FASTER
ASTER FASTER FASTER
Question: Do you think you, as the buyer, have a
right to use speed-up kits in your games?
will give him some fun out of th~ thing but quicker so
that he is not tying up the machine. I think it is unfair if
they (manufacturers) say it is a copyright infringement.
Norris Hillstad, UNOMAC Service Inc., Santa Monica,
California
I think I should have that right because I am paying
almost $3,000 for a piece of equipment. If I can make it
play better and make more money than what they
built it to begin with, I should have the right to do it.
Patents are fine if a person copies the whole
machine. For a person to change something for his
own benefit-if he bought it-he can 't throw away a
$3,000 machine and buy a new one.
Every machine is built to be a challenge until they
figure it out. The only way they can get a better
challenge is by speeding it up or by making definite
changes in the pattern. Speeding it up just makes a
minor change really.
Ron lee, leco Vending Co., Chester, Pennsylvania
I believe that when we purchase the equipment
we should have the ability to modify the software to
our advantage-whether it's speed-up kits or any
other type of minor modifications. It would increase
the revenue in general for the whole industry.
The manufacturers are not making them available ;
we have no other recourse . I believe it's only a matter
of time before this issue will be put to bed once and
for all through the courts.
Gordon McClellan, Pine Ridge Service Inc., Bemidji,
Minnesota
Yes. Because it's not changing the original aspects
of the game . It's not converting a different type of
game to that same type of game, so it's not infringing
upon copyrights .
Jerry Crook, Care Dist. Inc., Indian Rocks Beach,
Florida
Yes I do.
After a while, kids start beating the games to death.
If they play it for long periods of time, they end up
tying up a $2,500 machine for ten, fifteen , twenty
minutes on one quarter. You don't make any money
on that machine.
Speed-up kits let the novice player play his first few
minutes so he has fun ; and the experienced guy, it
80
Ronnie Cazel, Ronnie's Amusement Service Co.,
Wichita, Kansas
When you buy the game, I would assume it would
be yours anymore than if I had an automobile and
bought it from Chevrolet and I decided I wanted to
put Ford wheels on it or jack it up high or slant it up or
slant it down . It's mine.
I ought to be able to do what I want to do with it. It's
hard to mention copyright to an operator because he
really doesn 't understand . He understands it on music
that he can't change. But it also seems that with music
a guy doesn' t always play it the same way as it was
originally written.
A pinball machine, I would assume, in the older
days had a copyright. We didn 't change them too
much. We did add flippers at some time or the other
or a third top bumper. In the early days we changed it
around. Of course, no one said anything to us.
I've traded off a '76 automobile . If the other guy
wanted to put Ford fenders on it or something, that's
his . He ought to be able to do what he wants to do
with it.
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PLAY METER , july 15, 1982