Hope for older games like BZ...

[† Trinity †]

http://www.gog.com

Interesting and legal approach to dealing with abandonware. I hope they add BZ to their catalogue as it might provide a fresh injection of players into the community.

[OvermindDL1]

I already own... like... almost everything I see there...
I feel old...
>.>

Quite good deals though, wish it was integrated into a download framework like Steam or Impulse, do not really fancy the download it once kind of thing as I like to just go to one of my other computers and just 'sync' my account and get everything there too...  Yes, I am lazy, but show me a good programmer that does not try to do less work.
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[General BlackDragon]

*waves hand*

Well, not a "programmer" but CFG files are similar ish.

[Avatar]

I feel old...

Yeah yeah yeah... cry me a river... 

Quite good deals though, wish it was integrated into a download framework like Steam or Impulse, do not really fancy the download it once kind of thing as I like to just go to one of my other computers and just 'sync' my account and get everything there too... 

Well, I like that once purchased you can download as many times as needed...  that's almost as good in my book. 

-Av-

[OvermindDL1]

Quite true.  Much better then even EA's store of, download three times or within a couple month, whichever comes first...
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[† Trinity †]

It would be interesting to see how they managed to get the companies to liberate the games as it were. Obviously money... but I can't see it being much for the business model to work.

Given BZ's convoluted ownership I can't see it being an easy target.

[Avatar]

Well, take the Apple ][ as an example.  I think pretty much every commercial game released for the Apple is available on a web site, complete with emulator that runs in IE... all nice and legal with no cares about getting them to run on modern hardware.  I'm pretty sure it was all done by enthusiasts, too, who got the original publishers/authors to sign off on any legal ties.

http://www.virtualapple.org/

Once you remove any chance of profit from a game most companies no longer care about them.  It has to be ALL chance of profit, though, so there can't be any future chance of profit, either.  That's what holds some titles back, the chance that there's still a few bucks to be made from appealing to the 'retro crowd' with a game pack.

-Av-

[GSH]

Sorry, having dealt with Apple II emulation types in the past, copyrights are the last thing they ever cared about. Or supporting the few developers left in their community. I'd consider all the items on that webpage still copyrighted and pirated unless explicitly noted.

-- GSH

[Avatar]

From the support forum:


Legal Question

Postby HistProf on Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:23 am
Hi board moderators, first I would like to thank you for developing this website and including so many classic games. I have a question as to the legality of this site. I was thinking of having my history students play Oregon Trail and write a paper on it but I didn't want to require them to visit this site to play this game if it isn't 100% legal. Thank you for your time.

HistProf
     
    Posts: 1
    Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:20 am

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Re: Legal Question

Postby billm on Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:08 pm
All of the software in this site either is public domain, or is abandon ware. If there is anything in here that should not be here, we take it out. Our goal is always to have a site that the users can legally download the software that they play online here.

Having a huge chunk of those programs myself, most of which came from the various crackers and hackers active at the time, I can understand why it would look like this is all warez...  many of them still have the 'cracked by' tags.  I even had a wildcard2, which would dump the entire 128K memory onto a disk and then restore it when asked...   

This sort of project is only possible on a machine that's no longer made, archiving software made by companies that no longer exist or who's authors are now way beyond any hope of further profit from their work and will release it to the common domain.

-Av-

[GSH]

"Abandonware" has zero legal standing. Copyrights exist for Author's life + 75 years, and does not decay if not defended. "We take it down if someone complains" is the cry of pirates everywhere -- they falsely put the burden back on the copyright holders to track down every infringer and complain. Instead, people should get permission, then post it. That's the legal way to do things.

This is not a theoretical subject to me. A dozen years ago, I was one of the top-10 active developers for the Apple II, and spent quite a lot of time fighting pirates. As the community sided with the pirates, and couldn't care less about anything new, I said f*** it.

-- GSH

[Avatar]

Sorry, didn't mean to touch a nerve...

I got sidetracked while adding to my post, but I believe from reading over the site that by 'abandonware' they mean those titles who's copyright was held by companies long since out of business, with no corporate 'heirs'.  You can argue that the titles are still copyrighted in that case but if nobody holds it and it falls in a forest does it still make a noise? 

I'd like to know if/how they got the EA titles cleared as those were among my favorites...  Archon needs updating, that was a great game...

I do know that for a while they were posting which authors they'd reached and who'd released their titles to the common domain.  It was quite a project for a machine that's been dead for so long.

And, while authors life + 75 works for a book, it's ridiculous for programs that are obsolete in a fraction of the author's lifespan.  We're risking losing the entire beginning history of the electronic age because the media, hardware, and code is lost within a decade of release.  They're not like books, or records, which are still around and readable 100 years later, or still in print if deemed worthy.

I agree that current works need to be vigorously protected to make sure it's purchased and not pirated, (don't make me post a pic of my software shelf...)    and I think a lot of progress in that regard has been made with many of the current top titles requiring internet access and registration codes to work.

I just think that when the hardware and software only exists because enthusiasts have made sure to save it a different standard needs to be applied.  That might take changing the law to suit the electronic age...

-Av-

[TheJamsh]

sided with pirates!

never!

unless youre playing QF mod. in which case its fine

[† Trinity †]

What gog.com is doing is arranging for commercial distribution of games that were previously characterized as abandonware.
Abandonware for all intents and purposes is warez.
Liberated games are games that have had a new EULA allowing non-commercial distribution and use (see http://www.liberatedgames.com/license.php).
I'd rather see old games become liberated but GOG's approach might have more success given there is a money incentive for the original copyright holders.

[Avatar]

You know...

If you go back to the start of the computer gaming business, which might be too far back for most people , you run into a lot of 'companies' that were just a couple of guys in their garage.  Times were simple and, like a lot of garage bands, getting clear title to old works can be virtually impossible.  That's why some movies from the 80's aren't going to DVD, because getting the sound track signed off by dozens of companies that hold copyright on the various songs in the movie is virtually impossible, or would cost more than the profits from the DVD, or is all tied up in multiple parties claiming ownership.

And another thing:

Nobody is going to make any real money off of, oh, say, all of the old Atari 2600 games, which will sell only as a 'nostalgia item' to us old farts that started our gaming addiction with one.  Compared with the current crop of XBox and Playstation games the old Atari stuff might as well be invisible to anyone under 40.  Who'd play PONG when they could be playing something that looks like a REAL tennis game?  There's also the issue of keeping the hardware working OR getting a decent emulator going, which is going to get increasingly difficult as the graphics hardware advances.  We're having trouble keeping 5 year old games running correctly with modern hardware, let alone something from 20 years ago.  Most of the old arcade classics like Pacman or Joust can now be played online in a browser window.  That should tell you something...

In another ten years or so many of the games we're talking about will be in the same boat.  The difficulty in finding the copyright holder, securing the rights, making it work under modern OS/hardware, or even finding someone interested in doing any of the above, will increase to the point where it just won't happen.

So, bottom line, many of these titles will be lost to history.  It's good to see somone trying to preserve them, but it will always be a temporary niche thing...

-Av-

[bigbadbogie]

Lol - in 2020 Crysis will be considered an old piece of rubbish that nearly nobody can play because nvidia will have cut support for DX10.