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

[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.

[Raistlin84]

I hate to quote me XD, however what I've said before (in my country, thought all the EU) it's for free of charge too. Software licenses are for domestic/home use only, you can't have Bios roms, and you need the original game of the roms, even if you have the orginal game you couldn't download it, you must rip from cartridge/cd, and use for you personal domestic entertainment only.
You can only use software with copyleft, but you must read license agreement because many report that can't be used to cross commercial gain.

So, need something retro? Use something broken only for atmosphere.
However using the original hardware is a minor infringement, you maybe violate license to use but not the copyright. Maybe an original Nes, Atari, Snes (nes snes mini too) free of charge with a set of original cartridge could go unnoticed. However you are breaking the license to use, so teorically Nintendo/Atari/etc could ask you for usege rights.

You could search if there is a license for public commercial concern.

[matchaman]

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

@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.

I think there's a general license for movies and audio to be played in a public place (not a specific one for each movie or artist) but I'm very unsure about games, especially in the EU.

I don't plan to make money off of it, the reason I wouldn't allow non-customers to play is that people who would come just to play would be generally troublemakers here in Athens (Greece).

For example, a friend had a free to use jukebox in his bar and people visited just to mess it up and kept vandalising it every time. Ever since he asked the waiters to allow only customers, the jukebox has been remaining in good condition.

[Clyde]

In another thread a similar discussion inclined me to look up the respective sections of U.S. Copyright Law:

@clyde said in Where to (legally) acquire content to play on RetroPie:

Under the U.S. Copyright Law, Chapter 1, Section 101, "publicly" means

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered

That sounds to me like most workspaces. Further on, Section 106 states that

the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
[...]
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

There is no mention of charging money; the mere performance seems to be protected.

[Lurker]

@Clyde is correct and I appreciate it when people go to the "source code" as it were. Copyright law does not have to cover "charging for" or profiting from copyrighted material as copyright law gives the holder protection on the "use" of the material in general.

The idea behind this is that if I wanted to harm a theater's business by showing the same movie for free right next to them, I would be in violation of copyright law and would be harming the copyright holder's ability to profit from their work. Any money I might make is not relevant but the harm I cause to the copyright holder is.

For the letter of the law you are not going to be able to offer copyrighted material (for free or otherwise) to the public without some work to get use licenses.*

• The side note here, that I am a might hesitant to bring up, is a question of enforcement and focus. If the presence or absence of this item was key to your business functioning then it is pretty much violating the spirit of copyright. If it is an inconsequential piece that has little to no effect to your business, the surrounding businesses or copyright holders potential to profit from the material then the chances that you will upset anyone are small.

The dentist example is in that second case. Letter of law; yup violation. Spirit of law; meh. The line gets crossed if the dentist puts out an add saying "come to my dentist office, we have free snes games to play." he is now incorporating it into his business model and the legal argument that would follow is that people wanting to play snes (and maybe get dental work done) would go to his place instead of purchasing a system and thus he has harmed the copyright holders ability to sell those people a snes system.

To look at your specific example, I would say it is a bit too close to the edge. The arcade is a function of your business (retro cafe) and would be a draw for customers. If the arcade was missing it would arguably have an impact on attendance. You would run a higher risk of getting into trouble. For your case, if you want the retro feel, I would recommend just spending the money for a genuine arcade machine and either setting it to free play or not. Purchasing an actual coin arcade includes the public use license and follows the individual machine.

An example on the other side of the line; I know a guy who is a martial arts teacher. He has a mame cabinet in the dojo that the students can play while waiting for the class to start or after class while waiting for their parents to pick them up. The cabinet is irrelevant to the class and the kids have to hang out before and after class whether the cabinet is there or not. So if someone was to raise a fuss then he would take it home and it would have little to no impact on his business. Nor does it impact any business around him as there is no arcade next door the kids would use instead. Nor does it impact the copyright holders as he is not harming any potential that the kids would have purchased an arcade or spent their time at an arcade instead as they lack the freedom to make alternate choices and have to sit there waiting for their parents.

Letter of the law, still a violation, but not really what the law is trying to prevent. I understand how it can be a fine an fuzzy line.

In summation; As others have said, as a guideline, if you can answer "yes" to the question? "Hey would this help me make money directly or inadvertently?" then ya, you are probably violating copyright law.

Want a second catchy slogan? "If you are worried about it then you probably shouldn't do it."