Legal help needed
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Just curious, you are not the first to sell a product based on a Raspberry Pi with RetroPie installed.
Others have done it before and some are still doing it. But! None of them ever had the idea to trademark it or register any other copyright on it.Selling it is not allowed, nor the RetroPie software nor the themes that are installed.
If you "really" wanted to help then it was a very generous thought of you but clearly the wrong approach.You are doing something that does more harm to the team than good.
You want to help, then withdraw your registration, stop selling and help coding, donate, bring ideas that could improve the software.
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@retrogamingcon every single emulator used is 100% illegal to sell. But of course you know that and still didnt care. There is nothing you can do to make this go a legal route. And stealing the name doesnt give you a single legal right to the software that was created by others.
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@FlyingTomahawk You have a very good point ! :)
However the rules were written by men who were in the wrong side of the market (No offense intended). The market does need a preloaded solution ready to go. Feel free to do an independent survey outside the maker community and infer. The online marketplace furether bolsters the theory.
It is matter of providing solution while being cognizant of limitations. -
@edmaul69 Thats incorrect assumption. Please look it up explaining it outside focus of this conversation.
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Excuses and ignorance? Is that how you intend to justify your wrong doing? Every theme that is on it has a CC (creative commons) copyright on it which clearly states that it is prohibited to sell.
Loaded boxes, (loaded=filled with roms) is as far I can recall illegal.
I remember reading about a case in the UK where they arrested and sentenced a guy to jail time for selling loaded Kodi boxes. You would be wise to revert your steps and stop what you are doing before you get into more serious trouble than you already are.Because there are drug addicts it does not make it right to sell drugs.
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That's all nice, but what you did was still illegal. Even if your intentions were honorable, that doesn't matter. You need to make this right and transfer ownership of the trademarks to their respective rightful owners (both RetroPie and Emulation Station). There is nothing else to discuss. If you do not do this then you will be taken to court. It's that black and white.
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I for one suspect your english is far better than the mangled posts you are making here. One would assume that from anyone who had emigrated to the US, made business contacts, built websites, and run even dubious commerical enterprises long enough to commission legal services.
Your posts here are a delaying tactic, I'd wager. No amount of neoliberal babble about markets or commericalisation is going to justify this rather brazen attempt to unlawfully seize an open source project, and a community website which you have neither intellectual rights to, nor legal or operational control over, and which you did not have the graces to even join before inflicting such a stroke upon it. Your intentions were innocent?! The notion! You could have named your fly-by-night ebay package anything under the sun, but you chose to fraudulently trademark it with a name you have no legal title to. Your reasons are no doubt suitably venal for your own ends, but of course no-one here is interested in such topics as money or markets or especially going into business with the likes of yourself in your sale of illegal merchandise. What does concern people here is the hurt and menacing nature of your actions towards this project.
I doubt any judge will smile on your actions or conduct to date, and I do not for one instant accept that you ever had the welfare of, or honourable intentions towards this project in mind. It is for you to answer for your own character in this. You have wasted this projects time, you have wasted the USPTO's time, and you have caused enough disruption already. So give up this shallow scheme, that ill-gotten trademark, and stop inflicting worry and hurt on people who are just trying to code and play video games in peace.
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@retrogamingcon
Thank you for nothing. No one asked you to make this decision. No one here wants to monetize this project. The only thing you show with your ignorance is that you have no respect for other people's choices. You can be glad community shares their hard work with everyone. You could have done your own thing, but you decided to steal other people's work. For sure it was easier to use something ready to use and make some money. -
"@retrogamingcon"
you said it...
whatever happens, Aditya Rawat (company owner, Boston, MA) and Shela Syed's (trademark lawyer) names will be mud after this.
Seems like Aditya works for Cloudlock / Cisco
I wonder if Cisco would be interested in their employee's little side business of being a trademark troll to GPL software, and selling illegal pre-loaded devices, full of software with non-commercial licenses?
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Write your best 'The Register' headline, here's my first entry: "Cisco staffer makes dough selling illegal Pi"
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This is the best way to destroy RetroPi and all others like Recalbox and so on.
It will come to legal attention of the curts. The curts will see, that this is a product, which "could be used" for playing with illegal ROMs. Is it allowed to use illegal ROMs? They will decide, that it's better to prohibit, the usage of the operating system, which is build to use illegal stuff.
Just my opinion... I think, the long-term background is to remove RetroPi from the market.
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@Mossi The "market" part was a bit of a giveaway.
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@EctoOne said in Legal help needed:
@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.Additional linking on their site. It's linked to the old documentation though.
How can to setup a 8bitdo / NES30 or any other 3rd party wireless controller ?
Modified on: Thu, 1 Dec, 2016 at 12:17 PMThe following wiki guide shows how to setup any 3rd party wireless controller >> https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/Setting-up-an-8bitdo-Bluetooth-controller
In any case documentation and proof seem to go far in the courts here. I would document everything it does make a difference. I wonder if a website-downloader would be of any use. I suppose he can pull the site(s) at anytime and all some of the proof is gone.
It seems any money accepted from them would be considered a collaborative effort and would hurt the cause or create a slippery slope of who's project contributions were of value and how much. Monetary and/or coding.
"All contributions will remain open source as long as the founders keep it that way."
This just seems like a sneaky way to get hooks or into the project or some kind of weird threat. It's obvious his English writing skills are very poor reading through his posts and website.
"to be used against makes who make profit and share their work around the project."
Isn't that what he's doing, trademarked it so he can protect himself and make a profit. It seems the only reason he wouldn't go after Retorpie is the last part of that sentence "...share their work around the project." as he needs someone to evolve and develop the project. Tough to slap the hand that's feeding you.
Hmm...
"The commercialization also plans to donate percentage of profits to the project directly and hire developers to add features to the project."
The usual lofty goals and empty promises that you don't intend to keep. The agreed amount so far has been zero dollars and cents! :)
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Judging by @retrogamingcon not replying to anyone's post or posting anything in 3 days from when this was posted and their website being down, I say something happened.
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No items listed for sale on his eBay store either.
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But the store on the web site it still alive for what I see:
_https://store.retrogamingconsole.com/collections/all.
Their facebook page also point to a strange store thing _https://www.facebook.com/shopify. I know for sure that they had a Facebook page but I can't find it today.
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On a lark, I opened a support ticket and asked what was going on. I got a reply that they are making major system updates and should be back online soon.
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Late to the "party", but I cannot believe what I just read. This is absolutely nuts.
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If there is still an interest in filing a TTAB claim (https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/trademark-trial-and-appeal-board-ttab), we should be donating more to the project than usual so they can hire someone in the US to review. Problem is, has to be filed by someone with standing to dispute the Trademark.
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