Legal help needed

mediamogul

None of this should even be necessary. At my core, I'm actually a pretty cynical person and it's served me well over the years, but when I see an absolute new low in human behavior, it still gives me pause for thought. The lengths people have gone through in the recent past to steal a piece this project's identity for their own personal gain has consistently been disgusting, but the attempt to outright take the branding identity through legal channels absolutely blows my mind.

I don't believe in karma as being some sort of magical force, but I do believe that people who move through life with no regard for other people ultimately find themselves in a situation where they have no one willing to support or tolerate them and many even actively working against them to make their life difficult. If this is to be believed at all and that his actions here represent a pattern of despicable behavior, then I have no doubt that Aditya Rawat will find himself on the losing end of life before long.

romain

Hi,
I can't really help you with this issue, just to say that there are some much crooked people around the world that I loose day after day my faith in humanity. But there are they are always people willing to help and support and that's a good sign that, the world is not totally insane after all. The only advise I could dive is to contact Ebay and Github to see if they can banned him because he tries to overcome your rights with this project. Also, a publication on slashdot.org could be cool to inform the world and let the geek worl know about your current issue and maybe help. Good Luck! I love Retropie and really hope this idiot will have what he deserved.

Capeman

Start loading up the official img with a ton of pirated roms, then forward all the lawsuits and take down notices to the guy who owns the copyright.

Lyle_JP

@Capeman It's a "burn it all down and salt the earth" tactic. It would destroy RetroPie with it.

Capeman

@Lyle_JP I know, just being facetious

pjft

I am deeply saddened to hear about this. Let me check on Monday if there's anyone I know that could help here. Also, EFF is definitely a good lead. And I'm all up for trademarking it in Europe if more domains would help. Just say the word.

Lyle_JP

Well, the next time anyone who bought a pre-built pi with games wanders in here and demands support, I know whose email address I'm giving them.

obsidianspider

Based on the trademark filing he has a product website, and wow, this guy has no shame in blatantly ripping off others' work for profit.

EctoOne

@obsidianspider wow, his faq even links to the Retropie.org.uk wiki to tell which systems are included.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

mediamogul

He has his custom images up for download if it would help to look at them. I don't feel right about linking them, but the highest version is 4.2.1 if you can wrap your brain around that absurdity.

BuZz

Thanks everyone for your support and ideas. We are looking into a number of options currently.

protious

if you go to http://retrogamingconsole.com/ hit support and then report to https://freshdesk.com/contact that https://retrogamingconsole.freshdesk.com/support/home is not legit we could get his support kicked. he wants to be back stabbing, customers have the right to report fake services and sites!

protious

LOL nevermind the site that they use for the ticketing is giving.

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Ended up emailing the company
With
https://retrogamingconsole.freshdesk.com/support/home
as the subject and letting them know that the "company that has the account is a fraud!

edmaul69

@BuZz if you contact these guys they should be able to help you out. https://www.fsf.org/licensing

steveieboy

Consider writing to The Register: http://theregister.co.uk they have been supportive to me in the past in publicising similar 'silliness'.

The Register love a good Pi story, and I'm sure they'll get their mits on this story one way or another?

Rion

@hunterk posted this link on the Libretro forums.

Does "prior art" apply to Trademarks?

Interesting read with answers from 8 different lawyers.

There is also some reddit threads if you just search for "retropie legal help". Some with god info and some with more personal attacks and hateful comments. Like always.

Fruitybit

@mediamogul said in Legal help needed:

I don't believe in karma as being some sort of magical force, but I do believe that people who move through life with no regard for other people ultimately find themselves in a situation where they have no one willing to support or tolerate them and many even actively working against them to make their life difficult. If this is to be believed at all and that his actions here represent a pattern of despicable behavior, then I have no doubt that Aditya Rawat will find himself on the losing end of life before long.

Reading reviews and such on what appears to be the domain registrant, Domains by Proxy, I hope karma comes around sooner rather than later for him.

DanielD

Found him on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/usr/retrogamingconsoles?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

one semi good thing is he is giving everyone selling retropies a trademark violation, so he can be the only seller lol
hes got over 500 sales

adamspc

Wow.

Let us know if donations are needed for legal help.
I gave a some just to show my support.

retrogamingcon

Looks like there is a lot of head on topic and I am here representing the retrogamingconsoles

The trademark is not hurt or jeopardize the project but a weapon to protect from the commercial users violating the rules and jeopardizing the project.

The takedowns been done only against the folks who were loading the roms illegally and making retropie a piracy project.

What trademark is all about.

A weapon against anybody:

loading roms illegally and selling it online for profits jeopardizing the project itself.
-Not respecting the non-commercial clauses and scarping the non commercial cores from end project.
-Not respecting the GNU principals and codebase when the project is in a commercial product.
-using the project commercially and not providing a official support, taxing the forum.

What trademark is NOT about:

to be used against makes who make profit and share their work around the project.
to be used against the interest of the project
take over the freedom and future of the project

The commercialization also plans to donate percentage of profits to the project directly and hire developers to add features to the project.
All contributions will remain open source as long as the founders keep it that way.

Commercializing and bastardization of the project has already been going for months, all this is to protect the movement and not act against it.

Happy to have a educated conversation without the hate speech and blames and work on common grounds to help project this movement.

Long live retropie !