I have spent three years building a factory from an empty shell, employing staff, buying equipment and then designing and building pinball machines. In that time my wife has passed away, one employee also passed away and numerous other things have happened.

This is not an "excuse" as to why things have taken three years but the reason for it.

If you can't see that then you are someone that I never want to have anything to do with because you are obviously one of the few that have some problem with me and no matter what I ever do it won't please you.

That was a quick response, stay focused on what matters is all I'm getting at. This you should drain. It's about the OP not you.

I'm at home having a beer (if that's OK by you) - it's 8.30pm here. Just staying abreast of what is being said around the web - not only on Pinside, that accounts for about 10% of my interest online.

atleast the best one made is a non-liscence

Actually Checkpoint is licensed, it is the only machine with Porsche images for a reason. Porsche makes these little pinball companies look like amateurs when it comes to defending IP.

They are not doing too good of a job since every strip bar on earth has at least one.

"Gentlemen, she's here to rev up your engines, put your hands together for Por-shaaaaaa!"

They just have to spell is Portia to get around that

oh thank goodness its just portia... i thought it was going to be you in that mini skirt again...

I have a good idea, someone should announce they are going to remake King Pin and make a thread on pinside. If rick really did have the capcom rights for the entire pin division... you'd find out really fast.

He already has the right to do King Pin. Capcom had nothing to do with it.

I personally would welcome it as my King Pin was semi routed and beat. I wouldn't mind a nice new one some day.

Actually that is the WHOLE point. Rick comes on here and spews his garbage but wont provide any proof. I wouldn't listen to a word he has to say until he provides proof.

As for " some-one " owing it, so Rick should be given a cookie for being a nice guy and threatening someone about something he doesnt even own?

Come on...

Shocking Pezpunk disagrees but has no leg to stand on. Show me a contract or stop trying to bully people. Its really simple, PROVIDE PROOF and EVERYONE drops it, otherwise, run your company into the ground while everyone continues to ask simple questions.

Same here.

I heard the inks used have some of the highest U.V. resistance (against fading) in the industry...perhaps the world. I am not a chemist but evidently they do not cut corners on the ink quality. That is pretty cool if it is true.

Go back a few years on rgp circa 2006. The same attorney made a similar public statement regarding an ongoing case when he was representing IPB in a similar matter. Public statement, followed by certified mail cease and desist with list of demands followed by settlement and any issues of compensation.

I've seen this being played out before in similar circumstances. The lead characters may have changed, but the plotline remains the same.

That's why the outcome won't be too hard to predict.

here we are almost in 2017, no reason why ALL pinball parts couldn't be remade - there is now the technology to do 3D printing with tougher materials, computerised everything means fancy printing can be done on paper and vinyl and plastic and wood, more and more people have access to machinery - lathes, mills, routers and other gizmos to shape and bend and cut stuff, laser etching whatnots, all that .... science stuff.

so Rick, why aren't you making it all? obviously there's too much to do it all yourself, so why not contract others to make whatever stuff they want, let people choose what they want to make and how they choose to do it. a button on the PPS website for people to click to tell you what they want to reproduce. then you say how much you want per item to allow this - say it was a cabinet decal for a Taxi, maybe you'd want $35 for each set or something ..... or maybe it's a Whitewater ramp, and you want $20 for each one sold, or a ring for the Shadow and you want $6 a time, ... a motor $9 to PPS.... whatever....all the 'unobtainium' stuff.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/name-unobtainium-parts-for-popular-titles
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-parts-are-unobtainium

of course you could demand $10,000 for every item, it's up to you, if you want to actively prevent stuff being made. but then you'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face, ignoring a stream of revenue. you could be making money, and others also making money, and the enthusiasts getting the parts - a win/win/win.

why not? set the price to maximise your profit - selling 300 at $10 each is better than only selling 10 at $100 each; plus the bigger the run, the more sense it makes to the interested other parts-maker (economies of scale). that other maker could pass this IP cost on to the buyer, and they could choose whether to pay it or not. they'd put a link per part on their website, to a list where people could sign up at a potential price - or two lists, 'who'd buy it if it was $100?' and 'who'd buy it if it was $200?', say. then when they had enough people on the list, the parts would get made. you could make a fortune.

What is this about???... ebay.com link: itm

Largely agree with your point, though I think you must mean for more people to be involved as suppliers to PPS? I think that's the only way it could work. The alternative would be PPS saying 'ok everyone, make whatever you want, but you got to pinky promise to pay us per part sold' which would be a huge trust issue.

Looks like someone just compiled publicly available patents and is selling it. Nothing to do with copyright or licensing issues really.

If the parts were only sold via approved sellers (in various countries) the revenue could be controlled.

Stop abusing the word "bully" and crying over someone disagreeing with you. Are you really so sensitive and fragile that you cant take someone disagreeing with you?

MMR is proof PPS has the rights to the B/W stuff, and everyone here knows RetroRefurbs is reproducing and selling unlicensed B/W parts. Anyone that pretends otherwise is lying.

This has nothing to do with the B/W and while you know that, you continue to hide behind it and support/prop up your beloved PPS. This thread and complaint was started to question how and why Rick could possibly complain about photos that contained Capcom images.

Its now 10 pages deep and I've still yet to see a logical answer.

"Someone" owns the rights is not a logical answer nor does it give PPS the right to "bully" people without proof.

He already does this. If you want to produce something and you contact him, you can work out a deal. You just have to be willing to give him his cut, whatever he deems that to be.

I feel like we all need to retreat to our "safe places". This thread is getting way to hard to handle!

