Roland Backs Down On MT-32 Emulator

canadacow writes "This is a follow up to the cease and desist letter the MT-32 project received (Original Story). Roland, unable to find documentationg establishing a copyright on the MT-32's ROM, has yielded to the project and allowed distribution of the emulator to continue. On my page www.artworxinn.com/alex I've again posted the emulator along with the legal developments as they happened after the receipt of the initial C&D letter. This development was largely due in part to the legal support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

Comments

Re:w00t! Another victory in the ongoing war

[91degrees]

Horay. We get to use iformation that an organisation has no further need for and no longer uses yet stll jealously guards.

Not quite sure it's a major victory.

Re:Not a win for OSS

[CaptKilljoy]

Before you all get excited about this, note that this is not a win for OSS -- not really. Notice that no legality was established. Roland simply gave up because they have not been able to find their documentation establishing copyright.

Agreed. There's no question that Roland should own the copyright; they designed and manufactured the MT-32 after all. From what I've read on the site, they may lose their copyright only based on not being able to find the correct documentation to satisfy the requirements of a technicality invoked by omitting the copyright notice on the original ROM.

(Before any of you chime in saying that losing documentation is stupid, how many of you who work in IT would be hard pressed to provide licenses to all of the software you use if the BSA knocked on your door today, hm?)

I'm not celebrating this as a victory because it seems to me that obscure loopholes can just as easily be legal land mines for OSS developers, most of which can't afford to keep legal counsel on retainer.

Re:Not a win for OSS

[wskellenger]

What's amazing is the number of Slashdotters who think that Roland is a "villan" in this case:

"Are they even SELLing that machine anymore? Or are they just being ***s?"

"(But I do hope that Roland can't come up with the required evidence -- free beer is fine by me ;-))"

"When [Roland] say they are sorry, then we can begin to think about being nice to them again."

If this were the other way around, the same users (likely not innovators themselves) would be outraged.

Mind-boggling.

The MT-32

[statusbar]

I developed an Patch Editor for the Roland MT-32, and know it quite intimately.

I believe that the MT-32 Emulator is a worth while project - But I am confused as to why the ROM needs to be copied at all. Why not record your own samples instead? It is not like those original samples are that great anyways. If the open source community (me included) recorded and processed our OWN samples, then none of these issues would have come up. The copyright on the originals would not be an issue at all.

--jeff++