Slashdot Mirror
Warez and Abandonware
markm writes "Stephen Granade, webmaster of the interactive fiction site at
About.Com has written
an excellent article
on the warez and abandonware scene. It's worth checking out, even if you don't
participate in trading warez."
What are your favorite abandoned games that you'd like to try playing again? Would you pay?
Perhaps you should take a look at NetHack, if you're into adventure-type games. For a long while it was text-only but now it has non-animated graphical tiles. It is IMHO the most intricate, most entertaining, and most addictive game that I have ever played. It is still being updated (the current version is 3.3.1) but most updates have focused on adding more classes, more items, more text, and the like. The other Roguelikes (Angband, Moria, Adom, etc.) may be worth a look too.
I just found Populous II (in my mind, better than I) on www.theunderdog.org. This is a PC port and works under Win 98 if you enable expanded memory. Populous III is a botch. The idiots who designed it essentially threw away the part that made Populous I & II interesting - namely the autonomy of your little worshippers (you can't just give each one orders). They turned it into a Command & Conquer clone, and seemed offensively proud of having done so (I saw a review where they basically said "screw you" to Populous II purists). It's pretty sad when the gaming community understands why a game worked better than the developers of a sequel.
Activision may still have a clerk somewhere looking after Pitfall, in the event they think to revive it
Actually, Activision has already revived the original Pitfall
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
This is how it works now, but unfortunately it's for values of X equal to 90 years. That's how it is for everything that's copywritten (musical recordings, books, software, etc.). It used to be 75 years, but it was bumped up thanks to the Sunny Bono Copyright Extension Act, pushed largely by Disney (Steamboat Willy was supposed to go into the public domain recently).
Einstein is dead and he's no longer working on his models for the universe. So does that mean that The Unified Theory is abandonware? Should physicists stop thinking about it until they get a license?
Who moderates the meta-moderators?
ironically enough, i remember td2 playing just fine on a p200 or so. guess they changed the speed controls
Some yes, many, no. A lot of these games were from companies which no longer exist, copyrights not enforced or renewed. I knew one of the original Apple game writers, and when his first employer Sirius Software folded the rights to the games were basically sent to the landfill, source code and all. Activision may still have a clerk somewhere looking after Pitfall, in the event they think to revive it, but there are few of these companies who survived to the present. If somewhere, someone does have these things in a filing cabinet, it's a good bet they don't even know it.
Fascinating stuff, I have several old SoftTalk and SoftLine magazines from 1981-1982 and there's legion games and game companies listed in there which probably didn't last past 1983. One or two good titles, tapped out then closed the doors. Much of that stuff could stand a tad updating (i.e. do the art in more than 16 colors) and be lots of fun today.
Nice to see some people working on the old M.U.L.E. game, as one of the original designers of the game has passed away, it's probable it won't ever be officially released again. Then, EA distributed it, maybe they could still pull something.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Well for a lot of reasons (mostly because of no direct income from it) software companies don't release them. Most probably won't unless you force them, and copyright does expire - 75 years later, more or less depending on where you live, as a general rule. Software doesn't really live that long.
But how fast does books become obsolete? If I could play the same game I did 5-10-15 years later and enjoy it, why should that be any different from the book I bought back then, even though hardly anyone would buy it today, it's probably not released for free?
Frankly, this line of looking at sales statistics will just put too many good games up for free. What about Championship Manager (earlier editions), or Fifa 96/97/98/99 once 2000 is out?
And if people are allowed to do "whatever they want with it" and it includes source code, how long before someone create spin-off products, after all some game types doesn't really change all that much.
Would you consider the same agreement for e.g. music? If it doesn't sell records anymore, it's free to trade on Napster/ftp/http/gnutella/etc?
Truth of the matter is, the software isn't obsolete before noone *at all* wants it, not when a bunch of selfrightous people "decide" that it has been abandoned and should be abandonware. Obviously it has some value to you, else you wouldn't get it. I don't expect people to shell out 34.95$ for a game 4 years old. But if you demand to get value for free and claim it's fair, I don't agree. To me, you're just as bad as the warez/mp3-leeching/p0rn trading people violating copyright quite often (which, (flamebait) includes me, but at least I admit it).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Did you ever see this game...?? Hours and hours... I would play it still if I still had it.
-
AltaVista'z Warez Search Engine
-
Google'z Warez Search Engine
I'm sure the basic principles applied above can be used to turn many of the available search engines into warez search enginez.31ee7e1y Yours,
Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Here are a list of reasons I have to answer that question, and it's for a lot of legally purchased software.
The software didn't live up to the hype.
Too buggy.
Didn't meet the needs for what it was intended for.
I've got software that been installed for 18 months that I haven't touched.
I've got a game I got last Christmas that still in a shrinkrapped box.
I don't advocate piracy, however, these guys really think if 2,000 people download a warez version of there software, that's 2,000 lost sales. In reality, 1,990 of them say to themselves "What a piece of shit." and delete it.
Yes, but how is this actually more than just Gauntlet from a new viewpoint? And how is Gauntlet anything more than a sophisticated Mosters In The Dungeon? (OK, can't remember the proper name, but that old mainframe thing and one of the first computer games _ever_).
Truly original games are rather more rare than you might think and a new viewpoint does not a new genre make.
(Favourite old game - Deathchase on the Spectrum. Chasing through forests very fast, trying to shoot other motorbikes. Fantastic tension, brilliant game, ran on a Z80 and had 9K of code. Also arguably near-Wolfenstein3D-level first person 3D...)
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
There were three arcade games I was in love with in 1992-1994. I need help tracking two of them down:
1) Cdashus -- Wonderful arcade RPG game, four classes to play. I've found it for the TG-16.
2) Time Warriors -- A top view scroller like Ikari Warriors, but with like 40 different characters to play. What platform was this on? I haven't been able to locate it.
3) -- A side scrolling RPG/action game where you had to go through forty levels to get to the top of a mountain. The main thing I remember about it is that you could get an NPC to follow you around, who would attack when you would attack -- there were like 6 different ones, from a ninja that tossed stars to an archer, to a wizard. Anyone know the name of this? About 1990-1991 when it came out.
Thanks,
Shaka
actually they still sell Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3. Four was okay, but way, way too short. There really should have been an additional act in there... perhaps as Elaine?
my favorite game, which I do play a pirated copy of, is Bolo for the Apple II. (not the same as Bolo for the Mac!)
It's very simple, but kicks an amazing amount of ass. If only there were some way to tell which way your tank was pointing if you've been using the turret...
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I agree, I would willingly pay to get a nice professinally burned CD / hell even floppy of a classic game. I grew up playing Defender on my BBC, and scrimping pocket money to pay for UKP 1.99 Budget Tapes on my Speccy.
;-) ) feel proud to playing it legitimately instead of creeping round the backdoors of virii and porn.
I appreciate that Budget is still available, and certainly in the UK some labels have tried flogging 'Classics' at UKP5 a go. But I just can't find the gameplay in the titles that are available.
With the the low cost / MB of disk space, and even the decreasing costs of bandwidth I don't see why people that hold the rights can't make these games / apps available. E-Commerce gurus scream at us about the benefits of micro-payments and the fact that it's the future, so why not download at UKP 1-2 a go (even I can afford that risk) and bill it monthly to your credit card, nothing to loose, the costs of hosting and then some could be made back, and I would (for once
Well, that's my 2p worth, off to dig out my copy of Dune II.
-- This is an expression of my state of mind, and almost definately not of any worthwhile opinion.
Someone who is content playing Super Mario Brothers has less motivation to purchase a new game for the N64.
That said, abadonware has an important purpose, which I feel justifies the existance of these sites: The preversation of video game history.
Even though audio recording technology has existed since the 1870s, we have virtually no audio recordings from before 1890 or so. Most of the recordings in the first two decades of audio recording technology have been permanently lost.
Movies have a similar problem.
People have worked hard making ROMs available for MAME, making disk images of early 80s PC games, and making ROMs of NES games. Because of their work, and the wide distribution of these files, a nearly complete history of the first generation of video games will be available when the copyrights finally expire.
Now, I would we lying if I told you I did not have an axe to grind here. I do. I enjoyed playing those video games in the early 80s. I am really glad that I am finally able to play those video games again. In fact, I have access to far more games today from that era than I did back when I was playing those video games.
The place where I draw the line is with the 16-bit generation of video games. In my book, anything 8-bit that is not being sold new today is up for grabs. Obtaining 8-bit (and older) video games is "preserving video game history". 16-bit and newer video games is piracy (read: stealing), plain and simple. One exception: The Game Boy is an 8-bit unit. Since the Game Boy is still being made today, obtaining Game Boy games is piracy.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
I can tell you from experence you can't get a company to release source even to old MS DOS games with out a large petition.
Also, I truely believe some games source has been lost for good and no longer exists. I'd like to have the source to Master of Magic, Arena: The Elder Scrolls, and TombRaider. I asked for source for all these, but you don't see linux versions now do you. =)
I started a TR clone engine - but that got boring quick, as I didn't like the game much to begin with.
It takes a movement and good timing to get game source.
I've got the Star Control 3 CD sitting here next to my comptuer. I never spent much time playing it, though. Just didn't have nearly the feel of Star Control 2 (I think SC2 was the last PC game I ever played all the way to the end). Primarily, I think I missed the cool music!
-Zak
You can go out and buy the kings quest and quest for glory anthologies. They are around $15 and contain almost all titles from the respective series (the kq one does not contain 7 or 8).
Just thought you might like to know.
- WeaselGod
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet turbines
Anne Marie wrote:
IANAL, but I do know basic property law. And with that in mind, your analogy is flawed. Rather than having an expiration date for copyrights, after which redistribution is legal, be analogous to a burglar breaking into a hypothetical attic, copyright expiration is more akin to the following situation:
Say we have a Mr. Smith, who owns a house, and is a firm believer in private property rights. Let's imagine also that there is a small, neglected patch of land in the corner of his property. If someone comes along and maintains this patch of land (perhaps he builds a shack on it, or perhaps he hosts a website), and Smith doesn't object for a period of time, then the land, title notwithstanding, is not Smith's anymore.
While the analogy that I make is flawed as well, my point stands, that property law, even for physical property, is clearly not as unambiguous as your burglar in the attic example paints it as.
It's interesting that you mention DOOM. ID is busy writing a brand new version of DOOM because the concept is popular and the brand is strong. I.e. Critics of violent games still say "I don't want my child playing DOOM".
So if releasing the game under a liberal license destroys the market for new versions someone needs to tell this to those people who are already saving to buy DOOM3.
The fact is that games are different from other software. A satisfied user of Word 95 will not buy Word 2000 unless forced to by incompatible file formats and the unavailability of the old software for his extra PCs.
Game users however are the opposite extreme. If someone is happy with Quake1, you don't have to market Quake2 to him. Mearly inform him of it's availability and you are guaranteed a sale ( pending financial issues ). You see games are like movies. 90% of Slashdot is holding it's breath waiting for Star Wars Episode 2 and Matrix 2 & 3. Would giving the older versions of these shows away for free change this ? In what direction ?
