Stepmania and Legality Issues

[TheFanboy]

I moved this from the chit-chat forum as the mods told me to...


Ok, like is aid in the topic...i dunno where this would fit...as it's a general question, that has been playing on my mind these past few days. It is totally hypothetical (as arcades here arre too cheap to have more than one mix in an arcade lol).

I know that on the other threads it is said that you can't put a Stepmania "Machine" into an arcade without it being illeagal.

But what if the arcade was to actually buy the mixes, (like say an arcade owns the chipsets, cd's and marquees, for a 1st, 5th and 8th mix), would they be able (using a machine they had legally bought) to use Stepmania in a machine, as long as theyONLY usd songs that were in the mixes they actually owned?

I was just wondering if this was a viable question to ask here...if not i'll ask wherever you tell me to ask...

Ross-

PS> If it's to do with the GNU, how would a comapnay/arcade who wanted to do this get round it?

By the way...like i said...all hypothetical...I don't have the sotrt of power to do anything like this.
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-=Fanboy=-

[orb]

Well, I am pretty sure that through the GNU you can sell Stepmania (w/o any songs) legally, and if you built the cabinet yourself then I guess it's ok... but the real issue is the songs themselves and I can't really help you w/ that. Sorry.

[DJzen]

In case my two cents are worth anything, here they are. I think the stepfiles MIGHT be the intellectual property of Konami... MAYBE. The announcer and use of the phrase "dance dance revolution" and "DDR" and "Bemani" are doubtlessly all Konami's property, but if you actually owned the chipsets/upgrade disks, I don't know if they'd have any legal ground to stand on.

I can see Konami being upset if the arcade was giving the impression that this was in fact a version of Dance Dance Revolution and not Stepmania (I.E. using a DDR marquee). The only place it actually gets sticky for the arcade owner is here...

Let's say this arcade has a 5th Mix and a Max2 machine, both legally purchased. For one thing, you cannot legally own a Japanese mix. Just look at the screen that pops up if no one is playing and the machine idles for a minute or so. I don't that you could actually prosecute on these grounds (these laws only exist so the US branch of the company can still profit on the game instead of the Japanese company, or vice versa, or whatever, Konami of America's arcade division is CLOSED). Import games are considered "gray market", they're TECHNICALLY illegal, but no one really seems to care. Now, let's assume that Konami doesn't care that these are import games for whatever reason and acknowledges legal ownership. This means the arcade owner has every right to set up this Stepmania machine (assuming the marquee and cabinet don't say anything about DDR), UNLESS it is there along with the 5th Mix and Max2 machines. The reason for this is sorta hard to explain, but basically the arcade is making a profit off of Konami's work for free. Let's put it this way, it's fine to buy a CD and make a copy for yourself. You can NOT, however (not legally anyway), sell the CD and then the copy. I know it's not a one-to-one comparison, but basically, you didn't pay Konami for stepmania, or the songs, stepfiles, graphics or sounds used by it, so they'd be upset if you made a profit off it and they didn't. I really don't know though. I'm no lawyer.
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I'm the cat with the whiskers

[TheFanboy]

Ok, next question, and i think this is an intresting point....what if you were to remake the steps yourself (not using ny created by others, and used the banenrs...I mean...you DID by the DDR machine itself after all...and the upgrade discs...

Are you saying that you should technically only be able to use one mix at a time...even though you payed for it if you have only one machine?

[DJzen]

I'll try to explain as best I can. I know it's hard but I'm doing my best...

First off, if you coded the steps yourself, it wouldn't matter if the steps are in fact intellectual property of Konami. I mean, seriously, can you PROVE you coded them yourself? And also, if I were to cover someone else's music, I'd have to get permission or else.

