Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?

jonnykesh

Why is peoples' first thought always "How can I make money out of this thing that people make for free?"
Who is going to want to pay to play a load of freeware / homebrew / shovelware games? People will be attracted to an arcade machine and expect to see the classics on there. You won't have any (legally) because those games are copyrighted.
Also a lot of emulators shipped and run under RetroPie have non-commercial licenses, so using them to make money is strictly forbidden.
This question gets asked on this forum every few months and the answer is always NO.

mediamogul

@themicster

I wouldn't bother if I were you. You'd have to go over the licenses for both the emulators, as well as the games, with a fine toothed comb. Some of the emulators have non-commercial licenses and some of the games would forbid public use. As far as using "non-copyrighted" games, you should be aware that any creative work made since 1978, including video games, automatically has a copyright if it was developed in the United States. Other countries have similar automatic protection that you'd need to be aware of. The number of games you could get away with using would be very limited.

Drakaen391

@themicster in the US, you wouldnt be able to....

Mostly because of the non-commercial license on the retropie/retroarch/emulationstation software

You could build it for people to enjoy for free, but the moment you start charging, it violates the License agreements.

jonnykesh

@drakaen391 said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

in the US, you wouldnt be able to....

Why specifically in the US?
The same or similar rights which are extended to creators, licences and IP holders are held and enforced in most of the civilised world.

Themicster

@drakaen391 said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

@themicster in the US, you wouldnt be able to....

You could build it for people to enjoy for free, but the moment you start charging, it violates the License agreements.

So I could possibly put it in the same place for free use?

Themicster

Also, thank you everyone for the info!

jonnykesh

@themicster No. Not in a commercial premises. If it is there as an attraction. Even if it is "Free Play" it is still being used in a commercial manner, contrary to the explicit licenses of the games, the emulators and various other bits of non-commercial software.
"Open Source" does not mean "ripe for commercial exploitation".

hooperre

@jonnykesh said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

@themicster No. Not in a commercial premises. If it is there as an attraction. Even if it is "Free Play" it is still being used in a commercial manner, contrary to the explicit licenses of the games, the emulators and various other bits of non-commercial software.
"Open Source" does not mean "ripe for commercial exploitation".

We've had this conversation on here a few times. I think this is more or less what everybody concluded.

So the dentist that has a SNES for his patient to play until he's ready is technically using it against IP/license agreements. It makes it confusing, however, how Blockbuster and other people got away with renting games. Or how something like console arcades are allowed to exist.

jonnykesh

@hooperre The Dentist was breaking the law. Simple as that.
Blockbuster had a licence from the publisher to rent the game to a member on a temporary basis. The same as they had a license to temporarily loan a movie to a member. Perhaps I missed something?

hooperre

@jonnykesh said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

@hooperre The Dentist was breaking the law. Simple as that.
Blockbuster had a licence from the publisher to rent the game to a member on a temporary basis. The same as they had a license to temporarily loan a movie to a member. Perhaps I missed something?

Just curious, would you find the dentist to be morally wrong?

Edit: Only reason I ask is because this seems a touch heavy-handed in the case of the dentist, for me personally.

"Open Source" does not mean "ripe for commercial exploitation".

mediamogul

@jonnykesh said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

Blockbuster had a licence from the publisher to rent the game to a member on a temporary basis.

Actually, Blockbuster obtained almost all of their games through a retail company at a deep discount without ever dealing with licenses on most occasions. As a result, they found themselves in court quite a bit as I remember. However, I don't think any of the offenses were ever fully litigated.

jonnykesh

@hooperre Morals are irrelevant. If he was using the console as a part of his business without paying for a commercial license he was breaking the law. It really is that simple.

hooperre

This post is deleted!

jonnykesh

@mediamogul This is a "technical" discussion at best.
Morals are irrelevant. Are we not talking about the actual letter of the law?
Similar situation today... Netflix decide to upload a Movie without express permission of the owners. Is that legal? I don't think that will fly.

mediamogul

@jonnykesh said in Is it Legal to use an arcade machine running retropie, put it in a public place and charge quarters to use it?:

Are we not talking about the actual letter of the law?

A: We Are Devo! ;)

jonnykesh

@mediamogul

Hyruleslink

@jonnykesh said:
"Blockbuster had a licence from the publisher to rent the game to a member on a temporary basis."

This is completely false and incorrect. There was no legislation or practice of requiring licences for videogame rentals. Nintendo fought Blockbuster tooth and nail to prevent game rentals and to protect their copyrights. Nintendo lost that war and the only battle they ultimately won over Blockbuster was the prevention of photocopying game manuals, because they were being unlawfully reproduced.

Raistlin84

In my country the emulation software is permitted only if it doesn't use code from the original software.
So first point the emulator is ok, but you can't use bios from the orginal console! Owning the Bios is always forbidden, downloading it too.
Downloading copyrighted software is always forbidden, so you can't download the rom. You can have a game rom if you own it and the user license doesn't forbid.
After such things, you must read the License Agreement because in the 99,9999% you can't use store in plubic place, free of charge too.
The denstist example with the snes is good, he can't do it. In many commercial licenses (maybe all) is reported "home use only". So it is really simple, you can do only breaking the law. I don't agree with actual laws, but we aren't talking about this.

matchaman

I have the exact same question but for "free to play" instead. I plan to open a vintage-themed cafe and have a cabinet with my RetroPie setup (MAME & consoles) for everyone to play. Could that be illegal in some way?

I mean, it could be seen as a means to attract customers but personally I just want to give more of a retro look but without charging anything extra. My only restriction would be that only customers should be allowed to play (not random visitors).

BobHarris

@matchaman I think the same rules for movies apply to games. You can watch a dvd you bought together with some friends in your home. But you are not allowed to show the movie to people in a public place.
Also it seems like you want to make money of it indirectly by only allowing customers to play.