PS: Imagine how succesful the Fugitive or Charley's Angels wold have been if the Series wasn't in sindication.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
No, Sig11 is apparently being highly effective in stirring conversation. Look at the points people raised in defense of abandonware.
He may be neurotic and have a curiously high ego relative to what he does, but at least he dares to be unconventional.
You must be a hellishly mediocre programmer, that you are blind to the good consequences of unconventional things and see only the bad.
*sob*
Oh the humanity! I lost several good keys on my keyboard to that game.
US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8
I believe that the US copyright law is unconsititutional, because (1) It extends after the Author's or Inventor's death (2) That it is not neccesaraly to the Author or Inventor (companies hold copyrights) (3) The right is infringed upon by companies, and other organizations.
Brief note on the origins of copyright: It was originally a tool of oppression. It was first granted to some publishing houses in England for 7 years, with the understanding that they would suppress books and writings that were not liked by the ruling power, the king.
I think we see the origins coming through very well, but I doubt that the US Supreme Court will have the backbone to stand up to the lobbists, hired by companies that are infringing upon that Constitutional right.
That being said I think it's pretty sad it's going to take at least another 25 years before the copyright on things like Pong & Tetris expire.
Actually, I'd like to see somebody build an enhanced SimEarth. It was a pretty cool game that let you evolve life on a sterile ball of rock. Once you figured out how to make it work it was easy though, albeit fun to have things other than former apes as the dominant species.
Any other former Elite players out there?
For the poor souls who have never experienced the joy of Elite, it was a space adventure in which you start as a lowly little trader, and you must travel from planet to planet, trading goods, making money, arming your ship, gaining experience, and increasing your "rating," until you reach "Elite!!"
Space battles were in real time and 3D, although it was all vector graphics that look laughable by today's standards.
However, I was awed by the scope of the game, because there were so many stars to visit, I never reached even a fraction of them all.
Ah, I remember the space battles, survived by the skin of my teeth... the occasional surreptitious trading in illegal goods (sometimes, it was just so lucrative!)... the pleasure of being able to upgrade the weaponry on my ship...
Actually, part of the reason I'm reminiscing about Elite is because I had a dream that I was playing Elite, just last night. Strange dream.
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Give me populous!
I loved that game! The new 3-D populous sucks. What I want is the original, Amiga populous! Although, I'd prefer a PC port, as I don't have an Amiga these days...
________________________________________
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Abandonware becomes a problem simply because of the differences in the expectations of the corporate authors and that of the end users.
The entire point of intellectual property, from a corporate point of view, is to allow a company to continualy gather profits from something even after its been left abandoned (eg Sim Earth).
As an end user I would --love-- to be able to buy a copy of Sim Earth, especialy one designed to take advantage of hardware/software developments in the last 10 years or so. Unfortunately, Sim Earth was abandoned.
Now we end users have built into our minds this concept of depreciation. Go to www.geeks.com and check out the price on a 386 processor, less than a dollar! It sure was a hell of a lot more expensive than Sim Earth was at the time wasn't it?
What it really boils down to is that we're willing to pay for software that the "owners" are willing to keep up to date. Software depreciates just like hardware does.
Sell this stuff at a price that reflects its age, keep it up to date, or give it away for free. I think those are the only options that will fly with this readership.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
1. NATURAL VERSUS ARTIFICIAL RIGHTS.
:)
In the eyes of the law, the right of propertyowners to control the use of their property is a natural right. The right of people to be equal, regardless of skin color, is a natural right. The right to vote, regardless of gender, is a natural right. Note that the Constitution has not always specifically acknowledged these natural rights, and there are many natural rights which the Constitution does not recognize.
In addition to natural rights, there are such things as artificial rights. These are more accurately called "privileges". Just like you have a natural right to travel where you like in the US, you have an artificial right to drive on public highways. Remember how they told you in Driver's Ed that driving is a privilege and can be revoked by the State at will? It's the same principle.
Interesting, copyright is not a natural right. All natural rights recognized by the Constitution are phrased in terms of absolutes and imperatives: the government shall not pass law that restricts your freedom of speech, it shall not forbid you arms, it must get a warrant from a judge before violating your privacy rights, etc.
Copyright is a permissive, not an absolute. Congress may, in order to further social goals (scientific discoveries, literary development, etc.) secure for authors and inventors a monopoly on the usage of their creations. As can be seen from the wording of the Constitution, copyright is not a right--it's a privilege.
2. WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
The fundamental question of any government is, and always will be, who's in charge here? In the United States, that question was answered in 1783 when Washington accepted Cornwall's surrender, and again in 1789 when our Constitution was established: we the people are.
If we, the people, feel that the social ills of copyright outweigh its beneficial effects, then it is our absolute and sovereign right to ignore any and all acts of Congress which are contrary to our wishes.
America has a long tradition of rabble-rousing, much to the dismay of the government. When civil rights were not recognized by Congress and segregation was still the law, we, the people, marched on Selma and on Washington. We, the people, disobeyed the government. When Vietnam was tearing the country in half, we, the people, burned draft cards and engaged in civil disobedience.
Congress is not in charge of the government. Nor is the judiciary, nor is the executive. The people who are ultimately in charge are you and me.
3. WHAT IS THEFT, ANYWAY?
Black's Law describes theft as the unauthorized (not unlawful) deprivation of property, or in some cases, benefit of that property.
By that legal definition, unauthorized copying is not and cannot be theft. The `benefit of property' is none; if the author of the software is sitting on it and not turning a dime of profit by sitting on it, then I'm not depriving him of a dime by using it anyway and sharing it with my friends. After all, he still has his original copy (so I'm not depriving him of property), and he's not been deprived of any benefit (since he was receiving no benefit before).
Unauthorized copying is not equivalent to theft. Black's Law says so.
CONCLUSIONS:
1. "... The focus will switch to owning intellectual property."
As pointed out, it is impossible to own intellectual property. Physical property exists as a natural right; "intellectual property" is a privilege granted by the State, and privileges can always be revoked.
The alternative is to elevate intellectual property to the level of natural right, and if you're arguing that this should be the case, you're going to have a hard time convincing me--but please, try!
2. "If I broke into your home and took things out of your attic or basement, then you'd be outraged. But somehow calling it `IP' makes the difference? Does it really?"
Absolutely. The former is theft--the deprival of property and benefit thereof. The latter is unauthorized copying.
Now, it's likely that a theft argument can be made for unauthorized copying of material which is already available for a fee. If my favorite garage band is selling CDs for $10 a pop and I start burning copies of that CD for all my friends, I'm depriving them of a fraction of $10 per sale. (After all, most of my friends wouldn't buy their CD; of the ten people I burned a CD for, the band probably lost only one sale. Thus, their losses are $10, not $100.)
In the case of abandonware, no profit is being made, and thus, no damage has been done.
Paradroid - On C64
Pretty much everything else was NetHack, Larn, Omega, etc. which is source availible, if not necessarily open.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Alternate legal method, I just hate all the warez sites.. affiliation with porn is a must for them for some weird reason, and all sorts of other things I just dont want to have to deal with while downloading (illegal) software.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Man, I loved that game. Cool music, even from the shitty PC speaker on my 386/16 ;-)
Does anyone know how SCIII was?
--------------------------
Subspace was one of the first massive mutliplayer online games. Based on a top-down asteriods view model; you battle it out against hundreds of other players in other space ships.
The graphics leave much to be desired, but the gameplay is fantastic. Like Othello, the game is easy to learn but has incredible depths and strategies of gameplay to master. Games like capture the flag, soccer, king of the hill, trench wars, and 4 on 4 leagues are all different zones available to play.
Originally the game was released and supported by Virgin interactive entertainment. Although soon after the game was released, VIE was bought out and Subspace was abandoned. But thanks to the efforts of players and former VIE programmers the game development continues. Players help program extensions to the game and provide servers that are free for everyone to play.
I encourage you to visit some of these links for more information on this incredible game:
#4 on tweak3d's most addictive top ten
General Subspace info and downloads
Powerball info, the best zone in Subspace
Pirates! by Sid Meier is still the best computer game I've played. Occasionally I go back and play it on the old Apple IIGS and it still amazes me that back in the late 80s a game was produced that was better than any game produced since. It is practically its own genre! What I would really love to see is Pirates! ported to UNIX/X so I could run it on my Linux system. Doing it through dosemu really screws it up.
That game was so awesome. I still have dreams about that damn room where you had to put the tones in the right order(i'm half tone deaf). By the way, the best C64 game of all time... Jumpman!
Ok, I hate to do this, but, the capitolist dog in my just can't help it at the mention of Jumpman...
There are two new Jumpman games under development. Randy Glover (the original author of Jumpman) is working on Jumpman II, and MidnightRyder.Com (my company) is working on Jumpman: 2049 (authorized by Randy Glover - yep, two separate Jumpman titles being developed at the same time, going different directions - fairly cool!) Drop by MidnightRyder.Com and check in on development of Jumpman: 2049, and look at Randy Glover's entries on the Developer's Diaries section for what he's up to with Jumpman II
The other person I talk to from time to time is working on something called The Jumpman Project - basically, he took the original version from IBM for the PC (no, not Jumpman Lives! produced much later - IBM actually ported a version of Jumpman way, way back during the CGA gfx era) which was some serious abandonware, and has began hacking it into shape. It now runs under Windows (and I'm sure WINE would run it, but, haven't tried yet), has a brand new partial working level editor, etc. He didn't just pirate it, like most of the abandonware stuff - he took it, and is somewhat modernizing it. Very cool. Check out Jeff's work at Jumpman Project. One really cool part - Randy knows it exists, and has no problem with his work on it :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
*If I made a game, even if I wasn't selling it, I
...
*wouldn't want others to have it just because
*they could get it
*Making money isn't the only reason for making
*games.
If you weren't planning to sell the game, why wouldn't you want other people to have free access to it? That strikes me as nothing more than selfishness and ignorance(not truly meant to be a flame).
Money is not the only reason to make a game, but if you take away the money aspect, you've taken away every reason to not distribute it fo free.
I am a writer and when I write something I do it for two reasons. The first is that I hope someone will read it and enjoy it, and a distant second is that I hope to get paid for it. If I wasn't planning to sell a piece of my writing I would(and am) be more than happy to distribute it for free.
lysergically yours
Something you need to remember about the United States is that it was founded by a bunch of guys who didn't want to pay taxes. Which by the law of that time they were bound to pay.
I do not respect IP laws. I do not believe that they act in the best intrest of the majority of the people. Infact the only people that IP laws benifit are the large corporations that own the IP. To many people argue that they protect the little guy but I have seen more often the IP laws abused to benifit the big guys.
