How is ItG v1 (cannibalizing Konami Cabinets) Legal?

epilonious · Last edited by epilonious on Fri Apr 08, 2005 6:13 am, edited 1 time in total

How is ItG v1 Legal?

I ask because basically: ItG goes inside a DDR Jemma Cabinet which seems to be made by Konami. Konami, last time I checked, did not Open-Source the cabinet design. That, and ItG Freak seems to have this "Legality: Do not bother us with questions about legality" attitude (and their faq isn't up yet).

Did Roxor get an OK/license from Konami to design against the Jemma design and put it in old cabinets? Or is Roxor just trying to exploit some sort of strange "well, these aren't made for use outside japan anyways..." illegal machine immigration loophole (so what happens if you put it on a DDR US machine?)

I can understand the idea for yet another dancey game being OK, but they are cannibalizing the machine from a prior game, I guess it'd be OK if they paid Konami to do it, but I haven't seen anything saying as such.

Rampant Speculation

I think that Roxor was just going ahead and seeing if the concept would take off, now that they know there is a market for arcade mixes that aren't > 2 years old, they are gonna up production. But lookee, they are now actually having another company build new cabinets for ItG ver2... Then, if Konami does up and sue, the ~100 machines that were cannibalized will just instantly become unsupported after the cease and desist order is filed against Roxor.

The other thing is: Konami could just be biding their time and waiting to eat Roxor after they get established... or sue them if they become more of a threat.
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LET ME SHOW YOU THEM · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:11 am Post subject:

Read here
For the love of god people, stop posting about this. Do you think Konami is SO ignorant that it would have lasted this long if they could do anything about it? The RoXoR team has explained parts of this themselves many many times, and they have their own secrets as well.
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epilonious · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 4:35 am Post subject:

read what?

LET ME SHOW YOU THEM · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:00 am Post subject:

read the ENTIRE thing..it is in there somewhere...and if not, then oh well..this question has been answered 2034823842038492384024092384082409284238049280942849028408239482304823948 times already
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epilonious · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:09 am Post subject:

Then the makers should put it in the "Frequently Asked Questions" field on some of the ITG websites, now shouldn't they?

and I bet 99% of the replies were "OMG, This question has been asked so much already, stop asking it!"

*goes off to hunt in a 30 page long thread because apparently, ItG tools are lazy*
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epilonious · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 5:46 am Post subject:

http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=7303128#7303128

diddrstrait · Trick Member Joined: 01 Jan 2004

the problem here is you are asking "why" when roxor has no reason to divulge information. if they say they have legal issues worked out, then they probably have legal issues worked out. they don't need us playing lawyer for them. the fact of the matter is you and everyone else is just curious. It is possible (likely even) that the folks at roxor have signed NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) that keep them from answering legal questions.

They say they have everything worked out legally. That's good enough for me.

epilonious · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 8:34 am Post subject:

Bee Ess.

If they couldn't talk about it due to NDA's then they should say "we can't talk about it due to NDA's".

Also, roxor has a perfectly good reason to divulge information: because parties who are gonna make an investment on the next gen of DDR-ish stuff need more reasoning than "trust us, we got it all worked out". Otherwise, they might get stuck with this box that suddenly becomes unsupported should konami eat roxor.

I mean, if a bajilliontey people asking these questions are driving the developers/company nuts, then roxor needs to write up a FAQ which says "these are the details" or "this is why we're not allowed to talk about the details". I mean, an NDA would at least be some sign that they talked to Konami AT ALL. Right now, they aren't dispelling rumors that they basically are just hoping Konami won't care, sometimes they'll break down and say "all the songs are licensed"... which makes it look even more duplicitous.

I'm not playing lawyer. I'm playing journalist, a journalist who has seen something fishy and is wondering what all the cloak and dagger is about.
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toady007 · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 8:54 am Post subject:

*witty name* · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Location: Joliet, IL

The question here is not "how is this legal?", the question is "how is this ILLEGAL?"

in the united states people are innocent until proven guilty.

open sourcing a cabinet? wtf are you talking about???

this happens to games all the time, switching out MK4's and Steet Fighters and MVC's with each other, etc.

namco doesnt go apeshit about it, neither does capcom, neither did konami.

the question here is: why didnt they? they could in SO MANY instances. we're not talking about the possible ignorance of konami US/JP here, we're talking about konami, capcom, namco and lots of other big players in the industry that have obviously seen this happen to their cabinets but didnt do anything about it.

why? FAIR USE. a ddr cabinet is 6 peices of wood nailed together. nothing more. its a box. and when an arcade owner owns that box, they can do what they please with it. unfortunately i dont know the legal terms behind it, but frankly thats not the issue. the issue is the legal terms that make such a practice ILLEGAL.

