Legal help needed

adamspc

@retrogamingcon said in Legal help needed:

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.

alt text

This is your eBay feedback. No illegal ROMS?

flop

What about sending him "some" e-mails XD?

UDb23

@retrogamingcon Appreciate that you posted and explained your point of view.
As you registered something created by hard work of others, if your intention is/was to protect and support the project, it would be expected that you involve the creators of Retropie before registering. Just personal opinion.

Lyle_JP

@retrogamingcon said in Legal help needed:

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.

You are selling pirated roms. Your eBay feedback proves it.

I hope your lawyers are good. It's not us, but a few companies in Japan, that you might really need to worry about.

retrogamingcon

@DanielD The cash flow on the entire commercialization remains negative ( due tooling in china and IP protection costs), the case that you see on the website was originally tooled by us however in china there is no such than as IP amongst the manufacturers unless you involve legal grounds beforehand our cases got copied in no time. The effort is to start doing in the coming quarter.

retrogamingcon

@adamspc The ebay account was taken over by us by, I can't say which particular buyer got so but I can confirm there is no copyrighted game on the end products at the time of speaking.

retrogamingcon

@UDb23 We did reach out the founder in early times on however based on the contact it was self evident that owners had no interest in commercialization at that moment.
See reply to @adamspc

adamspc

@retrogamingcon
What you did was smart. You sold them with ROMs until the trademark went through, and now that you got the trademark you've obliterated the competition and you're selling them legally. It's clear that you had everything ready for when the trademark was approved.

You know what you're doing. We know what you're doing. I hope you honor your word about supporting RetroPie monetarily.

ruckage

@retrogamingcon said in Legal help needed:

@UDb23 We did reach out the founder in early times on however based on the contact it was self evident that owners had no interest in commercialization at that moment.
See reply to @adamspc

And so you think that somehow gives you the right to just steal the name and commercialize it for yourself? You really are the lowest of the low - the mental hoops you must have jumped through to justify this to yourself are astounding.

retrogamingcon

@adamspc not just monetarily but to make it feature rich. Ofcourse there is profit motive however the goal is make retropie the name for maintaining the heritage of video gaming and hopefully independent gaming down the line. The plan is to not have the project to end up like XBMC forced to name as Kodi. This is the commitment.

retrogamingcon

@ruckage If you don't consider the motives not giving back , we are not taking anything from the founders. Its definitely bad news for those who would.
Again educated conversation only.

ruckage

@retrogamingcon said in Legal help needed:

@ruckage If you don't consider the motives not giving back , we are not taking anything from the founders. Its definitely bad news for the those who would.
Again educated conversation only.

Are you serious? You've taken the name and work of others and passed it off as your own - you truly are unbelievable. The fact you have the gall to even say you are 'giving back' is amazing. Exactly what have you 'given back' as I see nothing.

UDb23

I think @retrogamingcon should clarify and find agreement directly with the developers.
That's the point now.
Educated conversation should always be the case, regardless of each other's opinion.

retrogamingcon

@ruckage Please understand this requires some time to prove because till now there was no way to determine if the investments would be viable till the trademark has been secured again we have no interest in project being in the harms way or violate any of its right. A simple ebay search would reveal that very well.

FlyingTomahawk

@retrogamingcon

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.

edmaul69

@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.

retrogamingcon

@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.

retrogamingcon

@edmaul69 Thats incorrect assumption. Please look it up explaining it outside focus of this conversation.

FlyingTomahawk

@retrogamingcon

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.

NedScott

@retrogamingcon

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.