Personally I believe warez and abandonware to be a kind of Passive Ressistance to an injust law
Old games and ROMS can serve as demos for other or the same games. I know I wouldn't have bought Rollercoaster Tycoon if I hadn't of downloaded and got addicted to Transport Tycoon. And while ROM site say "These are for demonstration only *wink*" I (seriously) only use them for demos. Suprisingly enough out of all the many consoles and stuff I have to play games on I spend most of my money on my Gameboy Color. Before going out and buying a game I first download a ROM of it and play it for a while, this is quite easy with Gameboy ROMS being only 500KB or so. Heck if it hadn't been for ROMS I'd never of got a Gameboy or about 10 games. If I were to try to do this with PSX games I'd have a big problem with them being huge to download and then I'd have to mod my PlayStation and burn a copy. So instead of being able to try out the games firsthand I have to rely on reviews from around the web. Anyway if this post means anything it's to tell game companys that to sell games better give the buyers a chance to try them out first. I know that they could make demo ROMS of Gameboy games or N64 games or whatever and let people download them. This would reduce the amount of people downloading N64 games just to try it and then gaetting addicted to it and play through the whole thing and not buying the game, but would also increase the people trying out the games that wouldn't download the ROMS because it's illeagle.
One of the facets under common law is that if someone doesn't use something for ten years, does not show any significant effort to maintain it, and someone else does these actions instead independant of the owner, the latter person gains the right to use that property as they see fit without the ability for the original onwer to prohibit them from doing so. Typically this is used with tracts of land, but I suspect it could apply to other things.
Now this is not quite a transfer of ownership, but it still is something significant. The question then arises as to if the latter person can then give copies of the item to everyone. It's hard to say; I don't know any court precedent here. A court case like this would be interesting to see.
One of the tighter RPG's of yesteryear
You've gotten the point, but don't seem to believe it's serious: Anyone, anywhere, *can* determine which property rights are valid and which aren't and which should be respected and which shouldn't. Permission isn't present or necessary when I pick up a penny in the street, and it isn't present or necessary when I copy a C64 version of Jumpman.
There are plenty of civilized nations who do quite fine with a sense of worth based on something other than property. And while you're right that IP is going to be important to the societies of the future, I think you're wrong about how it will be expressed -- the rights we'll both be marching for will be for individual creators to keep their creative rights, not for producers and corporations to purchase those.
One more drawback:
Your suggestion would violate at least three provisions of the Universal Copyright Convention (specifying minimum length of copyright, barring continuing registration requirements, and barring members from ever shortening the copyright protections provided for in their laws). And UCC complinace is required by the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade, which has massive repercusions for every U.S. industry that sells anything overseas.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
Doesn't this mean every installation of linux or other free s/w is included in piracy rate as well?
Or even the ORIGINAL Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple ][. A top down 4-colour romp through a castle-turned-prison filled with Nazis, Bratwurst and Schnaps.
Of course, the best part was hearing the agents shout things like "Agony" and "Aiiieee!" through the Apple's speaker. Now THAT was a masterpiece of coding...
The sequel was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, and had slightly better graphics and sound.
Seems they were written by a company called Muse, but it would probably be easier to remember who they were cracked by...
Not really,
Assets are depreciated over time and I'm sure their value is out of their books anyway.
However, it would be interesting if a company can claim "goodwill" asset for releasing an old program for free. I'm not an accountant so I don't know for sure...
This may have been addressed already, but I can't see it amidst all the posts, so I'll ask (again).
If I enter into a EULA with a company re: a game, and years later that company ceases to exist, is the EULA still valid? Who'd prosecute me for, say, reverse engineering the game (prohibited in the EULA right now)?
Could I reverse engineer Frantic Freddie or Miner 2049'er now and use their sprite 'jumping man' code?
creation science book
Old EA games like the Bard's Tale series and Wasteland. EA recently released a package containing all of these for $20, but it'd be great to see updated versions that could take advantage of higher resolutions than the 64k EGA card i used for most of these games. I also miss Duke Nukem 3D, and am very sure that there's enough of a market to support a open/group rewrite of the engine to do OpenGL. In fact, this would probably get done before Duke Nukem Forever is actually released. I mean, I remember when the DNF people announced the change from the Q1 engine to the Q2 engine. And i want to be playing pool and waving money at strippers now....
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
...at least the way it is now.
I am of the opinion that copyright on all software should expire after three years. At the end of those three years, the original copyright owner(if they even exist anymore) should be able to renew the copyright for a marginal fee, up to a maximum of 15 years. This would mean that as long as the company was actively interested in maintaining ownership of the software they would be able to, but that once they stopped caring it would be legal for the game to be distributed on abandonware sites.
Incidentally, I totally support the illegal operation of abandonware sites now, and even of warez servers(potential flamebait).
anyways, that's my take on it...
lysergically yours
Totaly agree with you, however you are missing one vitually impotant point.
The authers seldem have the rights to the software.
That myu friend lies with some big autonamous corparationm, for which the reasons of not letting go have been said here many times already (so I won't bore you with em again)
Only reason i posted this is to say my bit abou companies ripping the real lovers of games off. the coders.
I did a bit of game programming commercially for a bit. It sucked, I quit. too much politics and bullshit. So maybe I'm a sad hippy of something but I'd rather just do it for the fun myself.
Yes lot's of shit shovelware comes out. but what about the poor coders, do you think they really want to be programming that shit? they just do it cause one day they might, just might be given the chance to do something good, something they want.
Here's another tit-bit from inside the games companys. all programmers (\I won; even mention the rest of the design crew, but do include then) use warez games, they download em and play em.
Yes they purchace stuff that is good.
It's the games companies that suck and don;t you forget it.
ahh, i'm tired now, hope i didn;t miss owt!
k.
+----------------- | What is the question!
I remember TD3 fondly, way ahead of its time with the truely free nature of the game. A start point, an end point and a completely free world between. But for TD4 they seemed to take several steps back and go back to the linear stuff. Boring! Damn shame they didn't build in a speed control function to TD3, have you tried to play it on a PIII?!!
The argument that if a program wasn't availble free on the internet, then w4r3z d00dz would not have bought it is stupidest way to justifty warez.
Just because you would not have bought the software if it wasn't free, doesn't mean that it's alright for you to steal it. That's like saying that I could hope on an airplane to Paris right now, for free. The plane will go to Paris with or without me, so it won't make a difference, right?
Wrong. That's just not how it works. And that's not how it works with software either.
Under British Common Law ( The same stuff most english speaking countries base there laws on since even rebel leaders thought the brits wrote reasonable laws ) there is a well established concept of "Squatters Rights".
Essentially, if you are walking along and spot a nice piece of land you can venture on and set up camp. If you aren't chased off by the owner or someone acting on his behalf for 7 years you can claim ownership.
Note that this "chasing off" doesn't have to be effective. A "Go away" letter copied to a credible 3rd party is enough to stop the clock.
This was created to prevent good land from going to waist. Essentially it said "use it or loose it". Why should the most permanent and respected property right ( land ) be less than the 2nd most transient ? Copyrights.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Then it is clearly a depreciated asset. Why don't their bean counters take this into account? Take for instance company X. It spends $10 million to develop a whiz-bang new game and gets loads of people to buy it and it's rated the #1 game of the year, etc. Now, 5-10 years from now the company still has that game under copyright but the graphics are piss poor, the gaming experience sucks, and no one on earth would ever want to buy it except maybe to relive old memories of the fun they had. Unfortunately since it is so old it is no longer available. Company X won't even sell it if you ask for it because it'd cost them more in distribution media than it'd be worth. So why do the bean counters and stockholders continue to count it as an asset? Nobody wants to buy it, nobody HAS bought it in years, it is horribly outdated, and is generally worthless. The money you once spent on R&D to build the game has long since been returned in sales. What is the point of not just releasing it to the public for the few thousand people out there that might have a passing interest in playing it for a couple hours just for old times sake? Personally I loved "Dragonlance: Heroes of the Lance" when I used to play it on my XT with CGA graphics and I think it'd be nifty to be able to whip it out to see how funny it'd be on a PIII-500. Unfortunately it was distributed on 5 1/4" floppies... I have no 5 1/4" drive nor will I buy one anymore and I'm sure the disks are long since corrupted after 10 years. So what am I to do? Ask TSR to send me a copy? Doubtful.
Bart used his skateboard, Marge used her vacum, Lisa used her jumping roap, and homer used his fist. It was a great game, I might even pay to get a copy of it, or the actual arcade machine.
Theres one problem with reflecting your reality, sometimes your reality starts to reflect you.
Since many of these old games (and applications) don't generate revenue in any way, shape or form for the company any longer, why don't they release them under a license so that the general public can use them without fear of breaking EULAs or copywrite law?
Kinda like the GPL frinstance? I have an idea why. Read on.
For example, I liked the game Quarantine for the PC. You're a taxi driver taking people around a futuristic city that's filled with psychos and diseased people (yeah, I'm pretty twisted, get used to it). I'm 99.99% sure they haven't sold a copy of this in 3 or 4 years, so why not throw it on a FTP or web site somewhere with a new license and make it available to anyone who wants it?
Everyone has a piece of Abandonware they'd like to see revived and available; personally, I'd love to be able to get the original Wing Commander and Masters of Orion, but I can't, legally.
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
Did you read the article? There is an expiration; the same 75 year limit on all copyrights if they're not renewed. I think it's up to our generation to explain to the copyright lawyers why 75 years is a tad long for a copyright on a computer game.
Basically, this is about greed. Companies feel like giving ANYTHING away for free is anathema, even the lint from their pockets and the contents of the urinals in their mens' rooms - even if they couldn't get anyone to pay for it. Additionally, they don't want to release abandonware because they WANT these titles to be dead (not the developers, the suits with the copyrights). Why? Several reasons. If you're happy with your old games, why buy new? By ruining and making unavailable old titles, they force everyone to buy new. Blizzard has demonstrated this principle quite adeptly with its recent axe-job on Diablo 1, aimed at increasing sales of Diablo 2.
Also, some of these games vanished for good reason - though they may have a devoted little following, perhaps they just made everyone else retch. Maybe these companies don't want bad games from the past ruining their "image".
There are a lot of factors, but greed is the most simple one. They can't stand the thought that people might use the product somehow to make a buck, or to get an idea for a new game, or just to enjoy it for free, or anything. The only thought in their minds is, "We spent x amount of money and y amount of time developing that game back in '91, and they want it for FREE?? Who do they think they ARE?" In their mind, there is no difference between the 14 year old w4r3z d00d who burns cracked copies of Quake 3 for his friends, and the 30 year old sysadmin who wants to play a 10 year old game for old time's sake. No difference, at all.
You're dealing with the corporate mentality. Get used to it.
-Kasreyn.
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
The product is not the list of bits on the disk.
If game companies made old games freely available, it WOULD cut into their new business. You can not simultaneously argue that they should free these old games since you would love to play them and argue that they aren't losing business when they free the old games.
The week you spend playing Bard's Tale is one week of delayed revenues for Ultima 2001 Pro Special Gold Edition.
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Taskmaker, I love that game. Made by a company called Storm Impact that I think went under a while ago. This is still my absolute favourite game made for the mac. It was an awsome RPG.
