[Hammerite]

maybe they should have abandonware where you pay money to download the game and it goes to the company. that would be a good idea... but until then ITS FREE

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by hengst2404

See I think the way these abandonware sites try to make themeselves out to be the good guys, when they are in fact breaking the law is the problem. If the people just put tons of pressure on the companies, we might have a better chance of getting these download legally and hence avoiding any ethical quandries. I am a ttoaly proponent of making these games available to future generations of gamers, just think perhaps doing it legally is the way to go.

Saying something is legal or illegal is total crapshaith in my opinion. Did you know that until recently playing in the mud on a sunday in a certain state was against the law? Now if somebody did play in the mud on a sunday, does that make them bad people? I'd say no, and neither are people who offer these games as a free download. If the companies were still making the games available either though download or whatever, then they would be the bad guys, but in my mind, they're keeping the games alive, without them, we'd be paying $50 to greedy crapshaithheads for Willy Beamish on ebay, and to me, they're the real criminals here.

[JoeX111]

So, Fov, is your argument that Abandonware is wrong because the original company doesn't receive any money from fans getting the game? A gross oversimplification, most likely, but if so, then what is your stance on eBay, used book \ game stores, and the like? I realize there is a difference between money changing hands and people getting something for free, but in those circumstances the original creators don't see a dime (to the best of my knowledge).

For example, you mentioned that you are a writer. What if I bought a used copy of your latest novel from someone off eBay. You don't see a penny of that money, so am I stealing from you?

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting. Personally, I'm unsure where my stance is on abandonware lies. I only download stuff off Home of the Underdogs (not sure if I'm allowed to mention their name here or not, correct me and I'll remove it), which always links to places where the game can be purchased if it is still being sold, and always removes the game links when the companies request it. At least then I know that if the game is available on their site, it is because no one has requested that it not be.

[ikari]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

Saying something is legal or illegal is total crapshaith in my opinion. Did you know that until recently playing in the mud on a sunday in a certain state was against the law? Now if somebody did play in the mud on a sunday, does that make them bad people? I'd say no, and neither are people who offer these games as a free download. If the companies were still making the games available either though download or whatever, then they would be the bad guys, but in my mind, they're keeping the games alive, without them, we'd be paying $50 to greedy crapshaithheads for Willy Beamish on ebay, and to me, they're the real criminals here.

I couldn't say that better (Mostly cause I speak spanish =P)..Besides, the people who upload those abandonware into a page is not looking for any economical reward, or recognisement...And in most of the cases (maybe all) they are fans, and do respect the companies.

[hengst2404]

Yes let's do things the typical American way these days and just invalidate the law because we don't feel it applies to us. To compare copyright laws to playing in the mud is, well to put it nicely bs. A law doesn't become less of a law just because some gamers want to have free games, and many of your arguments are used in similar fashion to those who deal in warez. Change the laws if you don't like them, but stop with the rationalizing illegal behavior and activity.

Perhaps we should show respect to these companies by respecting the laws which are in place to protect their IPs. Certainly if they wanted the games available for free download they would make it available, ala Sierra's fee Betrayal at Krondor and the original Tribes.

[fov]

So, Fov, is your argument that Abandonware is wrong because the original company doesn't receive any money from fans getting the game?

Not at all. My argument is that downloading a game, when the copyright owner has not released it for legal download, is illegal.

I don't know the exact verbiage of the law, but basically, when someone buys something, that person has the right to resell it. They don't have the right to reproduce it and sell the copies (or even give them away for free). That's the difference between ebay and abandonware.

At least then I know that if the game is available on their site, it is because no one has requested that it not be.

I'm sure you can see how this is not the same thing as the game being available for download because the copyright holder said it was okay?

(In other words, next time I have dinner at a friend's house it's okay for me to grab a ring out of her jewelry box, as long as she doesn't notice it's gone?)

If HOTU is so noble, why don't they contact the copyright owners and ask for permission BEFORE putting a game up for download?

Saying something is legal or illegal is total crapshaith in my opinion.

This is so skewed I don't even know where to start.

