Is this a violation of license?

ronlaws86

It is a real shame. If I was to make a pre-packaged product based around retropie like this, any markup I charged would be forwarded in donations to support the project, and i'd at least include credit and links to those who put in the hard work making it possible so people became aware of where their product originated from, instead of taking all the credit. :(

Riverstorm

@davej said in Is this a violation of license?:

Retroarch has had this problem from the beginning. Not much you can do about it other than to publicise how dodgy they are.

It's tough to combat and you need numbers working together to "police" and "report".

Good post on the Libretro forums...

"...I would recommend to users that they DO NOT use this 'Retro Rearmed' knockoff and for one plain reason - I can't guarantee your privacy when you use this, and I can't guarantee that it doesn't do other unsavoury things..."

"...we still believe that the killer combo of 'no ads' and it being 'free' is a hard winning combination to beat..."

@herb_fargus said in Is this a violation of license?:

why you'd spend twice as much...

How much is twice as much as free?! :)

It's a drag when you get a cease and desist letter about the Australian branch and you have no idea what they are talking about.

Riverstorm

Another that might be worth checking into:

It looks like a modified version of the RetroPie software available for download to work with a commercial product.

hxxp://www.retrobuiltgames.com/porta-pi-arcade-help/porta-pi-software-os-download/

ronlaws86

@Riverstorm That one is at least linking back to retropie forums, even if it is an old link.

Riverstorm

@ronlaws86 said in Is this a violation of license?:

@Riverstorm That one is at least linking back to retropie forums, even if it is an old link.

Yeah I saw that. I was just referring to it as a whole. It's basically combining Adafruits retrogame.c file for GPIO inputs with RetroPie and creating a new distribution package. I do agree though it's not like he's claiming to be an official RetroPie distribution partner or something weird. :)

Concat

Actually, they even encourage donating to RetroPie. Hardly the most egregious example of a terms violation...

Though they do sell SD cards with Retropie image on it, as opposed to just the download section: hxxp://www.retrobuiltgames.com/diy-kits-shop/raspberry-pi-computer/

Riverstorm

@Concat said in Is this a violation of license?:

Actually, they even encourage donating to RetroPie. Hardly the most egregious example of a terms violation...

Though they do sell SD cards with Retropie image on it, as opposed to just the download section: http://www.retrobuiltgames.com/diy-kits-shop/raspberry-pi-computer/

I completely agree it's no where near as egregious as the Australian example but it is a bit dodgy and violates "Legal & Contact" clearly stated in the legalese of the RetroPie "Licenses" section. They are giving away and linking their "homebrew" image to mega.nz that works with their product.

"...this includes “giving away” a pre-installed RetroPie with your commercial product."

"If you are selling hardware that supports RetroPie you should provide a link to our site for your customers rather than including a RetroPie image with your product."

Anyway I was just pointing it out, no harm, no foul... ;)

Ekstreme

This rip off merchant makes me mad. There is a closed group on Facebook for RetroPie and every now and then I see people recommending they buy from this drop kick and other eBay hacks.

The good thing about the FB group, it doesn't matter how many times you say "read the wiki" they completely ignore it and pollute Facebook with their (often) down right basic questions. Less to worry about wasting time here I guess.

DrMaxwell

It's silly to buy something that is available for free. All you need is a raspberry pi and a Micro SD card. There are Facebook groups dedicated to RetroPie that have complete images with media etc, so why on earth would you pay for it unless you cannot flash a Micro SD card.

XVO

I've being ebay hunting today for those b####es who are selling a raspberry pi 2 or 3 with a cheap usb snes like controller and a retropie image with roms on the sd card. I know you can't stop them but I've reported 73 people.
There was one project I couldn't report, it was a zero in a nes controller. He said he couldn't put anything on the sd card except for retropie, I respect that guy. The controller (project) costs about 25 pounds, so for the effort and not selling roms A++ ;)

herb_fargus

@XVO he can't even put RetroPie on the sd card. That's illegal too.

XVO

@herb_fargus
I've ended my browser section so it would take me like 1.5hours to find him on ebay. I've used the search term Raspberry pi, so I could find everything.

But hey, I'm trying to be the good guy here, other people sell retropie fully loaded for about 80 bucks.

I hope ebay will kick the other guys.

glennlake

@herb_fargus What I would like to see for the newbie is someone selling a package of hardware (Pi, game controllers, power supply, sd card, maybe a nice custom case etc.) and with links to download RetroPie and instructions on how access the wiki pages. That's about as far as you can go to stay on the good side of my moral beliefs.

UDb23

Unfortunately there's another e-shop selling a "kit" that includes Retropie: hxxp:\xxx.plexishop.it/en/ready-made/retropie-kit-with-lcd-display-10

lobi

Two more from spain:

hxxp://tiendaarcade.com/inicio/23-mini-consola-arcade-alpha.html (price 179€, ilegal roms included, facebook page hxxps://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1166582383432285&substory_index=0&id=428325007258030)
hxxp://www.toad.es/shop/es/inicio/33-retroconsola-time-machine-by-toad-8437015663043.html Toad Time Machine, this company stole the desing to Ryan Bates (hxxp://www.retrobuiltgames.com/the-build-page/porta-pi-arcade-lite/). Ilegas roms are included. (price 199€).

It´s a pitty that a lot of people are making money, and they are not retroarch or retropie developers.

BuZz

Thanks. Can I ask people if posting links here, to make the links broken - so the sellers don't gain any google rank (as our site is quite popular ;-) )

I have edited some of the posts above to change http to hxxp

UDb23

@BuZz good point. Just edited url in my post.

space cadet

I found a genius kits on ebay with snes controllers and also retropie pre-installed on a sd card. They even had sd card size choices. Bummer people try to profit of others!

XVO

@lobi said in Is this a violation of license?:

Two more from spain:

hxxp://tiendaarcade.com/inicio/23-mini-consola-arcade-alpha.html (price 179€, ilegal roms included, facebook page hxxps://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1166582383432285&substory_index=0&id=428325007258030)

hxxp://www.toad.es/shop/es/inicio/33-retroconsola-time-machine-by-toad-8437015663043.html Toad Time Machine, this company stole the desing to Ryan Bates (hxxp://www.retrobuiltgames.com/the-build-page/porta-pi-arcade-lite/). Ilegas roms are included. (price 199€).

It´s a pitty that a lot of people are making money, and they are not retroarch or retropie developers.

At least the site from portapi let you download the image from here, if you press the link you will be transfered to the retropie homepage.
And don't forget that he also mentioned the devs.
' Download the image below to try it for yourself. If you like the image, please considering purchasing a kit to make the most out of it. Also consider donating to RetroPie.org. They rock.'

lobi

You are right @XVO , (I did not explain well) portapi is totally right, the fact that I wanted to remark was that TOAD copied the work in the desing of the Joystick, and used a modified SD with retropie and illegal roms.
There is a lot more here that use retropie with roms:

hxxp://www.ebay.es/itm/CONSOLA-RASPBERRY-PI3-64GB-PS2-RECALBOX-Y-KODI-O-RETROPIE-RECREATIVA-ARCADE-/272332431615?hash=item3f684720ff:g:QOsAAOSwIgNXpbGJ
(124.90€ and 24 sold units).
hxxp://www.ebay.es/itm/CONSOLA-RASPBERRY-PI3-RECALBOX-Y-KODI-O-RETROPIE-MEMORIA-16GB-32GB-64GB-ARCADE-/282074297920?var=&hash=item41acf03640:m:mClkyA5RPZnQrvUu-zDnB9w
(124.99€ and 60 units solds).