Pinball on digital era and Second Precept

StrayDog

There is a free software named visual pinball which runs recreations of pinball tables. the software is legal, but, play recreation of tables is clearly illegal because it´s copyright infringment. The companies gave freely the roms (read only memory of the machines) and they are stored on ipdb.org, but is illlegal to use them. Most of this companies are now dead, or not involved anymore on pinball, these machines nowadays are verry difficult to find. Companies knows that the community vpforums.org recreate their tables, and people play domestically without licence, but even if theycompanies know they do nothing to stop them, and tolerate those actions , on their side, the community doesn´t recreate the newer tables.as a sort of non written agreement for surviving, and demonstrate their respect to them.Said so, I am breaking the second precept if i play those games?

person

I think this falls under the category of other online piracy such as music or movies and I'm of the opinion that it does count as stealing. Here's a recent thread we had on pirating music.

http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/13867/pirating-music/p1

Zayl

Hmm, I guess if you wanted to be anal about it you could call it stealing. On the other hand, this could be raising awareness of pinball machines and might get people out there actually pumping coins into them to play the real thing.

federica

that depends.
do you think you are....?
how does it make you feel?
I always go by the -

"If it feels good, do it.
When in doubt - don't."

- rule.

It works for me in a whole shedload of different scenarios.....

nanimo

I would say playing recreations of pinball from companies that are no longer in business would not be considered stealing as no money is being stolen from or made by those products. As for those companies still in business, whether they build the machines or not, that would be stealing if only copyright infringement.

I am not however a lawyer so this is just an opinion which may or may not be worth 2 cents.

nanimo

StrayDog

@Nanimo: dont you think is still copyright infringment because i did not ask creators permit?
And if i try to ask the permit and the creators are not reachable, can i consider abandonware and play it without breaking the second precept?

federica

I repeat my post.... above:

"If it feels good, do it.
When in doubt - don't."

nanimo

Like I said, I'm no lawyer, but if the company's defunct then odds are pretty good it is abandonware IMO-- thats not a catch all though as copyrights tend to revert to the individuals the companies bought them from sometimes so if the owner wanted to be "difficult" they legally could cause problems for you. That said, I have yet to hear of a copyright owner going crazy unless someone made bundles of money off their copyrighted product.

StrayDog

I talked more with creators and such, this is the information they gave me : Lest we forget when I was called out by name to Gary Stern in the January 2011 issue (# 268) of GamePro Magazine about what we do here, and he replied, "It's a good educational tool for learning the game, and I'm all for it. I'm for anything that stimulates interest, but it's not real pinball. It's something different." Owner of Stern Pinball.

Noah has talked with Rick at Planetary Pinball and he said he does not care if we use their roms, as long as we don't host the LED hacked roms.
When the Williams and Bally rights were licensed to Wayne in Australia, Wayne himself posted on the Future Pinball Forum exclaiming how excited and happy he was that Future Pinball was recreating Williams and Bally games.
Wayne did send me a C&D about Star Wars Episode 1/Pinball 2000 - and look, you don't see it here do you? duh. He could have just as easily sent us a letter about the other roms, but he likes those being used.
I myself contacted Williams numerous times trying to track down roms, and they sent us some.
Williams and Bally signed an agreement for 15 of their game roms to be used on Ultrapin - a commercial endeavor that cost >$375,000 - which they would not have been able to do if it wasn't for visual pinball and pinmame
The PinMAME dev team has sent bug fixes to Stern for their whitestar 2 system and they even included Steve Ellenoff and Gerrit Volkenborn "thanks messages" in the Nascar and/or Grand Prix romsets for it
Steve has talked with Gary Stern in person
Steve has worked on other pinball software programs for Farsight Studios, and I helped a little with the sound support for those, and Farsight has had direct current contact with Williams/Bally
They are fully aware of this site, and what we do. Hell, we've been here over 10 years doing this. We've had Steve Ritchie and other industry representatives in hosted chats and they've done interviews and we've covered this numerous times with them. How could they not know?
Nanotech Entertainment has licensed roms and art and games from the Mondial Group (current rights holders for Gottlieb).

I think I've quoted Steve's unofficial agreement with Gary on this and other forums before. My entire point was as you've said, this has been discussed before. For crying out loud Brian, you know I don't feel we are criminals. Jesus. Gary stern was interviewed on this site as I recall.

They Coexist peacefully with companies, their work is tolerated, pinball companies knows and leave them alive, laws is technically against them, but copyright owners not.

In the beginning , i was thinking i was breaking the second precept, but now, it´s different, they asked, they don´t get the legal permit, but tollerating and supporting words, so, i´m not in the position to talk with company owners but they did, Don´t steal and don´t take another possessions without permit is the second precept, the permit was asked and granted, pinball companies also gave them the roms. In Conclusion, they are technically breaking the law, without repercussion, they´ve been clear with companies, and doing so the companies let them live, it seems like they are alive because they do it for good purpose, being clear since the beginning.