MAME

MAME is a computer software program for personal computers. The purpose of MAME is to faithfully and precisely emulate as many arcade games as possible, with the intent of preserving gaming history and preventing vintage games from being lost or forgotten. The name is an acronym for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.

Legal status of MAME

Owning and distributing MAME itself is legal in the US, as it is merely an emulator. Some companies (notably Sony) have attempted in court to prevent emulators from being sold, but they have been ultimately unsuccessful (http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,34281,00.html). As of yet, no legal action has been brought against the MAME team.

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While emulators are legal, ROM images are covered by copyright law. The MAME license explicitly forbids people from distributing it along with ROM images.

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Legal status of ROMs

If you own the actual arcade game, making a backup copy of your ROMs for your PC is legal in the US. Some ROM images (such as Atari's) are available for purchase legally. There are several ways of acquiring ROMs which are probably legal in most, if not all, jurisdictions:

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• Buying games as ROMs, e.g.
• From a ROM retailer such as Star ROMs
• Sometimes come bundled with P.C. recreations made by the original developers
• Copying the ROM images from an actual arcade game owned by you
• Downloading where the original game's copyright has lapsed, e.g.
• the East German arcade game Poly Play
• Downloading where the game's producers have allowed this, e.g.
• Gridlee
• Robby Roto

Most people believe that you'll probably never get into legal trouble by using MAME. For the "classic", pre-1990 games, this is almost certainly true, as the market value of the ROM images is negligible. However, some recent, post-2000 games have been added to MAME. Some think such games should not be included, because they risk unwelcome attention from the copyright holders. Certain people quote a "5-year rule", stating that 5 years is how old a game should be before being emulated in MAME. However, there is no legal basis for a such a rule. The website mame.dk was shut down due to a dispute with a copyright holder. It was reopened for awhile, and it is currently closed again, claiming that the bandwidth costs more than the revenue generated by the website. At one point, the MAME team suggested that they adhered to a 3-year rule. MAME currently operates under no real "year rule" as such; instead when MAMEdev feels that a game is no longer being manufactured or no longer popular in arcades, only then will it be added, and not a moment sooner, though at the time of writing, the most recent game added to MAME was three years old. There are two reasons for this rule: to avoid harming the profits of arcade companies, and to lessen the possibility of future lawsuits. They fear that, just because MAME has not yet been subject to legal action, doesn't mean it will never be.

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Many copyright holders are currently ignoring the ROM distribution activity. This may change in the future. Some people argue that, as long as it's for personal use and the user isn't selling the ROMs, it's perfectly legal. They argue that the copyright holders have abandoned their copyright by not enforcing it for many years; most of the games are no longer being manufactured. The actual legality of ROM downloading depends on the country, although most arcade games are still protected by copyright in almost all jurisdictions, and will remain so for decades yet. The MAME community has shown itself to be reasonable. When one company requested that ROMs for its games be removed from mame.dk, the maintainers of that website immediately complied.

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The RIAA is cracking down on filesharing users for trading songs. The same may someday also happen with ROMs for all kinds of gaming emulators; ROM sites have been targeted in the past by the IDSA (now the ESA). If an individual did get sued by a copyright holder, they would probably feel compelled to make a legal settlement. If they were to choose to fight the claim, they would have to spend a large share of money on their legal defense, even if they ultimately would win; so settlement would probably be the most viable option.

Related Topics:
RIAA - IDSA - Legal settlement

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It is rumored that the operators from the mame.dk website have shut down their site because they were concerned about personal liability, and not because of the expense of running the website. Someone who obtains a set of ROM images probably faces a much smaller legal liability than someone who has distributed ROMs to several other people.

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Is it wrong to use MAME?

Almost all users of MAME think there is nothing wrong with using MAME for old games that can no longer be purchased or found in modern arcades. However, many people think that current games should not be emulated or played in MAME.

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There are a number of arguments for and against using MAME. It's important to note that these are ethical, not legal arguments; the legal status of ROMs is for the most part not subject to argument.

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Here are some arguments in favor of MAME's legitimacy:

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• The copyright laws are overly restrictive. The copyright terms are too long, especially when applied to software. These restrictive laws were purchased by big business' lobbying. Using MAME is a form of civil disobedience.
• The copyright holders have abandoned their copyright, because they no longer actively sell the ROM images and they do not enforce their copyright. ROM images have already been distributed for years without the copyright holders complaining.
• It does not harm anyone. The market value of the ROM images is negligible.
• Some people purchased console versions of games, which were advertised as replicas of the arcade version, but are sometimes inferior. In that case, if someone bought the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, they should be entitled to use MAME to play the arcade version of the game.

Arguments against MAME include:

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• Using a game without permission is copyright infringement and should be treated as such.
• Game copyright holders have not assented to their games' free use simply by virtue of not posing legal challenges against their distribution; the logistics of trying to sue every person who ever sent or received a ROM file make defending the copyright prohibitively expensive.
• Widespread unauthorized distribution of games functions as a deterrent against the future development of games, which would mean that using MAME is contrary to gamers' own interests.
• Interest in vintage gaming is strong and growing; the ROMs' market value is not negligible and possibly still appreciating. This notion is supported by the fact that some older arcade games are being re-released in arcades, like Taito's re-release of Space Invaders for its 25th anniversary, and re-sold in compilation packs for modern video game consoles and PCs. Recently Metal Slug 3 was released as a full price game for the PlayStation 2, illustrating that games covered by MAME are still sold in some cases. (There is an argument that this growing interest in vintage gaming exists precisely because of emulation, and MAME in particular.)
• Freely distributed out-of-print games will compete with more recent, commercial games. It is in the interest of rightsholders to restrict in the ability of old games as not to reduce demand for their new titles; this is, legally, something they are entitled to under current copyright law.