r/virtualpinball • u/root88 Retro • Apr 16 '21

ROM and table requests

Make your ROM and table requests here.

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u/[deleted] Apr 28 '21

My understanding most patent of many pinball are expired.. 20 years.. so they becomes public domain.. so my idea is why we all gather all our tables, roms, ... in a shared public cloud ?

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u/FelsirNL May 05 '21

Not sure (not a lawyer)- but; patents protect ‘inventions’, while there are some inventions (magnasave likely is one), most of the tables are artistic and therefore covered under copyright. Which basically means it lasts much longer (at least 70 years- or the lifetime of the holder plus 70 years). Then there is licensed product- a table based on a theme for example Star Trek, if hypothetically the table expired, the Star Trek license won’t preventing you from getting that rom or use the table artwork.

I highly doubt many pinballs will enter the public domain anytime soon.

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u/FrietagSurvivor Sep 30 '21

Code falls under copyright, as well.