If I spend the time and trouble to program a game, it is my choice whether or not I want to share it with the world, for free or otherwise. Just because I sold it at one point, does not give you the right to take it for free at a later time. If you want a copy of my work badly enough to steal it, then do what I did and write it yourself.
I don't think anyone is arguing that companies don't own the copyright to older games. EA (I believe) owns the rights to Bards Tale just as Origin has the Ultima series.
However, I think what the article was asking was why don't the owners of these games make them freely available. If id can release the code to Doom and Quake under the GPL, one would think that Origin could make Ultima IV available at no cost, even if they don't release the source code.
Since most people who want to play these games will find them and play them anyways, the fact they're not released isn't preventing them from being played. I would hope that software companies would recognize this, and change their views. I know it would certainly score a lot of points in the gaming community for those companies that did this.
Just my thoughts.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Quite simply Elite 0wn3d...... It was the best game I ever played when growing up as a kid, and still ranks up there along with wolf, quake, and civs.
I played the game for countless weeks trying to build myself to eventually become elite.
Well, even after playing the newfangled versions (clones) like X:Beyond the frontier, I still play it on the emulator on my psion 5mx palm computer while waiting for the bus. Maybe one day I will be elite.
Long live the C64 and its many wonders!!!!!
Does it go on forever?
Do you really know why people make the games they do?
Maybe someone made a game as a gift for someone, so that they could have something special. Something that everyone didn't have. Maybe they don't like the idea of everyone casually downloading "that old game" that they put their time and effort into. Maybe you don't know why they made it.
I played that on a Video Genie II (A TRS-80 clone) from cassette tape.
After every event, you had to manually start the tape recorder again.
For tax expense purposes, the IRS treats off-the-shelf commercial software as a depreciable intangible asset. When you buy, say, Office 97 for $600, the IRS makes you write it off in $200 chunks over 3 years.
So why can't software copyrights be the same way? 3 years is about the real practical shelf life limit for most software. Heck, most games end up in the remainder bin a lot sooner. 75 years is rediculous for something as ephemeral as software. By that time the aluminum substrate on the CD will have long since oxidized. There will be nothing for the future Bartlebys of the late 21st century to salvage.
Back in the old days whan 48k was a lot of memory for a computer I had a ZX Spectrum. Ultim8: Play the Game (TM) were the wasp's nipples - how much I would give to be able to present my brother (a real fan) with copies of Alien8, Knightlore, Sabrewulf, AticAtac, JetPac and Lunar Jet Man for his PC. (I personally would feel no guilt as I or he paid for all of these brand new at 10GBP or 16USD a throw). These games were largely in monochrome for the very good reason that the electronic beermat's colour attribute system was as dodgy as hell, but the bitmap graphics kicked arse and it was considered difficult by 95% of fiends. (Ahh, reminicence.)
Then, of course we have Uridium. How to describe it: the silky cutting edge of a katana, the fine nose of a Chateau Lafite, the raw nerve-jangling thrill of copious quantities of hard drugs. Undoubtedly one of the finest games ever compacted into less than 48k of RAM.
Right, enough memory lane, here's the problem - many modern games suck. The software guys have gotten so interested in 'content' that they have forgotten that the purpose of a game is to be played. Pretty images are fun to look at but if someone brought out a LAN-deathmatchable port of Elite or similar I would be among the first to buy it, chunky vector graphics and all. Playability FIRST, pretty pictures later!
Elgon
Because.... spending money just to 'release' it or to declar it public domain, or whatever, is ALSO wasting company assets. It's not making them money, and their efforts are focused on other things.
The shareholders could also say 'if it's deprecated, and not worth everything, why does everyone download it?'
One Must Fall: 2097 was a FAN-FRIKKING-TASTIC game, and I actually *own* a copy. Of course, it's in CP backup format, which means as far as I'm concerned it's irretrievable. But I downloaded a copy from an abandonware site. Which is all very well, except that my machine is WAY too fast for it. Dang it. Anyway, my question is this: does anyone remember an old shareware game called "Stellar Explorer"? It was a DOS game which played in full-screen graphics mode, but ABUSED this privilege... as your character was represented by a small green dot. But it was a WONDERFUL game, and I've had no luck finding any reference to it on the internet. I don't have a copy of it anymore.. anyone?
Of course I meant only old copyrighted games are still copyrighted. You don't always know the reasons games are copyrighted, and it's not your software. They didn't have to spend their time making the game, and it isn't your right to just take it. If you have contacted the author and/or publisher, then I can see getting a copy, but if not, it's piracy.
I just like after looking through those 50-odd windows that flood the screen(all porn related of course), you then have to find on about 5 of those windows the first letter of the last sentence of the 4th paragraph of the main page, in order to get the password for the ftp site that is hosting all of those "supposed" games.
Good Times...
_____
"Are we alone in the universe, or is God just some sort of wise guy?"
Turn off JavaScript in your browser. That way you will be able to see the actual targets of linkz in the bottom of your window, and avoid linkz to pr0n. Turning off JavaScript also preventz a flood of pop-up windowz.
Most warez are many megz in size and, therefore, hard to keep on free websitez. If you can find warez with freely distributed "evaluation" or "trial" versionz, it is nearly alwayz easier to get that and search for the required serialz or crackz from a warez site.
h0p3 tHi5 h3LpZzZZzZzZzZzZzZzz, du0d.
The shareholders would need to prove negligence in order to have any suit, and in your case they'd need to prove that the software was actually an asset. IANAL, BNAY, but my guess is that the case would be thrown out the window by any intelligent judge (and similarly by any intelligent lawyer...)
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Your argument ignores a VERY important fact: games were _commercial products_ made at one point to be SOLD to the public. Distributing abandonware is NOT like I'm breaking into your house and steal a game you designed only for yourself to play (and NEVER ever wanted to sell or let anyone else play it). Rather, it's like my breaking into your house to steal a game that you USED to sell, and that you REFUSE to sell to me even after I BEG you to sell to me again. How many classic painters/authors do you suppose would turn in their graves if they knew that we're still selling/exhibiting their works, even though they _didn't_ (explicitly or not) want their works to stay alive anymore? Abandonware is a much less morally repugnant case than displaying, for instance, a Van Gogh painting (one that he himself _wanted_ to destroy) in a museum for all to see. In 99% of the cases, the game _designers_ themeselves don't MIND (and in fact are glad) that people still want access to play their games. The problem of course is that the copyrights are held by some corporate suit/lawyers who know nothing about gaming. Ownership rights exist, true, but they must be taken _in context_. And in this case, the context is NOT individual ownership-- it's about games that were, I repeat, once COMMERCIALLY available. It's ironic-- copyright laws were created in the first place to _encourage_ authors to *spread* their work-- so they can rest assured that their rights are protected. The laws, sadly, are now _preventing_ old games to be enjoyed and spread when companies have long abandoned them.
Peter rejects the argument that, even if you eliminated piracy, software sales would not increase, at least in the business realm. "We believe that actually all of that number [of pirated copies] would have turned into [legally-bought] copies. Why would a copy be made and sitting on a computer if there was no intention to use it?"
Just because theres a copy of it sitting on a computer means its critical enough to warrant buying? That's absurd. Don't you think that if someone considered the software being downloaded to be critical they would do everything necessary to ensure that it can't be taken from them, including purchasing it? I can't think of a single firm that would refuse to purchase critical software for its employees, not doing so would be more likely to hurt than help them.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
First thing I remember was askin' the CEO, "Why?",
:-)
For there were many things I didn't know.
And he always smiled; shook me by the hand,
Sayin', "Someday you'll understand."
CHORUS:
Well, I'm here to tell you now each and ev'ry corporate gun
You better learn it fast; you better learn it young,
'Cause, someday never comes.
apologies to John Fogerty
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
I loved that game too. It was probably one of the most underrated games for the PC. Quarantine II was really bad I hear, all you did was missions, no taking random passengers around...
Graphics weren't exactly good in any way but the game was just plain fun.
---
I wear pants.
Hotline has helped me gain many a program. I use these programs all the time and if I would have paid for them all, my bill would be well over $1000. Some software companies charge way too much for software. Why do they think their programs are being pirated? People don't want to pay an arm and a leg to get programs that are very useful. One program I downloaded would have cost me almost $600! I realize that these programs take a multitude of hours and days to complete, but still, why so much?
[ ]
We/you can affect the profits of current games without having to resort to warez or even MAME ROMs. Abandonware is about saving a cultural heritige, not about getting stuff free.
I can honestley tell you of 3 warez apps that led me to actually purchase them. 1 -cakewalk. Yes they have a demo- (crippled so it wont do 1/2 of the things)I bought the pro version because of how Impressed I was with it. picbasic pro - I learned that using picbasic sucked so I bought their C compiler. ( there is NO demo of picbasic pro) and finally Eagle router - (demo stinks) I bought the pro version because the warezed version impressed me with the artwork generated.
So warez provided over $1500.00 in sales. all because their demos/non demos suked so bad that I had to try warez to make a decision.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Actually, if you go look on the microprose FTP site, you'll find a patch to remove floppy protection. I remember getting it from their support department when I bought RSR an the copy protection wouldn't work with my uber 386 laptop.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
which raises another issue all together. i would agree w/ that sentence, were it true that i felt i was deciding to live on 'their' land. but i can't live (unless i like go live on a boat, or in some remote, uncivilized region in africa or australia or something) without being on "someone's (some governments) land". lemme say this - i am not an anarchist. i like the idea of government. but it irritates me enormously that i can not choose to abstain from being part of "the system", even if i am willing to seperate myself from the protections/benefits it provides. in order to live, i am required to be part of some government. so for me, the above sentence of yours has no meaning, as, i am not deciding to live in the U.S., and thus agreeing to follow any laws, however amoral they may be, i just wanna live on this unoccupied spot of land on the eastern coast of North America. this is not to say, however, that i would necessarily decline being part of the system presently in place. just a thought.
what hump?
or Aristophanes or Lao Tzu or Emily Bronte. Certainly enough people have ripped them off. There is a beginning a middle and an end to IP whether that window is circumscribed by time or practicality. Abandoned is abandoned and if I want own something that is defacto in the public domain then the risk that it is broken or unsupported or wrong or I can't parts for it is pretty much my problem. Alternatively the value, for example in producing one of Shakespear's plays is not the uniqueness of the plot since everyone probably knows it already, but instead, the value is in whatever production I bring to it.
Copyright and trademark are different. If Elite goes into the public domain (copyright expires), then you can copy it all you want, but you can't make a new game called Elite. Actually, Elite is a bad example, since it may not be a trademark. But you couldn't, for example, make a game called Zork if the copyright expired.
Abe Lincoln is such a motherfucker, I can't even describe.
And how is Gauntlet anything more than a sophisticated Mosters In The Dungeon? (OK, can't remember the proper name, but that old mainframe thing and one of the first computer games _ever_).
I think you mean 3D Monster Maze, on the ZX81...
...just come to terms with the fact that at the moment the internet is like a giant tax loophole.