[SakSquash]

Originally Posted by hengst2404

Yes let's do things the typical American way these days and just invalidate the law because we don't feel it applies to us. To compare copyright laws to playing in the mud is, well to put it nicely bs. A law doesn't become less of a law just because some gamers want to have free games, and many of your arguments are used in similar fashion to those who deal in warez. Change the laws if you don't like them, but stop with the rationalizing illegal behavior and activity.

Perhaps we should show respect to these companies by respecting the laws which are in place to protect their IPs. Certainly if they wanted the games available for free download they would make it available, ala Sierra's fee Betrayal at Krondor and the original Tribes.

Ignoring your stupid idea that invalidating laws is somehow an American tradition, do you think that because of a stupid law, nobody should play these games? Do you think they should all just die? If your kids want to play Willy Beamish, you'll say "sorry johnny, but you can't, because game companies sit on their thumbs and wont sell their older games?" If somebody made breathing air illegal, would you stop breathing? What if they made game illegal, would you stop playing them? To me, abandonware is like cuban cigars, sure it's illegal, but so what, you're not hurting anyone by doing it (and don't say they're losing money, because you can't lose money if you don't sell something).

[insane_cobra]

If a game is not sold by its publisher anymore, what's the point in keeping it out of reach? Sure, providing abandonware for download is not strictly legal, but neither is using a VCR to tape a movie, if I'm not mistaken, and nobody's making any fuss about it.

I have yet to hear of a developer/writer who wouldn't want their out of print games/art to be enjoyed by people even after they're made commercially unavailable. It's a different story with publishers, but for me that's just a perfect example of them being a bunch of assholes.

Nobody's asking of them to give up their rights, if one day they decide to sell their old games again, every respectable abandonware site will remove download links from their databases. Those who don't were not into abandonware in the firt place, but into pirating and that's a completely different matter.

However, it's unlikely that any company's going to sell their old games again unless they can get them to work on some kind of an emulator. Not that many people buy old games and the companies would probably just lose money providing support as most of them don't work well on today's hardware.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by fov

I don't know the exact verbiage of the law, but basically, when someone buys something, that person has the right to resell it.

To my best knowledge, no, that's not true. In most cases you don't have the right to resell it. It's just publishers' hypocrisy of closing one eye on some behaviors and bitching about copyright on others. Sure, it's their legal right, but I don't see it as their moral right.

[hengst2404]

Okay so pointing out that it is somehwat of an American tradition the idea that you can simply ignore laws you don't agree with is not the way to proceed, let's move beyond it.

Now we compare braking this law to breathing air? When are we going to look at the fact that this is a law, not exactly a life-threatening law at that? If these companies want the game to be released, then they will do so or give up the rights and allow others to do so. Just becuase you want your kids to play Willy Beemish or whatever doesn't mean they deserve to. The point of my argument isn't that people shouldn't be able to play these games, merely that to do so in violation of the law is wrong, period. Just because you or I think a law is stupid, doesn't negate our repsonsibility to abide by the rules. All I am saying is, do what you feel comfortable with doing, byt never fool yourself into thinking tthat you aren't violating the law. Like how most of us speed on the highway, we know its illegal and choose to do it anyways. None of us are here arguing that speeding shouldn't be illegal because veerybody does it. You want to break the law, go for it, just don't mistake the fact that you are breaking the law.

I think all of these so called abandonware games should be made legal, but its not my decision to do so and I for one won't break the law in this regard just because I feel I can. Never mistake a harmless law as not actually being a law. I just always get angered by these rationalizations that are offered by people who feel they deserve or are entitled to something regardless of what the law says. The entitlement mentality is what irks me.

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

Ignoring your stupid idea that invalidating laws is somehow an American tradition, do you think that because of a stupid law, nobody should play these games? Do you think they should all just die? If your kids want to play Willy Beamish, you'll say "sorry johnny, but you can't, because game companies sit on their thumbs and wont sell their older games?" If somebody made breathing air illegal, would you stop breathing? What if they made game illegal, would you stop playing them? To me, abandonware is like cuban cigars, sure it's illegal, but so what, you're not hurting anyone by doing it (and don't say they're losing money, because you can't lose money if you don't sell something).

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by hengst2404

Just becuase you want your kids to play Willy Beemish or whatever doesn't mean they deserve to.

They deserve to. Being the big bad criminal I am, I'm going to provide them the opportunity if legal holders don't. I'll probably go to hell for that, but hey, it's Willy Beamish!

