Abandonware

[Doctorzongo]

Alright, most people agree that piracy is bad.

But, do you think pirating abandonware should be legal?

I think so, because you won't be able to buy it anywhere else, and no matter what you do the original manufacturers won't be affected.

Note: please don't post ways to run abandonware, or where to find it. I think it's against the TOS to advocate it, as it is illegal currently (at least for most games).

[TheHedgeWizard]

You can't pirate legally, therefore I prefer abandonware remains illegal to pirate so I may do so illegally.

[mykalgaidin]

I think that most of these abandonware games are just as their name implies, abandoned, as in "We don't want to see or hear from you forever and ever" then slams the door real hard and the Christmas lights fall down into the eggnog just as my dear Aunt Gerorgina was getting her third "last one" and was promptly fried. Mommy spent a lot of time with her friend Jack and fell asleep on the couch singing Jingle Bells backwords and two pitches too high.

Where was I? Right abandonware. With the vast majority of this stuff, there is very little chance of a new commercial release, so it's not like pirated or emulated versions are cutting into the profit margin. It seems like such a small fish to try to fry when you've a pod of humpbacks off your starboard bow. And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't games fall under Public Domain after a certain period of time? Any lawyers out there? Where's JT when you need a lawye... Ooops. Almost forgot.

I think they need something like "reasonable expectation of future profit". Pirating games that aren't on store shelves and haven't been since Carter was in office shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[Doctorzongo]

Originally Posted by mykalgaidin

And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't games fall under Public Domain after a certain period of time? ... I think they need something like "reasonable expectation of future profit".

Yes, they do, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time.

There is a law that says that, after a certain amount of time (and, of course, the reasonable expectation of future profit, support, etc are gone) you can bypass any DRM and such and use it for archival purposes. So, basically, you can pop it in a library for preservation or whatever for the purpose of preserving it. There are two problems with this. One, I think you're supposed to actually own the game first, but that's a fuzzy area. Second, it's for preservation purposes only. Some have argued that you have to play a game to preserve it, but I seriously doubt a judge would listen to that.

[LordXenophon]

Of course, pirating should never be legal. On the other hand, with certain conditions, the distribution and preservation of abandonware should not always be considered to be piracy.

There should be two conditions:
*We need a clear, legal definition of what constitutes abandonment.
*It should be legal to freely distribute and archive software ONLY if it satisfies this legal definition of abandonment.

A law of this sort may not be as far away as you think. Google is already fighting for something similar in the world of books. Why not software?

Originally Posted by mykalgaidin
And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't games fall under Public Domain after a certain period of time?

70 years from the death of the original author.

[mykalgaidin]

Originally Posted by LordXenophon

70 years from the death of the original author.

Great. How does one decide who is the "author" of a game? There are so many people needed to make a game these days that deciding on just one would be next to impossible. There are a few exceptions, of course. Everyday Shooter, Bob's RPG, and a number of indie titles (Not certain if you could include Braid, as Jonathon Blow didn't directly create the artwork) only contain one author. Newer games can have over a hundred different people working on them (Assassin's Creed 2 has over 200, I believe). Do they wait until every last one of them is dead? Or should it go by the publisher of the game? A publisher, being a corporation, could feasibly "live" forever. We need new laws defining these things as the old laws, which assume single-authorship of a work, are simply inadequate to address things as they now stand.

[Doctorzongo]

70 years from the death of the original author is if it's private.

If it's corporate, then it's whichever comes first of these two:
(1) 95 years from publication
(2) 120 years from creation

The requirements, as I understand them, for that are:
It has to be corporate.
It has to have been created sometime after 1977.
Copyright would have to be gotten sometime after 1989.

So, by the time any of it is actually in the public domain, I seriously doubt anyone will even be able to play it.

[LordXenophon]

With Star Trek technology, you could run it on your tricorder. You can run just about any sort of software on a Next Gen tricorder. They once ran a 10 billion year old holovid on a tricorder.

[Retodon8]

Originally Posted by LordXenophon

We need a clear, legal definition of what constitutes abandonment.

That's exactly what we don't have.
"Abandonware" has no legal meaning at all.

Old games shouldn't be forgotten, but it happens.
Floppies shouldn't get lost or thrown away, or simply deteriorate over time, but that's what happens.
It would be a waste to see games cease to exist, so yes, I think making copies so that doesn't happen, so people can keep playing them, is preferable.
I do think a period of time needs to pass first.

The problem is that the game companies just don't like that.
It's possible they're thinking of selling the game again in the future, maybe on Steam, or maybe they want to do a remake, or perhaps they think they can sell the rights to the IP.
Maybe they don't have a valid (in other people's opinions) reason at all, but they don't like people copying their games, making it illegal.

In short, I would like to see abandonware be legal, truly abandoned games should be free to copy and play, after some time has passed, but the problem is you never know whether or not a game is truly abandoned, and even if it is, it might still be picked up again later.

[mykalgaidin]

What I would love to see is an effort to bring older games, like Lucasart's adventure games, to the DS. It's possible, but I think a few suits at Lucasarts have come down with a nasty case of Faecal Encephalopathy.