Soon (and sadly) enough the net will be regulated enough (assigned IPs or the like) that it might not be so easy to access emulators, abandonware etc. In the mean time, let's raise our glass and toast a drink to the fact that we can (and do) get away with the plundering of the world's data in a relatively open manner and have yet to land in the opressed world of secret hand shakes and furtive glances.
Of course if we can make the changes necessary in law and ideology so that our actions become acceptable and legal, then all the better for us. But I've got the sneaky suspicion that 20 years down the road these days will be fondly rembered as our glory days. A golden era of free data and free knowledge and when geeks ruled the world. (okay, sounding too much like Katz, better shut up)
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
If it's got value, why is the company not realizing any of it? Why not release the software for money? Yes, that costs money, but if they don't release it, they make no money off this product.
And you could play 4 players on EVERY C64, unlike the Atari version where you could only play 4 players on the models with 4 joystick ports. So there!
I'm aware of the anthologies. The thing is that nobody sells the Quest for Glory anthology anymore, not even Sierra. I emailed them about any copies they might have in a dusty warehouse somewhere, but they don't have any.
The King's Quest anthology is still available, but to my knowledge does not contain quite everything in the series (for instance, the -first- version of KQ1...with pixels the size of fists, to borrow a CmdrTaco phrase). At least you can still buy it, though.
You don't have to give up the name. Just the game. Make the game freely downloadable for anyone who wants it. The corporation can still own the brand name.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
> Something you need to remember about the United
> States is that it was founded by a bunch of
> guys who didn't want to pay taxes. Which by the
> law of that time they were bound to pay.
Sure. I agree that we have the right to revolt, secede, or move somewhere else. The United States does enough things right that I'll protest the little things I don't like in a legal way - through demonstrations and communications with representatives.
Anyone with an Amiga or UAE and a legal set of ROMs can get many classic games.
It is much easier to build an economy when you have a basis of ownership. But even Jefferson realized, way back when, before computers or software, that ideas themselves are *unownable*. Repeat that to yourself. *unownable* Because ideas are the basis for the "new economy", the basis for software.
Now that we have established that ideas are unownable, let's just look at what the software industry is. When you go to a software store you pay maybe $50 for some box on a shelf. I'd wager that perhaps 2 to 8 dollars of that might actually be material value, transportation costs, advertising costs, etc. The rest of the money you are paying for an *artificial scarcity*, created by a bunch of people *hoarding ideas*. Wow, that sounds radical. But, if you go back to ideas as unownable, you can see software, as a product, really a result of a group of people who take some ideas, generate some ideas, and then gather in a circle and hoard those ideas. This isn't necessarily Evil. We realize that we have to incentivize people to create stuff, in the face of unownable ideas. The way we do this is with copyright and patents. Now the core of the whole problem is that copyright and patents last *way too long* in the software industry. 75 years is outrages even for a material work (e.g. a book), let alone a piece of software. Chances are, you will *die* before your copyright on piece of text expires. That is just silly. That is stepping far over the bounds of simple incentive. And software gets obsoleted even faster. A year, maybe two or three. I'd say copyright should last maybe five years on software, maybe push it to ten. Do *you* buy any software that is older than ten years? What possible profit motive, other than plain stinginess, the opportunity to screw over that poor old soul with the legacy system, could people have for software this old?
We are allowing people to create kingdoms and empires upon artificial ownership of ideas. So there are a few robin hoods around. It just galls me that software companies, or other types of "media" companies, think that they have an inherent *right* to profit. Imagine a brand new technology is invented tomorrow, by which a material, once it is created, is instantly duplicated just by the consumer wishing it to be so. This isn't exactly the software industry, but it is far closer to it, than a physical economy. Would these same companies be outraged that their *right* to exploit this new technology for profit has been undermined? I'm sorry, but physics cares nothing for your profit motives. If you don't like technology go somewhere else or enter a new business sector. Nobody is guaranteed the right to profit from new technologies. Sometimes it's just "tough".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Bad example. Elite is supposed to go into PD (or maybe gpl) open source. I think january 2000 was the date David Drabben wanted it to happen. Still nothing though.
Anyways this dejanews search reveald that Elite is "effectively" public domain Usenet Article
No offense to anyone intended, but a good many of the replies here, including many moderated up to 4 and 5, could have been pulled from piracy discussions in 1982. It's amazing how little things change!
ChipWits for the Mac 512K.
I once tried to figure out who owned the rights to this game. It was really vague, because one of the chain of bankruptcies & selloffs sold itself two different ways. So it's impossible to know who owns the rights to this game.
It involved a little robot that you would program with logic to allow it to get through a room. Pretty tight, considering the limitations it had.
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
(Congress shall have the power)
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Take a look at that:
"Congress shall have the power to": I.e. it's not a given. Congress could repeal all IP tomorrow, and legally, it would cease to exist in the US. As opposed to tangible property, protected by the 5th Amendment.
"promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts": The purpose is to improve science & the arts. All Science & Art build on the past, so in order for the next generation to build, the ideas / writings need to be in the public domain. Note that the goal is NOT directly to make the holders of IP rich (much less their heirs).
"by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries": Here's where the IP protection comes in - we'll ensure you make money in exchange for putting your ideas in the public domain, thus promoting the above goal. Note that little phrase "limited Times" - it's not meant to be forever. Originally it was up to 28 years (1 14 year term + 1 extension of 14 years) for Copyright. Now Copyright is Life + 70 years, and was retroactively extended under the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act to 95 years for anything still under copyright, even if it was published prior to 1978 (the last extension).
To Quote Thomas Jefferson on ideas (Letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813):
Back when my IBM XT still worked I used to spend 5-hour-long stretches playing the DOS version of Skyshark by Taito, of which that time was mostly going through the first levels again because you didn't have a save-game function (holdover from its arcade beginnings, I suppose). Finally got a 5.25 drive to load the disks (yes, the originals) into a more recent PC a few weeks ago and, surprise - level 3 is corrupted. Anybody seen this anywhere? Tried the NES-port on an emu but it's just not the same...
BRTB
You do as you please with the money, I'll do as I please with the software.
If you copy the money, you may be jailed for counterfitting.
If I copy the software, I may get jailed for copyright infringement.
In both cases, society has something to gain by perserving the value of the item.
The value of each is almost entirely artificial.
On one end of the scale we have commercial software, where you get very little value for your money.
On the other end, you have opensource, where you get very little money for your value.
We really need something in the middle.
How about software we pay for with kindness?
When will the industry mature?
Absolutely not!
I would click an ad, maybe but not pay!
No way!
If people don't even pay for cutting edge
software, would they pay for old junk?
This veers dangerously close to a "me too" post. These are most definitely worthless assets. "Protecting" them is probably a net loss. You have to pay someone to track down abadonware. Then someone has to send cease and desist orders. In noncompliance cases, you have to drag them to court. All of these actions would normally be carried out by attorneys, who are not a cheap investment.
Corporations with abandonware issues should spin this better. Tell the shareholders "We believe that the costs involved in litigating these issues grossly exceeds the potential damages we may recover."
IANAL but I know corporations are NOT required to pursue all pointless legal actions with reckless abadon. Ignoring abandonware is like settling a questionable discrimination claim - you decide it isn't worth the effort to pursue legal action. I don't know of any shareholder lawsuits over these type of issues, where a company determines
Honestly, it's not like you're making any money off it anyway... and I can't get replacement floppies for my copies of SimEarth and Deathtrack anymore...
There is an expiration on all copyrights. Unfortunatly, the late Sen. Sonny Bono managed to extend the law so copyrights effectively don't expire before he skied into that tree. But don't blame him, copyright extensions are a slippery slope.
Every so often the Mickey Mouse* copyright comes up, and Disney and the Gershwin grandchildren (who have are rich despite having produced no music of their own) pays whoever to extend copyright laws for a few years, and our intellectual property rights are eroded that much more.
Unfortunatly, sensible copyright laws conflict with corporate greed, and since the corporations own the politicos, there's not much that's going to change that without a massive overhaul of the system.
Remember, public companies can be held legally liable to their shareholders if they choose doing what's right (not abusing democracy) over what's profitable (keeping the rights to a dopey mouse because they haven't come up with a better mascot in 75 years). If that's not a recipie for social disaster, I don't know what is.
* Mickey Mouse is the trademark of Disney
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
The dialogue was great, the humor was amazingly funny, the plot outstanding, the alien races very believeable. You REALLY REALLY got into this game.
I'd reccomend it to anyone.
Trains stop at a train station. Buses stop at a bus station.
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
Now, they did it once, do you really think in 20 years they won't do it again? The financial motivations will be exactly the same, and unless lobbying changes, there'll be nothing to stop them.
In the United States, if you find some privately held land, build a house on it and live there for 7 years, its yours, period. You own it because the owner is not using it and never attempted to removed you from it. If you abandon your land, you lose ownership of it. Why should it be any different from software?
Since many of these old games (and applications) don't generate revenue in any way, shape or form for the company any longer, why don't they release them under a license so that the general public can use them without fear of breaking EULAs or copywrite law?
For example, I liked the game Quarantine for the PC. You're a taxi driver taking people around a futuristic city that's filled with psychos and diseased people (yeah, I'm pretty twisted, get used to it). I'm 99.99% sure they haven't sold a copy of this in 3 or 4 years, so why not throw it on a FTP or web site somewhere with a new license and make it available to anyone who wants it?
The other idea I had is an "expiration" if you will on software copywrites, like patents. After X years, the software's EULA no longer applies and people can do whatever they want with it (including make copies).
B ...If my favorite garage band is selling CDs for $10 a pop and I start burning copies of that CD for all my friends, I'm depriving them of a fraction of $10 per sale. (After all, most of my friends wouldn't buy their CD; of the ten people I burned a CD for, the band probably lost only one sale...
In both cases, should the (software author/garage band) end up releasing any future (software/album) - be it as a new (version/remix) or completely new product, the name will be known already by the bunch of friends you gave that software to and the nine other people who received that CD for free.
Never underestimate the marketing value of a free giveaway.
Please stop APK.. you're only hurting yourself.
Bugma
-= I only mind the voices in my head when they don't speak English
Imagine Elite for the BBC Master was released from copyright. Modern versions of Elite would not then be made, at least not with the Elite name; companies would shy from associating with a rogue brand. Look at what happened to Doom.
It's not so much that the style of game would die; there will always be better updated clones. It's just that games of the same name would not be released. I'm quite nostalgic, and like to see games with the proper name. It gives the develepors a tradition to uphold and may even improve quality.
It's best all round if the games companies just turn a blind eye to pirating of ancient games, in the long run, I think.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
I've had great fun playing Original Adventure (aka Collasal Cave) and Zork on my Palm. In fact, I think these games are perfect for the Palm and have made several long flights pass quickly. Playing Adventure on a VAX circa 1980 on a 150-baud acoustic coupler modem was my introduction to the fabulous world of computers. I'd be willing to pay for these games, although I think the kind folks who created the run-time engine for interactive fiction games deserve a slice of the pie. I'd also like to see Spy Hunter, but that's another story.