All I am saying is, do what you feel comfortable with doing, byt never fool yourself into thinking tthat you aren't violating the law. Like how most of us speed on the highway, we know its illegal and choose to do it anyways. None of us are here arguing that speeding shouldn't be illegal because veerybody does it. You want to break the law, go for it, just don't mistake the fact that you are breaking the law.

I don't see anyone claiming it's not illegal, just that this law is fundamentally wrong. Strike that, it's not that the law is evil, it's the companies abusing it.

[JoeX111]

Originally Posted by fov

(In other words, next time I have dinner at a friend's house it's okay for me to grab a ring out of her jewelry box, as long as she doesn't notice it's gone?)

That's a pretty bad comparison. Forgive me if I'm being ignorant, but I would argue that there is a pretty big difference between distributing an intellectual property without permission and stealing a tangible physical object from someone's home. If someone broke into Company X and stole two dozen copies of Game Y and gave them out to people for free, that is rather different from just making copies of and distributing Game Y from your own master copy. Still illegal? Yes, but the crime is rather different.

Originally Posted by fov

If HOTU is so noble, why don't they contact the copyright owners and ask for permission BEFORE putting a game up for download?

I didn't say they were noble. I just said that I like their policies above those of other sites that would just upload the game regardless of whether or not the developers were still selling it on the market. It isn't perfect, but it is a far cry more than most of the other sites on the internet do. If you'd like more in-depth information about how HOTU conducts their affairs, perhaps you should email them and ask, seeing as how I don't run the bloody site.

Otherwise, I'd have to agree with the statements made by Insane_Cobra.

[fov]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Nobody's asking of them to give up their rights, if one day they decide to sell their old games again, every respectable abandonware site will remove download links from their databases. Those who don't were not into abandonware in the firt place, but into pirating and that's a completely different matter.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction here. If you really wanted an old game but it was only available at a "non-respectable" abandonware site, you wouldn't download it?

As for why publishers hold on to rights when they have no apparent desire to do anything with them, look at Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. It may not be my idea of a good game, but it's certainly making money for the copyright holder. Corporations (no matter what their size) don't have to justify their business decisions to us. They just don't.

I have yet to hear of a developer/writer who wouldn't want their out of print games/art to be enjoyed by people even after they're made commercially unavailable.

It's not a question of letting people enjoy the game. It's a question of having a say in how the game is delivered. When people give up their rights to the game, they lose their say -- and many people "give up" these rights just by virtue of not knowing that the game is being downloaded, so not stepping up to stop it. That's not right. The burden should not be placed on the person being robbed. And it is not outside the realm of possibility that old games may be rereleased. Look at Labyrinth of Time and Bad Mojo. Widespread downloading of a game -- no matter how old it is, no matter whether the copyright holder said "don't do that" (or if they even knew) -- kills the chances of the game selling well upon rerelease. We don't know what Vivendi has up its sleeve. Wouldn't it be ironic if they've been planning to repackage the King's Quest games all along but opted not to because the abandonware issue has made such a project unprofitable for them?

Yes, as a writer, I love for people to read my work. But I would not love it if someone took what I wrote and published it in a white supremecist publication, or even if someone made 100 photocopies of something I had published in a for-profit publication and stuck them under the windshield wipers of all the parked cars in the area. Copyright protects me from having people I don't want do things with my work that I don't want them to do. Maybe abandonware isn't as awful as the neo-Nazi example, but you can't just pick and choose which parts of the law get enforced. Copyright laws are important. They protect people from being ripped off. And when you look at the much bigger picture, saying "that's a stupid law because it's preventing me from playing the game I want to play right now" is really very petty and closed-minded.

