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So read the next time, before you make dumbass comments about people saying that "you can't bring morals into it, because you don't need games to have a good quality of life", and "you shouldn't go around decrying the law like a bible thumper, screaming about immoral the law is", because nobody fucking said anything like that.

Yes, let's hark about how nobody used those exact words shall we.

I don't particularly care if nobody used those exact words. They still injected the ohhhhhhhhhh morality when nobody cared or cares about morality of a computer game, and certainly not the op. It's like teenagers bringing up their "right" to drive... utterly stupid, injecting morality into a trivial issue like this.

More likely I pissed you off with my correct assessment of the situation, nobody needs games to have a good quality of life. It's true: what do you have against that? The style? Well exccccccccuse me.

And still we don't know what the name of the game is. He could say "Oh it's Grand Theft Auto 1" and I could go "Oh! Well Rockstar has made it available for free download on their website!" and everyone could go about their merry way downloading it for free without having a fucking guilt trip about it.

Frankly, you'd think he'd just have fucking LOOKED IT UP. Although I've seen some pretty bold claims of a game being freeware (because it's hard to find lol) when it clearly isn't, particularly on 'opt out piracy' sites like Underdogs.

Abandonware is a grey area. Its grey because there hasn't really been a conclusive ruling one way or the other yet. Until precedent is established. Err on the side of "its illegal".

Abandonware is a grey area. Its grey because there hasn't really been a conclusive ruling one way or the other yet.

Inventing a term and saying "well it's not illegal until someone says it is"? Why didn't I think of that before!

Something that should be clarified.

The ORIGINAL definiation of Abandonware in underground / semi underground computer circles is ;

Formerly Commerical Software the original copyright owner has released into the public domain, effectively abandoning there legal claim over monitary generation.

Since it was never Freeware or Shareware, they decided to call it Abandonware. The idea being to distinguish it from software that was initially Freeware or Shareware.

Freeware = Software that was Free
Shareware = Software that you could share with others, and they asked for a fee
Abandonware= Software they abandoned trying to make money off of.

Unfortunately, people have taken it to the extreme to mean any older software that companies don't bother raising legal issues over.

Bounty wrote:Inventing a term and saying "well it's not illegal until someone says it is"? Why didn't I think of that before!

Remember, kids: It's not stealing if you don't know who owns it.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:And still we don't know what the name of the game is. He could say "Oh it's Grand Theft Auto 1" and I could go "Oh! Well Rockstar has made it available for free download on their website!" and everyone could go about their merry way downloading it for free without having a fucking guilt trip about it.

No, everyone would still be miserable because GTA: London is not available for free.

Bounty wrote:

Abandonware is a grey area. Its grey because there hasn't really been a conclusive ruling one way or the other yet.

Inventing a term and saying "well it's not illegal until someone says it is"? Why didn't I think of that before!

I'm not defending it. I'm making the point that a legal precedent has yet to be established on this - that is a ruling on who owns copyright (and more importantly income) on a title where the owning party has ceased to exist as either an individual or corporate entity. I have no doubt which way it will go - especially after the Disney rulings to extend copyright.

What? They own it, whether they exploit it or not doesn't seem relevant. If it goes ten years without a Sonic game, Sonic games are still owned by Sega. Hell, you can't buy Saturns anymore, but the games are still copyrighted, right?

Stark wrote:What? They own it, whether they exploit it or not doesn't seem relevant. If it goes ten years without a Sonic game, Sonic games are still owned by Sega. Hell, you can't buy Saturns anymore, but the games are still copyrighted, right?

Right. As long as the copyright is still on file, then regardless of the owner existing anymore it's still protected IP until the copyright expires.

Even more amusing is the abandonware crowds ridiculous standards: if a game isn't really easily or obviously availbale, it must be fine. Hunting bargain bins? Pshaw, that's as good as 'abandoned' lol!

Remember, these sites are so dishonest that they don't even bother LOOKING for games on websites. They wait for the website to TELL THEM they still sell them.

But Stark, what about Abadon ware?

Stark wrote:Even more amusing is the abandonware crowds ridiculous standards: if a game isn't really easily or obviously availbale, it must be fine. Hunting bargain bins? Pshaw, that's as good as 'abandoned' lol!

Remember, these sites are so dishonest that they don't even bother LOOKING for games on websites. They wait for the website to TELL THEM they still sell them. :roll:

It is one of the few reasons I like GameTraders. The amount of obscure PC software I've found in their walls has been brilliant.