DaBuddha
"Its time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of gum." - Duke
I'll find it eventually...
I don't know about anyone else, but my favorite series of games of all time is the old SSI Gold Box D&D games. I have looked everywhere, and short of a compilation by Wizard Works a number of years ago, it is completely unavailable.
Has anyone else looked for these games? If anyone can give me a pointer to IBM versions of these fantastic classic games, that would be fantastic. Of course, that's useless without scans of the books.
Let's hear it for the best series of RPGs of all time.
Mycroft-X
Yes, unfortunally there are lots of warez sites out there that try to masquerade as abandonware sites. :(
:)
There are also sites that are very serious about the content that they are publishing. One example is theunderdogs.org that even links to where you can get the game if it is still being sold. (Of course theunderdogs.org isn't just an abandonware site but more of underdogs collection
So this raise the question, if we had purchased (licensed,/whatever) of the abadoned software, do I have the right to modify it so it actually works? Do I have the right to use someone else's modification (regradless of the reason they made the modification in the first place, i.e. warez).
Aside: Somewhere on a 360K floppy, I still have a few gladiators that I worked hard on (Avalon Hill's Galtactic Gladiators). Since GG was coded in BASIC (using that sophisticated built-in Microsoft basic protection), it was not too hard to fix. I was able to remove the protection, but I had to add a lot of delays before the game became playable on a i386(otherwise things would move too fast to see).
If they are unwilling to sell it/support it, then software should not be covered by copywrite laws. Infact any and all "intellectual" property should follow something like that. If you don't make money for it, then its no crime to copy it. Software, music, etc.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The original MS Olympic Decathalon for MS-DOS 1.0.
Ran on the original IBM PC back in '82 or so.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
a Washington, D.C. firm. IPR calculated how many computers were being sold into a country for business purposes and how much software was being sold... From this they could calculate how much software should be sold to match the number of business computers in the country. The deficit between the ideal sales rate and the actual one is the piracy rate.
I don't understand how that could give an accurate estimate of lost revenue. Suppose a company had 1000 computers, each with a licensed copy of MS Office. Then, they scrapped all those computers, and bought 1000 new computers, and installed the old MS Office onto the new computers. There would now be a difference of 1000 between computer sales and software sales. There was no piracy involved, but according to that statement, MS lost around $400K ($400 for Office x 1000 computers) to piracy. How does that work? Even if the company sold the 1000 old computers to users, who in turn bought 1000 copies of MS Office, you'd still have a deficit of 1000 (+1000 new computers, +1000 old computers, -1000 MS Office).
LOL... yeah, TD3 was great, perhaps one of my favorite (old) driving games at the time. Very realistic (not for today's standards though, take a peek at NFS:PU, which IMHO is the best driving game out there), but of course, even my old P100 runs it *WAY* too fast, even with MoSlo. Did great on my 286 though, with my good ol' AdLib soundcard. Ahh, those were the days...
"The real reason for cracking down on abadonware sites is because people who download and play free older games are less motivated to purchase newer games." Hey, has anyone looked at the hardware requirements for most of the new games coming out? 500MHz, 800Mhz Pentiums, 3D accelerator video cards with 32M of video memory, all sorts of stuff like that. My computer won't run this stuff! I have at home a machine with a 180MHz Pentium-I, and a non-accelerated video card with maybe 4M or so of storage sitting in a damn ISA slot. It runs Red Hat 6.1 really nicely, and I am not motivated to shell out the bucks (my wife is even less motivated to shell out the bucks) for a new "state of the art" machine.
I am simply not going to buy those new games, the hardware requirements are too great. So I play the older games which I still have, or any "new" old games I can get hold of. In fact, the delay involved in porting older Windoze games to Linux works to my advantage here. And I am working on getting Dosemu and/or Wine running just for this reason.
I say hooray for the abandonware sites.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Bugma
-= Everyone likes the smell of maple syrup, but noone uses it as a cologne!
I don't dream of owning my own home. In fact, every time I
manage to reduce the number of objects to which I am tied
(i.e. that I own) I feel more at ease.
"The American Dream" is the name of a common nightmare
experienced by many non-Americans and even in the US it is
possible to find those who do not define themselves by the
items they have been allowed to consider their "own".
I'm not saying that all property is inherently evil, just
that rather too many people seem to think that their own
obsession with posession is somehow an inherently human
property.
Written by Electronic Arts. Pretty simple, yet kickass, little game. I always tried (never succeeded) to knock out all of the air converter towers before destroying the command post. Unfortunately, it would only boot on KS1.0, which left my stuff to the wind when I bought the A1200.
Way back when I had a 286, I absolutely couldn't stop playing Test Drive. I love cars, racing, and time trials on some road strips. I do it once every week even though it's kinda illegal... wouldn't mind taking one more Test Drive of a Porsche. ;) (Wait, there's NFS5 for that sort of thing...)
A detailed Sim-Earth game is all fine and well, but then you have to make the ape-creatures stare at the monolith long enough for them to figure out how to bash the pecaries' brains out with thigh bones. Fnord.
The party's over
IMHO, if a game has a reasonable price say like 50% of what it is worth today, people would start considering buying them. Afterall, they're nothing but blank disks, a booklet and a nice color package, and authors could earn more by selling more. Yeah i know I'm dreaming again but hey .. just like why should i pay a fucking 25 bucks for a cd, knowing I give 5% of that to the artist I support ? music should be free anyway.
okay forget it I need some sleep
That's the justification most companies would use, but it's completely out of touch with reality.
Corporations throw away millions of dollars just to get people to think of their products, this is called advertising. Nobody questions this...
So why is it impossible to understand that a company would give away something with absolutely no chance of making any money, to get people to think of their other products?
The goal of a company is to make money, but that doesn't mean that every single action must result in the company making money, merely that the whole series of actions a company take be designed to earn money. Advertising doesn't make money, advertising helps sell products. Giving old games away doesn't make money, new customers interested in your product like does.
Hey you nasty games companies! The loudmouth Stuart Campbell journalist thinks you should leave him and his retro-gaming rampant piracy activities alone. In fact, he thinks you shouldn't make much money on them, too.
Now, I've never wanted to point this out to Stuart, but most of his earnings come from game-related punditry. If the only games available were badly-done freeware clones, why would anyone want to have them reviewed, especially by a man with an evil streak a mile wide? But I digress...
Does my bum look big in this?
EVERYTHING SHOULD BE OPEN SOURCE. Take notes guys, that all you need to say to get moderated up through the roof.
I usually use http://underground.sub-list.com ... they rank all their sites, and remove sites that use forced voting, pop-ups, etc.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
If you don't own it, then it's not yours. Period. You may want it. You may even need it. But if it isn't yours, then you can't have it without permission. And that requirement of permission is absent in the abandonware movement.
Think about it, for a second. By saying "we recognize that you used to have a right to your copyright but aren't still using it", you're saying that anyone anywhere can determine which property rights are valid and which aren't and which should be respected and which shouldn't. If I broke into your home and took things out of your attic or basement, then you'd be outraged. But somehow calling it "IP" makes the difference? Does it really?
The law is ambiguous, to some extent, unfortunately. On slashdot a few months ago, there was a quote from David Boies about how copyright can be overruled if it's been exercised in bad faith. But no one is arguing about bad faith here. The owners are exercising their good faith in letting their use lapse. But that's not the same as letting their ownership lapse.
Ownership is fundamental to the American dream and to every other civilized nation's conception of self image and self worth. Today, we all dream that someday we will own our own homes or houses. When the housing shortage is solved in the future and we all don't have to worry about owning our own houses (just as today we mostly don't have to worry about owning our own rumproast), the focus will switch to owning intellectual property. It's almost inevitable. And I'll be on the front lines marching for copyright owners' rights, just as my cousins marched with Martin Luther King Jr for other civil rights.
-- Anne Marie
None of this would be an issue if everyone just made GNU software.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
That article might have been a little better had it not been prepended by a 4-page Warez Primer for Retards. At least I know what an ISO is now...
Also, I didn't see a link to The Keep, which is chock full of abandonware.
I can't believe how people have accepted intellectual property as a fact of life.
I think that you may be able to find a couple of the games still around somewhere, but the vast majority of the games posted on the abandonware sites i've visited can't be found anywhere else. Heck, even some fairly recent games (last couple years) can't be found anymore. I was trying to find Microprose's Magic: The Gathering game. They still have a page for it on their website, but it's not available from their store. Can't find it at Chips-n-Bits either. I'd like to get a copy of it though, so I've been doing a bunch of web searches to find it. No luck so far.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is a bad example.
I'd guess that the only reason Symantec bought Optasm was because it competed with one of their products. If true, the only reason they bought it was to eliminate competition.
Therefore, it wasn't abandoned, but "replaced" by Symantec's software. (Never mind that Symantec's software apparently isn't as good as Optasm.)
I tried to download some Warez once,
but I could never find out were exactly to download a game at! it would say download, and you click it, and it opens 50 windows of different sites, then you try somewhere else and it does the same thing, I tried for like a hour, but could never actually get to the point of downloading something or acces to an FTP archive.
Any one want to help a poor gamer out??
Is this used so that it is alot harder for Companies to be able to find out who exactly is letting people download their games?
Because they have higher priorities.
Like I said, I'm not saying that these companies are right, or that it's justified.. this is just why it happens. It's IP. It's not like it's a warehouse full of inventory that is costing them money; in those cases, you see companies dropping old inventory cheap.
It's purely IP, and as such, costs really nothing to simply do nothing at all with. As the cost of keeping it just in case it's valuable someday is effectively zero, there is no justification for 'releasing' it into the public domain, or otherwise.
That's not to say there may be PR value... but that's the issue now, isn't it?
favorite: wasteland
On the other hand, I do know some lawyers can be absolute industry bitches. I remember working as an intern in high school a few years ago at a law firm, whose one client was Hasbro. Basically, this guy decided to scan sites like download.com and search for anything looking remotely like Hasbro-owned games. Extremely changed versions of Battleship were one good example. And often the software owners were giving their software out as freeware.
I remember when he asked me if I knew "any other sites that might be doing this", as he was a technical idiot. I just shook my head and told him no. Better one less law idiot roams free than Hasbro makes millions off of lawsuits on minor programmers.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Right now, I respect IP laws. I don't trade in warez, I ripped all my mp3's from my own CDs. But that's not because I think the reasoning behind IP is valid. It's because I've agreed to live in the United States, and part of that agreement is abiding by laws whether I agree with them or not.
Exactly... the law is there for good reason... people who abuse the law are to blame. IP copyright should be a choice by the creator, and respected by the consumer. Just because YOU don't think it's worth money to buy yourself doesn't mean you should uphold that person's belief that it is.
I mean hey, if you don't think it's worth it, and you want it free, make it yourself. You want free software or music cuz you don't want to pay for it, get the (C) holders to change their position on copyright. If they see that no one is buying it, they'll see what they can do to embrace the 'free' movement. Don't rip people off because you don't think they deserve what they're asking. If it's worth ripping off, it's worth paying for, somehow.