Clearly I'm not going to convince a lot of people here, but what I said before is really how I feel about this issue -- I can't believe the number of people who are so easily willing to ignore legalities and the rights of the people who create games for us (including the big bad corporations), just because of a misguided sense of entitlement. I guess that "mine mine mine" mentality is pretty common everywhere these days, though, so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

[hengst2404]

Lol now Cobra I am not trying to say you are a big bad criminal nor do i think it right your kids be deprived of Willy Beemish. I just don't ever really like most rationalizations for breaking the law. I am also fairly certain Hell may not be aware of abandware yet, sure just a matter of time

I know its an ugly issue that many feel passionate about, but due to the way the IPs constantly get attacked through pirating and the like, I tend to side with the IP holders, most often the game companies themselves. Then again, from VU's perspective regarding all of their Sierra IPs, one never knows hwne a new take on one these old properties will result in a ressurgence of an existing franchise, which in turn would up the demand amongst collecting gamers for older products. Its entiely possible that VU will choose to repackage these old Sierra franchises one day and re-release them and that i think is why they are hesitatnt to release their IPs to free download.

While you and I both know its unlikely this will happen, or at least happen anytime soon, as a business, why not hold on to what you have as insurance against the possibility of making more money off of seemingly dead IPs.

[fov]

If someone broke into Company X and stole two dozen copies of Game Y and gave them out to people for free, that is rather different from just making copies of and distributing Game Y from your own master copy.

How is it different? Even legal copies of a program are just that - copies, burned onto CDs off a master.

To my best knowledge, no, that's not true. In most cases you don't have the right to resell it. It's just publishers' hypocrisy of closing one eye on some behaviors and bitching about copyright on others. Sure, it's their legal right, but I don't see it as their moral right.

Here, I looked it up:

The U.S. Copyright Act grants certain exclusive rights to the owner of a copyright in a work. These exclusive rights are different from the rights given to a person who merely owns a copy of the work. For example, when a person purchases a book at a bookstore, they have received a property right in a copy of a copyrighted work (namely, the book). The book owner may then resell the book, or even destroy it, since they own the book. However, the book's owner did not receive any copyright rights when they purchased the book. All copyright rights are held by the book's author until the author specifically transfers them. Consequently, the book owner may not make any copies of the book, since the right to copy a work is one of the exclusive rights granted under the Copyright Act. This distinction allows a copyright owner to sell copies of a work, or even the original work itself (such as a sculpture), without forfeiting her rights under the Copyright Act.

Full text.

Obviously I can't speak to laws in other countries, and that's where some of this stuff gets tricky. But since I live in the US and my dealings with copyright are in the US, this is pretty much what shapes my understanding of "legal" and "illegal" in this case.

I never said that "illegal" equals "immoral" -- however, blindly disregarding laws just because you feel like it doesn't sound too moral to me.

[Hammerite]

Originally Posted by JoeX111

I only download stuff off Home of the Underdogs (not sure if I'm allowed to mention their name here or not, correct me and I'll remove it), which always links to places where the game can be purchased if it is still being sold, and always removes the game links when the companies request it. At least then I know that if the game is available on their site, it is because no one has requested that it not be.

I'm quite sure that Underdogs is legal because if you look at the Gabriel Knight thing, it says that they had been contacted by the copyright blokes about THAT but not anything else.

[fov]

I won't post a link for obvious reasons, but HOTU says in their FAQ that abandonware is illegal and they know it.

[ikari]

I just wanted to point that, companies keeps the rights because that's what probes they are the creators and the only ones who can make money out of that particular character or game...I do not think they keep the copyrights to avoid abandonware downloads...They are not economically interested in that OLD game but they do are interested in the characters, etc. for a future use...and in the right to be the only owners...
So literally abandonware will never be legal cause they will always keep the copyrights, but (from my point of view) abandonware is OK. Cause every company in order to stay alive needs money, and people who admire their works...They think economically.

I just feel that living always "under" the rules, even if they are stupid and not meant for a particular case like this, is being close-minded (?? is that adjetive right? =/) No offense please (!)

Excuse my spell ...

[Fop]

Originally Posted by fov

I think the companies who go to the trouble of sending lawyers to abandonware sites to defend their copyrights, such as Vivendi, would disagree. What do you mean "by definition"? Where are you seeing a definition of abandonware that says "games available for download as long as it doesn't hurt the copyright holder"? And how would that be enforced?

Abandonware is software that has been abandoned. It's not sold anywhere. No income lost.

And people do buy software even when it's available for download.

If you're so worried about legalities it's completely legal for me. Woo! Happy days! I'm morally in the clear!

I *am*, but legalities have nothing to do with it.

[Wormsie]

How was it said...

"Civil disobedience means taking on social responsibility."

I'm a fan of civil disobedience.