...and there are none. so drop it, its dead. been dead for years. even before ITG.
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CreatorThomas · Trick Member Joined: 21 May 2003 Location: Fort Wayne, IN

arcade owners convert cabinets all the time, but they usually replace the controls, and it's usually a generic cabinet they convert. i don't see DDR having a generic cabinet, and they were talking about the legality of the software more than the use of the cabinet for it.
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*witty name* · Trick Member Joined: 28 Jul 2002 Location: Joliet, IL

J. S. Mill · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 3:12 pm Post subject:

Psyton, this information does not come from ROXOR. I am, however, pre-law.

The first thing to note is that Konami does not own the patent on dancing machines in the United States, Andamiro does. In fact, Andamiro sued Konami over it.

Any DDR Cabinet other then DDRUSA is illegal in the United States, in fact most mixes will prominently display an English disclaimer stating as much.

So really what you are asking is, is it illegal to upgrade a DDRUSA? It may be illegal to upgrade an anything else, but it was also illegal to have it so who cares. Surely, every EX you have played on (unless you play in Japan) was illegal.

The answer here is no. If you purchase a DDRUSA the game now becomes your property. It is legal to remove the software and have a black screen. It is also legal to put Street Fighter two inside it. And, likewise, it is legal to put an upgrade kit in their - be it StepMania or ITG.

Now what about violating the Andamiro patent for dancing simulationg games? Honestly, it is quite possible ITG did this. It is also quite possible the issue has been settled.

Andamiro will be manufacturing the ITG2 Standalone arcade machines. In a sense, Andamiro now has a complete monopoly over both living series.

It is totally possible that ROXOR just made a deal to manufacture a machine through them. I have a hunch this might have been the conversation, however:

Andamiro: Hey we see your game is popular we are going to sue you.
ROXOR: Hey you know what, why don't you just make the cabinet for all future versions of the game and take the profits instead?
Andamiro: Sounds like a plan.

This is wild speculation. Suffice it to be said that something was settled, because ROXOR has no legal problems at the moment. Certainly, they never had problems with Konami, only Andamiro would have a case.
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sherl0k · Maniac Member Joined: 27 Jan 2002 Location: the internet

Kiba, what about international copyright law? Doesn't the Berne Convention play into this at all?

Your post makes the most sense out of everything I've read, but like everyone else, I *would* like an official statement from Roxor out of my own curiosity, and also to shut everyone up about this issue.
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J. S. Mill · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:28 pm Post subject:

What is it that is being infringed upon?

Surely not the music, which though copyright is legally liscenced to Roxor. The game is as different from DDR as World of Warcraft is from Everquest, and the patent against the concept is not international. Further, ROXOR does not sell anything even related to DDR Cabinets. They sell a software kit. In court they could easily claim they just were selling it to people expecting them to use it as paperweights, if there was even a problem with modifying cabinets (which there is not).

The only people with a claim would be the patent owners, Andamiro. As I suggested, that seems to have been resolved. Further, if such an arrangement as I have hyopthesized was indeed agreed upon, it would be in the interest of both companies to keep it quite.

Hence why you might not have an offical statement.
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PedanticOmbudsman · Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2005 11:42 pm Post subject:

I'd like to remind everyone that although copyrights are generally international, patents and trademarks are generally not.

Machines can't be copyrighted. Copyright protects artistic creations, data, creative works, music, artwork, software etc... but not physical objects.

Furthermore, copyright only protects against the copying of protected works. ITG1 doesn't copy anybody's hardware, and ITG1 doesn't include any Konami hardware at all. ITG1's hardware is just a computer, some decals, some cables, and a couple of USB ports. Roxor (with ITG1) at least doesn't sell anything even remotely resembling Konami hardware -- they merely sell something that is compatible with Konami hardware, which is 100% legal.

If anything, ITG2 would be on much shakier legal ground than ITG1 would be, because they'll be selling something that actually does resemble Konami hardware -- were it not for the fact that the legal issues regarding that have already been settled between Konami and Andamiro.

So, ITG1, 100% legal. ITG2, 100% legal.

Rancidfish · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:10 pm Post subject:

Can Intel sue Microsoft for making an operating system that runs on their hardware? Can Microsoft sue Blizzard for making a game that runs in their OS?

Hence... Konami can't sue Roxor for making a game that runs in their cabinet. As mentioned above, legal issues only arise if they started making their own cabinets... hence Andamiro is the one covering that issue.
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epilonious · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2005 1:51 pm Post subject:

rampage · Administrator Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Location: Redmond, WA

This is all armchair lawyer talk without any legal basis of fact. Unless we hear from Roxor or Konami with an official statement toward legalities, it's all mental masturbation. It may be satisfying for a few minutes, but ultimately it's not accomplishing much.

I'm as guilty as anybody for arguing these points, but I'm ending it here.