I liked you already VID, and even more now. LOL. I was surprised you initially left it at MOP, or the guy after you did. And Justice for All ripped it the hell up, and their sound got so much tighter and forthcoming on that album. As a drummer myself, Lars' drums just sound ridiculously crisp on AJFA, and learning to drum that album challenged me a little. From Blackened all the way to Dyer's Eve. Then they went on to Nothing Else Matters, and nothing did. LOL. (well, Sad But True was a good jingle). Black album just got a little slow for me.

Sorry for the sidebar. Back to the issue at hand...(although I'm tiring of it at this point).

I heard it was 20% of the overall selling price.

Not always true.

Pete

You could rename your site Going out of business! I hear it's good for business!!

There seems to be a very spiteful tone in your post. I must say it is disappointing to read. No wonder there are 13 down votes and counting. I don't think it is your place to question how much time any person should spend on Pinside. It is overstepping and prosumptious.

Although I'm not condoning RetroRefurbs actions on making prints of artwork that they probably don't own the license to reproduce, I do find it slightly cheeky that in PPS's own product (MMr) they are using LGPL software (SDL 1.2 for one) and not providing the appropriate license in the download. IANAL but at the very least they should have a readme included in the download that links to the appropriate LGPL.

Also it appears that have used a TTF font that they aren't supposed to be redistributing:

This typeface is the property of Monotype Typography and its use by you is covered under the terms of a license agreement. You have obtained this typeface software either directly from Monotype or together with software distributed by one of Monotype's licensees.
This software is a valuable asset of Monotype. Unless you have entered into a specific license agreement granting you additional rights, your use of this software is limited to your workstation for your own publishing use.
You may not copy or distribute this software.

Now that's karma.

The rules are different for Mr. Personality.

I love the black album. And I hate justice. The mixing on justice is some of the worst in music history. It might be good if they say re-record the bass and play it at an actual decent level. Justice sounds terrible on any sound system.

The black album style at least retains Metallica style rhythm guitars. Sad but true is one of the heaviest slower songs I've ever head and the mixing on the black album is very good. I don't think metallica was ruined until after this.

I guess that fall under "Do what I say not what I do".

Go ahead, keep making excuses for a thief just because you have beef with Rick. You know retro refurbished is printing unlicensed B/W stuff. Don't bother denying it.

It looked like Retro Refurbs were discontinuing ALL B/W cabinet art after it eventually sells out.
Not really surprising after the confrontation here.

No real difference between what happened with PA (Phoenix Arcades), whose quality was superb.
Not sure how many people were around for that battle.
I still have my FT, I redid with their decals, and the colors, dots, texture, and dithering were a spot on factory match.
PPS eventually did the artwork around 10 years later, not highly motivating.

The situation can get a bit disheartening if someone wants to restore a machine.
Sometimes you do "trade up" on machine quality before something gets eventually made.
If third party parts suppliers come to the table early, this thread can *somewhat* be avoided.
But, as someone stated, it is all about "the bottom line" right?
No problem.
Any "black market" parts, have started to not be "advertised" now as produced by private collectors, thereby avoiding the big FUA contest.
Collectors helping collectors.
I personally would not have any problems loaning parts for reproduction, NOS or otherwise, but you cannot endear collectors based on "the bottom line" and making them wait for decades to make something, we just go do it ourselves.

Was it a pinside battle or rgp battle? I'd like to look it up.

Just show you have the rights to sell these parts and end this.

Myself, I like almost everything bootleg.

Guitars, watches, music, movies.........the idea of sticking it to The Man adds extra enjoyment to the product; besides the obvious benefits of lower cost and enjoying it sooner than the deplorable masses.

rolex-1024x682 (resized).jpg

The strip club near me is a more working class type of place.
The top dancers names there are Pinto, Chevette, Yugo and Vega. Guess there's no copyright issues with those....

I changed my post and put in sell instead of make thanks for the info.

It's one thing to infringe on someone else's copyright IP that is being commercialized and sold to the general public.

It's another thing to whine about products that aren't being developed by the IP holder and produced by someone else.

Put the freaking LICENSING fees out there in plain view for everybody to see so they can make their decision on whether or not it's worthwhile to them to provide that product.

The licensor would get a good idea as well as to whether or not the Licensee was being a good steward of the IP or not.

And the pinball community would get what it needs

Full disclosure and up front.

It was not really a posted "battle", it was just a known "battle" in the pinball restoration community, in a time when decals of any kind were in great need and options were quite limited.
Early 2000s.

Crappy licensed products were not flooding the market unlike some cases today, although we did have our share of inkjet printed decal laminated plastics for a time.
The lesson to be learned here is reproduction products don't have to be licensed to be quality, it's a misconception.

PA conceded, but continues to make outstanding decals for arcade games with much less grief.
PPS can quote the exact year, if they wish with the CDL.
Anyone can find their website, if required, and review their products.

I am not a spokesperson for any company, I just know the care that is put into certain products, just like Shay and CPR, even though sometimes things don't always turn out "quite right".

"GO...team!"

haha your position is so weak you are reduced to nit picking autocorrect? weak.

dude you are (or have been) selling reproduction parts that PPS owns the rights to. you think you can weasel out of it on various technicalities and bullshit but that's the reality of the situation. there are hipocrites here who have your back because they dont like rick or because they want their parts and screw any other factor, just like you will find people saying Mad Amusements never screwed THEM over so it's not their problem.

well 20% doesn't seem extortionate, to me anyway.
especially if they make it clear to the buyer that this is how the price is made up

so PPS do you think you could possibly consider making the process easier for other parts manufacturers? rather than lying in wait with a lawyer, actually encourage and facilitate work by others?