Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (
More info?)
On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 18:22:22 GMT, "miket6065"
<miket6065@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>Now there are two answers here. There are such things as abandonware which
>is legally available for download. You can look for www.the-underdogs.org
>Now the second is to download NEW games and if which to continue to having
>games you need to reward game developers/designers with money by purchasing
>their games.
>
Abandonware *isn't* legal. Unless the author specifically gives
permission to redistribute these old games, it's not legal to download
them any more than it is to download new games.
The underdogs sits in a sort of light grey area. They do *ask*
permission from authors before putting the stuff up, and they have
gotten permission from authors to put up *some* of the stuff they have
on the site, and where the authors say "No", they take the stuff down.
What brings them down a few shades towards the darker, less legal side
is that they don't wait for that permission before putting stuff up.
They just put it up, and *assume* that they have some sort of implied
permission if the author doesn't say "No." They legally can't do
that, anymore than a warez webmaster can legitimately assume that EA
has given him implied permission to redistribute because their lawyers
haven't gotten around to shutting him down yet.
The true grey area is where games were published by a company that's
defunct. If the publisher is dead, the copyright is held by the
developer, but if the developer is gone too, the game's copyright
status is in limbo. It might be argued that it's held jointly by
every member of the development team: artists, programmers,
designers, etc.
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MCheu
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