Can I sell a RetroPie image?
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Hey,
I have been spending the last few months working on a gaming handheld but I didn’t know till recently that I can’t sell a RetroPie image. I have worked so hard on this and I really want to sell it. I was hoping to sell it but not include any ROMS as that is illegal. Can I still sell it?
Raspberry Pi 4 Retropie 4.8 -
@Limegreengamer9 said in Can I sell a RetroPie image?:
Can I still sell it?
No, see https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/.
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@mitu so there is no way? Because I have been working on this for months and would hate to lose all my work:(
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@Limegreengamer9 perhaps gift it to the gaming community as an act of altruism?...
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@hawkes_84 But it cost me a lot to make. What if I’m only charging people for the parts and technically not the RetroPie installation that just comes included. Bc I have been modifying my RetroPie installation hugely. I added so many features and I don’t want to not have any of it included. What if I used an older version of RetroPie. I’m really hoping to use this🙏.
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@Limegreengamer9 said in Can I sell a RetroPie image?:
What if I’m only charging people for the parts and technically not the RetroPie installation that just comes included.
Please read the legal page linked by @mitu.
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Much of the software included in the RetroPie image have non-commercial licences. Because of this selling a pre-installed RetroPie image is not legal
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this includes “giving away” a pre-installed RetroPie with your commercial product.
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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.
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@Limegreengamer9 Not sure about the hardware part - maybe you could (re-)sell it... but retropie/ES - the various emulators... no way! Even if you just fork the GIT and add your changes to the fork, you still have to comply to the license agreements for ALL (sorry for shouting) of the components (we are talking not only retropie/libretro/emulation station, but also all included emulators) - in the end (AFAIK), your work/image have to comply with all the "upstream" licenses and that would mean your image/work besides the hardware parts must be offered for free and your own work (under same license) could be reused by others (as long as they comply to the GPL and whatever license models are involved)! [Edit: And YOU (sorry again) would be responsible for the support, custom image/3rd-Party ... -> no one here could help your customers, are you sure that you are capable to cope with'em?]
Long speech, short ending: Retropie itself is/includes a bundle of software and is in itself bound to the license models from those. NoOne from the "RetroPie"-project may grand you the rights to violate any licenses involved in this chain, and RetroPie in itself is obliged to honour those.
Edit: @sleve_mcdichael Your Post came/was send first while I was typing mine, so don't be flabbergasted about the repitition - I haven't read yours whilst phrasing mine %^] (And you got it straight to the point, whereas I tried to reformulate to explain)
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@Ashpool Ah ok. So if I coded my own alternative to RetroPie from complete scratch, would that be alowed?
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@Limegreengamer9 said in Can I sell a RetroPie image?:
if I coded my own alternative to RetroPie from complete scratch, would that be alowed?
Your own work? Of course. Also of course, if your project incorporates any other works (emulators, etc.) then you would be bound to abide by those works' own licenses as well, clearly.
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@sleve_mcdichael Ok it will take me a lot of time then, but I am really passionate about this project. It’s called Retro Ally. I’ll use Pygame to incorporate UI and install custom emulators. Thanks for your help
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