IP and copyright laws should be up to the true owner. If someone wants to release something free, all power to them. If someone doesn't, respect that. If no one buys their product, maybe they'll understand and give up or embrace the movement. Just don't start a rebellious movement against laws that are put in place to protect people's rights of freedom. Freedom includes the freedom of choice to sell wares and be compensated and backed by law, not that you should get all your wares for free if you simply don't want to pay for it.
Respect people's business decisions, it is after all, their life and their decisions. If business isn't working by their decisions, they'll change to reflect the market.
If the market is in freeware, they'll find some way to continue making money from another source. Just don't rip their hard work off if they want compensation. That's what the law is for.
For things like the RIAA, sure, there could be abuse in their decision... so find a way to change their decisions without breaking the law... embrace music that is free by the creator's choice, so those that aren't free will see they're not making money and change... be smart not rebellious.
I loved Burn Cycle; yes, it was cheesy, but if you actually play it all the way through, it's a really fun game; the music was rad too... but the 256 color graphics, yuck...
"But the dreams came on in the Japanese night like livewire voodoo..." - William Gibson I'm a signature virus. Please c
Yes, it's different. If you steal my IP, I still have my IP. We both have it now.
Do we both have the blood, sweat, tears and long lonely hours that went into creating it?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Some software does, some doesn't. It's worth pointing out that people are still buying the "arcade classics" collections -- games which were considered "abandonware" five years back. I can easily see this trend continuing, with games of the past and present being packaged for purchase in an easily accessible, readily playable digital library form. Much the same idea as the classic film networks we have here in American cable TV, though of course not as mainstream (yet). As we've seen with Napster, once some variety of piracy goes far enough mainstream, a business motive develops, and the rights owners will usually find a way to work out the legal issues and develop the market.
In fact, I think games are among the most value-retaining works. How many people would you find paying hundreds of dollars for a dedicated Lotus 1-2-3 or The Print Shop 1.0 terminal, compared to a Robotron or Centipede machine?
The demand for scarce older games, such as the Infocom games, suggests an opportunity for re-issue. It's hard to imagine that there's a significant demand yet insignificant commercial value for anything as easily distributable and generally support-free as game software.
It's a fine game. Sure, there's no up and down, no mouselook, etc., but it was elegant in its simplicity.
My vote is for Wolfenstein as game of the century.
Now...back to Tribes...
Got Rhinos?
Mhm, you totally missed the part about my free code for everyone for everything if it's written to be free. That's really conventional isn't it.
You must be a hellishly mediocre person if you are blind to what people say and only hear what you want.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
That game was so awesome. I still have dreams about that damn room where you had to put the tones in the right order(i'm half tone deaf). By the way, the best C64 game of all time... Jumpman!
lysergically yours
These games might not be generating revenue anymore, but they are still copyrighted works.
Can you imagine a world where everyone just took everything they wanted, without any thought for others? This is the type of world warez promotes. People stealing from others, doing it under the name of "sharing". They should just call it what it is, stealing and piracy. If I made a game, even if I wasn't selling it, I wouldn't want others to have it just because they could get it. I'm sure the authors of these old games feel the same way. They need to protect what they have put all their time and effort into. Making money isn't the only reason for making games.
Check it out. The news... well, the news is interesting, and the reviews are useful, but the user base doesn't seem to like to post any reveiws/comments about games. Somebody should rectify this. I'm telling you, this DOS game heaven.
I still play it from time to time-it's one of the few 3d shooters with character, that aren't just all "Ooh, look at the pretty graphics." I just wish I could find the plutonium pack addon somewhere. I do agree that games should be copyright released after 5 years or so-does anyone believe that 3dRealms is getting money from people buying Duke3d? I really doubt it. I'd also like to see them open-sourced... otherwise we could lose the code for good. I've heard rumors that Commander Keen (id's first game) would have been open-sourced, but the code was lost :( I don't want to see this happen to a bunch of other games.
Colin Winters
There's something that didn't even occur to me... I remember a few years back a friend of mine bought a compilation of old Atari games that was basically the ROMs with a bundled Atari emulator... from Atari. Damn. Why do people have to make things so complicated? =)
Damn good point.
underdogs
Abandonware Oasis (has a search engine) The Abandonkeep Gaming Depot
DOS Graveyard Adult Games - Plenty of jerkables here
Unless, of course, Michael Hodges is the one who made the charts...
Btw, it also seemed to me the author was pretty neutral on the topic of warez(I would go as far as to say that he was in favour of them, but was trying to be objective).
lysergically yours
There is a fairly simple way to resolve this, but it would requre a fairly large change in Copyright law, and I think it would satisfy most everyone.
1. Let the software, music, and publishing industries have their way. Give them a copyright for as long as they want it with the exception that they have to follow a few simple rules.
2. One of the major rules is that they have to provide upon request a full electronic copy (via cd or other reasonable media) for a reasonable price. This way they would still get to hold on to their intellectual property, and make a reasonable profit from it. If they were unwilling to do so, that document, song, software title, or whatever else would then enter the Public Domain after a certain period of time (I think five years would be reasonable).
3. In order to discourage offering the software for only one day every five years, and effectively never having to provide it, there would have to be a stipulation as to what percentage of that time the data would have to be available.
4. If a particular copyright holder were somehow unable to provide the service for an extended period of time that person can get an extension if reasonable grounds can be shown as to why they were unable to meet the requirments.
This way, people can obtain out of print books, old songs, or old software, without having to resort to breaking copyright, and without having to go through the hassle of trying to find it used.
Unfortunatly, things seem to be going in the opposite direction, but I don't want to go there, because it will just depress me.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
That's analogous to saying "you're not buying a car, you're buying a driving experience" or "you're not buying spam, you're buying a dining experience :)" I don't understand how people try to justify stealing property because of blurring the idea behind the product (IP), the product itself (P), and the original company's profit from the product itself (not the IP).
Designing a car or whatever takes a certain amount of IP, and then a whole lot of manufacturing to create a tangible product. Now, we can take the ideas (IP) and make our own car, and that's done all the time (as we can write our own software to do the same type of game). This is going to take a stretch, but just suppose there existed a machine that can take dirt or any matter, decompose it to subatomic particles, and reorganize the matter to make an exact duplicate of that car. Now, is it stealing the original car? No. Now for the big question: is it denying the original car manufacturer the money they would have gotten for the car sale? An absolute yes. I feel THIS is the heart of the matter: denying an exchange of money for a good or service and getting the good or service anyway is EXACTLY the same as stealing the money from the company in the first place, as you are taking money away from the company.
Substitute "software" for "car" and arrive at the same conclusion.
So, what does all this mean? We should NOT ask if you could take intellectual property, as I would agree IP should be free. I think this question is just a smoke screen. We SHOULD ask, instead, if you should deny the profit of the original manufacturer of software by copying the bits and using them in place of a cash transaction to buy the software. In this question, my answer is no.
BTW, just because software is either some groupings of magnetic fluctuations on a magnetic medium or pits in some polycarbonate, it doesn't mean it's not tangible property. It has to be coupled with a computer to produce a tangible effect (in some cases as a CNC machine or robot, a physical effect). Look at it this way, cold medicine by itself is just some chemical that doesn't appear to do much. It doesn't seem to react to anything. BUT, ingest it and the body will metabolize it and interact with it to do very tangible effects. THAT's why we shell out cash at the drug store for it. Same way with software. Would you suggest that just because the cold medicine doesn't appear to do anything, we can just take it from the store?
Say you purchase some property, occupy and improve it for a while, and then 'abandon' it. There is a thing known as 'squatters rights'. If someone lives on that property for a certain amount of time and improves it, and you do nothing about it, they can legally take over possession.
Or from another angle, if you let your property get run down, the others in the neighborhood may object, because it hurts their property value. You may find youself in court, to either shape up or sell.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Get your C64 games, Spectrum games, Amiga games and Atari ST games.
Does my bum look big in this?
I keep hearing how these abandonwarez sites are posting titles that can't be bought.
? SP=10023&PN=1&V1=167545&xid=9564&search_id=2087833 &doc_id=11 , I hope that works] and more are the classics.
Unfortunately, anyone with a few minutes of looking online can find *NEW* *FOR SALE* *FROM THE PUBLISHER* copies of a lot of the titles that are offered. Interplay's Forgotten Realms archives [look at http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/Ec_Main.entry24
Many publishers have offered those games for sale, but I see "abandoned" sites listing the same titles online. Just because it's not front and center at your local Best Buy or Fry's seems to make some think nobody can find it.
If and when the "abandoned" crowd can actually clean up their act and bother to remove titles that are legally available for sale, then I might think of them as different from the "warez" groups. For now, they're merely lying about what's truly not available.
Future Magic's Sentinel Worlds I; This is the best game EA ever released.
I wonder what ever happened to Sentinel Worlds II? I heard that it had been developed, but never released.
Has anyone else ever even heard of it?
---
Sig Return: 204 No Content
If I broke into your home and took things out of your attic or basement, then you'd be outraged. But somehow calling it "IP" makes the difference? Does it really?
I often hear people from the Software Industry comparing software 'piracy' to shoplifting, stating that unauthorised copying of software is theft, and should be treated by society the same as any other form of theft. But, as other Slashdotters have noted, when you make a copy of some software, you have not stolen anything, you have made a duplication, but the original software is still available.
Stating that software duplication is theft is wrong. Consider the following situation: if I developed a magical duplication machine, and went into my local grocery store, then duplicated a loaf of bread out of nothingness, and gave it to a starving child outside, would the shopkeeper be angered that I had duplicated his bread? Would I be a thief? Would I have done something wrong? In this situation, most sane people would clearly answer no, what I have done is a good thing. My duplication machine could end world hunger and make the world a better place.
Think about it, does software duplication really differ from the above scenario. There are many people living in poor economic conditions, who could not afford to use a computer if it wasn't for unauthorised software duplication. Budget and second-hand computers are becoming ever more affordable, with the price of software now becoming a larger burden. The division between rich and poor is becoming more marked as computer technology becomes entrenched in society. Software 'piracy' allows people who could otherwise not participate in this exciting new phase of technological development a way to experience it. These people would surely not be purchasing the software otherwise, so who is harmed by these actions?
Free (Open Source) Software is an alternative to the illegal distribution of proprietary software, but it is currently limited to the technically literate. As Free Software becomes easier to use, the need for piracy will decrease, but currently, unauthorised distribution of software is the only way for many people to experience the wonderful new technology that most of us take for granted. I don't see duplication of software as 'piracy' or theft, I see it as sharing. Hopefully Free Sofware will continue to become easier to use, and there will eventually be no need for 'piracy', but that dream has not yet been met, so the only option for many people is illegal (if not immoral) duplication of software.
Mr. Granade's description of the term "warez" and similar terms come across as more impartial and informative than the current Jargon File entry.
Kudos to Mr. Granade for the work.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
In my opinion its the best game in the world, but a little too simplistic. That's why some friends and I are in prelim design of something similar but much better. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to play with more than 4 players in real time? That's what we are working on. And its gonna be for linux.