Now, what I Was trying to say before is basically the only legal excuse you could have for running Stepmania is that it's like a "backup copy" of the original, if that makes sense. You could have the machine running so as to protect your valuable DDR investments (boards and discs aren't cheap I hear), but if you have the original machine running AND the SM machine, you can't make the argument that it's for backup. It's really hard to put it into words well. You can have an emulator and as many roms of games that you actually own, that's not problem, but you're not profitting from those. Arcade owners cash in (moreso with DDR since it costs a lot to play) with arcade machines, so the primary concern is the owner making money at Konami's expense. I know you having an SM machine wouldn't cost Konami anything DIRECTLY, but it would in terms of sales (I.E. you own Stepmania, so now there's no reason to go out and buy DDR, costing Konami money in THAT respect. This is why .mp3s you haven't paid for are illegal). Now, if you have the SM machine and the boards/disks, you HAVE paid for DDR, so Konami's happy. However, if you're running your 5th Mix and 4th Mix machines (let's just say for the sake of argument), and you also have your SM machine (let's also assume it does not contain any songs that aren't on either of the other two machines (a stretch, I know)) running in the same arcade. As far as Konami is concerned, you're making money on a DDR machine that you haven't paid for. I hope that made more sense this time. Again, I'm not a lawyer, so I Couldn't REALLY answer this 100% accurately
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I'm the cat with the whiskers

[Ensyther]

It is potentially legal to own a Stepmania machine on one condition : it's 100% free (you don't charge people to play). Stepmania is freeware, and to make a profit off of it is an illegal act, which is why anyone who sells the game and official mixes on CD over e-bay for even a dollar gets shut down. Konami has nothing to do with Stepmania, it's ZOOT, Frieza and the others who would step up because they're the ones that created Stepmania, so it's their intellectual copyright which can exist due to patents on the system (which is why games like PIU and EZ2Dancer exist).

Songs are a different story, though. To prevent any trouble with Konami, there shouldn't be any Konami-made tracks on it, as well as any liscenced tracks. Simply put, if you can make all the songs yourself, code the steps for them, make bgs/banners, buy the cabinet and install, then you can play Stepmania in an arcade all you want. You just can't charge people for it.

But then again, would anyone really care about the second point?
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[redcrusher]

what if you had the 8th mix anion the same machine and you just switched it from stepmania to 8th mnix all the time..... and you had people pay for playing the 8th and then on the stepmania you hade songs that you make the actual music from scratch.... make the steps from scratch and all the graphics... couldn't you charge for that??? if they are all original....

also you are all talking about konami losing $..... what if you company that is going to put in stepmanai in the machine..... has bought evrysingle nix and evry board upgread made????? would that change anything???
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[EvilSporkMan]

[Kenjiisgod]

Someone in the UK made a StepMania machine..with all the songs and everything..

[Catastrophe]

Its funny that I'm tackling this like retorical question since a real lawyer would know the precise answer.

Anyhow, I'm not 100% convinced Stepmania, DWI, and the rest even have a right to exist in the first place. I mean, Konami is obviously letting them slide ( not that they could stop them from going underground ) but those games are definitely in violation of Konami's patents.

What I mean is that Konami first published an arrow scrolling, beat-music, dance evaluating game that featured a 4-button square shaped controller several years ago. To simply avoid using the Bemani trademark and to avoid using Konami's copyrighted material isn't enough. If your game looks like DDR ( and SM does ) and it plays like DDR ( and it does ) and it has most of the features that DDR does ( of course SM does ) then your game infringes on DDR. Its up to Konami and Konami's partners to decide how DDR is played and distributed.

Of course, Konami doesn't have a patent on the entire dance genre. Nor do they have a patent on every dance controller. But Konami does have the rights to a DDR clone that is designed to mock DDR. ( PIU is borderline close to DDR. I think they changed just barely enough to get away with it but they should have done more to change the software. )

So even if you build your own software, dance machine with pad, and songlist from scratch it still isn't legal unless you diverge from DDR.

Of course, Konami probably doesn't care too much yet. They have almost no competition in the music game genre and their titles are still selling decently ( I guess ) despite the fan-knockoffs available. So until that changes I think its nice that we can run Stepmania on a XBox and that we can get away with Stepmania machines.

[Geneity X]

[Catastrophe]