases fought in court to have the right to make back-up copies of the media for your own use. You even now receive a free digital copy of most movies when you buy a blue ray.
Years ago I legally downloaded my entire collection of cd's so that I could listen to them in MP3 form without having to rip all the discs myself.
Note that downloading as a torrent means you are also sharing/uploading the file, or at least making it available to be uploaded. There's no way that's within your rights. I don't disagree with the rest of what you're saying.
Quoted from frolic:Say you own some blu-ray movies, and you left them out in the sun on a hot day and they won't play any more. The discs you owned, those discs, are junk. Sony has nothing in their terms that says you can then go download the same movies from a torrent site.
All of this is moot of course, no one is going to do much about any of this.
You can legally make a backup of a DVD/Blu-Ray, exactly for the reason you described. A ROM is the equivalent of that backup.
3 months later
Quoted from asay:You can legally make a backup of a DVD/Blu-Ray, exactly for the reason you described. A ROM is the equivalent of that backup.
Yeah, maybe you can legally own/use an arcade ROM... IF you own an original arcade machine or the original CPU board. But I doubt many people own the (almost) 60 original games that come emulated with ROMs on the 60-in-1 board.
FWIW, the ArcadeSD does not ship with any game ROM data on it. You can load game ROMs (approved/filechecked ones only) onto a microSD card and the board will run them.
So does anyone know of anybody actually getting charged, fined, warned or arrested for selling multicade arcade games?
Quoted from u2sean:My understanding is that the 60-in-1 boards are just knockoffs - there was no royalty paid to the original license holders and shouldn't be on location. As far as those that are gutting working classic games, that's too bad. I have myself taken a few old cabinets that were going to be junked and converted them to multigames using these boards for friends. Better to have the cabinet survive than be completely destroyed.
Absolutely, I had a pacman cab that when I got it was painted some ugly color and had gondomania on a jamma harness in it, I converted it to a galaga with a 60 in 1 board in it. Should I have restored it to a pacman even though there were no remnants of pacman in it? Not everyone is a douche that repurposes a cab.
Quoted from rushfan:So does anyone know of anybody actually getting charged, fined, warned or arrested for selling multicade arcade games?
Grimsby, ON
I have 2 home made cabinets that have multiboards in them.
A 412-1 vertical cabaret machine with a spinner for arkanoid games and tempest.
And a 619-1 horizontal cocktail cab that the board has all the street fighters and classics, moon patrol, robotron, joust. Bubble bobble etc.
I got the vector art files off the intermet and had a place print them on vinyl. The cabs are mdf with vinyl over them as well. No paint.
I know they are bootlegs but for limited space these bords are awesome abd the emulation on most is perfect.
Much better than the 60-1 boards.
The 419-1 vertical even plays/emulates the CAVE shooters.
These new boards are running the android version of mame.
Same version of mame that mame4droid uses.
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