"I can hoist a Jack. I can lay a track. I can pick and shovel too. I'll do anything you hire me to." - John Cash "Legen
On our platform there is an outstanding MIDI sequencer called Inspiration.
It always worked, from the oldest ARChimedes to the most recents RiscPCs.
I wanted to buy it because it would have been worth several dozen ounds.
I have never been able to find its author.
Even its concurrents could'nt help me.
I think this is because I was a "late" Acorn user (1994) and Inspiration's author had changed of development platform.
It is a pity because he really desserves his money.
I however kept this floppy and even "shared" it around me.
We all know we will gladly pay the guy who'll prove us he made it.
I used to play it for hours and I was proud to sort out all of its enigmas, and zto find all its secrets levels or areas.
I know who made it and I contacted them to order it in its official package.
No answer...
I however found the 6th episode on some "unofficial" web site.
In this case however, I found a way to retribute ID: I just bought some of their others games: Doom and Quake3.
I still think I bought these for the wrong reasons (I don't play them that often) but it was the only way I found to pay them...
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Nope. This is specific to land [pedantry](and I think it's 12 years rather than 10)[/pedantry]. If you hold a copyright, you maintain that copyright for the full term - in the EU currently life of author plus, IIRC, seventy years.
There may be bars to selective enforcement of copyright, but it can't be taken over by someone else's actions in this way, no matter how well meaning or useful. More's the pity.
So your willing to just copy the program that someone wrote for two years and is charging money for to support his/her family. Because you copied it and gave it to all your friends who use it constantly, that programmer can no longer afford to buy food. You murderer
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
Someone mod the above comment up!
Even if they just repackage it in a zip file and put it up for download, it's not free to a company. They have to pay employees to spend time jumping through internal legal hoops and getting permission. Then, they have to pay for the bandwidth so you can download their software for free.
If you folks really want abandonware, you need to take the first step. Perhaps create some kind of portal that offers to host the abandonware for download and give the company that 'donates' abandonware free advertising/reviews/etc for their new games.
You don't get something for free.
-lb
There can be only one. :-)
:)
(Don't suppose anyone knows where I could find an original Bubble-Bobble coin-op, do they?)
That and Hired Guns on the Amiga. Corking 4-player deathmatch on a single machine.
The coolest muliplayer game with the coolest dedicated cabinet EVER. One of the few multiplayer games that used split screens to allow individual players to wander into different parts of the game while playing together. It was released on SuperNES but has never been released on any other home game system. I would buy the arcade cabinet, but its too damn big for my tiny living room! Its available as abandonware, but i would pay $60 easy for this incredibly fun, multiplayer splat-fest!
As most everyone has noticed pointed out by now, abandonware is still the company's property. I agree with that. I even think that they should be allowed to decide what should be done with the software that they PAID their developers to work on. That's well within their perogative.
I just think that no-one has approached these people right. Thus far I have seen a lot of sites that say "write letters to the company to tell them to (release the source code)/(re-release the program)" This will never work. If someone is really interested in re-releasing these programs, it has to:
a) be profitable for the company (eg: you must pay them for the source code)
b) Not involve a loss of intelectual property (eg you must sign a non-disclosure agreement)
c) Be able to be re-released, and updated(eg you must be a GOOd programer, and most likely have an entire team of developers behind you)
All of these things point to the Idea I've had for a while (but since I hate programming, I've never really seriously considered it):
Start a company, make a few deals with microprose, id (especially id, if they won't port Q3, maybe they'll let somebody else do it, and handle the headache), etc, and start programming away.
The overhead is lower, because you already have an engine in place, you just have to upgrade/update it.
Now don't get me wrong, this is a HUGE gamble, but I'm willing to bet that people would be willing to pay for an upgraded/updated version of things like DARKLANDS, KINGSQUEST, hell even ULTIMA....
BTW: I really loved Darklands, by microprose software, and while I can buy a cd for 20 bucks or so, it runs on dos, and requires lots of memory swapping, so I nominate that for the first project of the above idea.
hmmmm?
So your willing to just copy the program that someone wrote for two years and is charging money for to support his/her family. Because you copied it and gave it to all your friends who use it constantly, that programmer can no longer afford to buy food. You murderer.
You Sir, are an Idiot.
So youre not willing to buy the program that someone wrote for two years and is charging money for to support his/her family, just because you have no need for it, or that it just plain sucks. Because of your and all your friends unwillingness to all the same fork up your dough, that programmer can no longer afford to buy food. You murderer.
In short, since you seem to have a short attention span, potential loss is no loss at all. You cant lose something you never had in the first place.
/Dervak
Good point.
The opposition to intellectual property seem to come from varying sources:
The opponents to IP should check which category they belong to, and find out if they like being there.
I used to play Red Storm Rising on my old 286. I haven't paid much attention to current naval warfare games, but my guess is the learning curve would be significant compared to RSR (and who has the time?).
I think I've still got the old maps and the 5.25" disks around, but amazingly my Athlon system doesn't have a 5.25" drive to read the disks (I doubt they are still readable after all these years anyway). RSR was one of those games where you have to actually insert the original floppy in the drive before it will let you play (even though the whole game had been copied to the hard drive).
I'd love to play RSR again, and since I did pay for it, I should be within my rights to get it from an abandonware site. From what I've seen, though, Microprose has largely put a stop to distribution of the game. I understand their point of view, but then, I have already paid for it.
Please forgive this pointless rambling about an old game I have fond memories of.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
You can't afford to shell out $35 for an Academic Edition copy of Windows 2000 Professional? How the hell can you afford a computer to run it on?
Bullshit.
Does anyone else find this exceedingly comical? What's next...talk of h4x0r d00dz on CNN?
I don't think there is any other game that I have ever played that has consumed so much of my time. X-Com to me is a fave. That and Dune 2. recently i found it at a store, the original box, in a bargain bin. $2 Canadian!! Thats like 1cent US :-)
sigh. the days. :-)
If you don't need it don't use it If you do need it then pay for it if the author decides that he wants to charge pretty damn simple if you ask me.
Oops....you'll know what I'm talkin about in a bit.
Didn't we have a litte war to settle the issue of whether one has the "right to secede"?
Now that's an interesting point. Here is how it worked. The southern states seceded. The northern states said "You can't do that." The souther states said, "We just did." The north said "If we can kick your ass, then that means you didn't." The south said "If we can kick your ass, that means we did." Well, the north kicked the south's ass. That means the south didn't secede right? Well, after the war the north imposed all these laws upon the south to "reform" them and "Reconstruct" the Union. Many of these laws were unfair and the south protested them. "We are states damn it, we don't want to be steamrolled like this." And the north answered "You aren't states, you seceded."
Hmm, didn't we fight a war saying it's imposible to secede? Didn't that war establish that secession is impossible? If so, how could they impose these laws upon member states?
Answer. The people in power make the rules. That's why we need the second ammendment.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
You could control the robot in Robot Odyssey "internally" - sometimes this was needed to "disguise" yourself. Other times you had to program it by "wiring" logic circuits (using chips, logic circuits, wires and a "soldering iron") to control it, as well as signal other robots along the way, to overcome obstacles - in certain areas, you couldn't be inside when this happened, as sentries or some other thing would detect you, and drag you away (I had Robot Odyssey on my CoCo 2 - great game!)...
ChipWits may either be a renamed version of RO, or it may have been another's version of it, or maybe it was a prior version (RO, if I remember right, was actually a sequel or something)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
My favorite old games are all the games in the space quest series. I can play some of them with Sarien the SGI interpretor. I also like and want to play Microprose Sid Meirs Pirates. I loved that game. It was great.
Can you see Iron City here?
Games like the old spectrum classic 3D Ant Attack should be archived as examples of the evolution of computing entertainment.
3D Ant Attack was a 3D platform game released in 1983 for the Sinclair/Timex ZX Spectrum that could be argued to be the precursor to the Tomb Raiders of today.
Abandonware sites effectively archive such classic games in a similar way to the classic computer/consoles museums that exist legally.
Considering the ongoing trend for eye candy over gameplay we need the old games to be around as examples of good game design.
For example RARE, nee Ultimate Play The Game produced games for the old 8-bit computers that are still relevant today in terms of game design and sheer playability. Play UPG games like Cookie, Knightlore, Tranz-Am and JetPac and see how games should be designed. You can't even download the spectrum originals from Rare's site so without Abandonware their work could be lost.
P.S. For decent warez site vist new-warez and don't forget to visit astalavista if you need to get round pesky copy protection on old software (and a damn good site for security info too)
Mhm, you totally missed the part about my free code for everyone for everything if it's written to be free. That's really conventional isn't it. You must be a hellishly mediocre person if you are blind to what people say and only hear what you want.
No, you're just being angry; whether I taunted you past endurance is another question. But I won't apologize, since you weren't above calling Sig11 mediocre, so you can take what you dish out.
As for your point about "free code for everyone for everything if it's written to be free"... Real unconventional on Slashdot. Nothing wrong with what you're saying, except I pointed out your kneejerk attack on Sig11, despite the fact I personally find him distasteful.
I miss Radar Rat Race for the C64. I'd pay 1983 prices not adjusted for inflation to play it again. Perhaps with a little better AI thrown in.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Well, actually, I believe that games companies should leave warezing old games alone, and that new games should come down in price.
However, I do accept that it's the games company's that should get the final decision. In fact, several companies have released 'retro-game' packs of their own, such as Square releasing the entire Final Fantasy series, and then demanding all Final Fantasy games come off the retrogaming download sites.
And there still remains the problem of Stuart Campbell being a loudmouth, arrogant arse, which was my main point. Where does that leave the Cult of Personality?
Does my bum look big in this?
Do we both have the blood, sweat, tears and long lonely hours that went into creating it?
Good point.
No.
Extremely bad point. Any particular reason why you think there should be more blood, sweat, tears and long lonely hours in the world? Or are you just evil?
Facts:
Spot the difference?
Information can be copied at near-zero cost. That means, that unlike with physical goods and services, I can have what you have without depriving you of it. Which in turn means that there can be no justifiable reason for obstructing copying. Your right to make lots of money is far less important than everyone elses right to get for free what they can and should have for free.
I much more prefer a world where I create what I love to do, and then give it away for free to everyone who wants it, in turn getting what others create for free, than a society where you must pay for everything, where only a pittance goes to the creators anyway, the rest fattening faceless inhuman corporations with their lawyers.
The opposition to intellectual property seem to come from varying sources:
Nope. Definately producing.
Not at all. In my kind of society there would be no rich aristocrats/businessmen. Eradicating IP will not bring this about in itself of course, but it is a good start.
Not true either.
I do want stuff for free, but I am able to and willing to give away stuff for free as well. Thus I do not fit the definition.
Yes, that one is correct.
The opponents to IP should check which category they belong to, and find out if they like being there.
The proponents of "intellectual property" seem to come from varying sources:
2. Those profiting from an old-fashioned system where artists are being screwed in the ass by rich execs/businessmen,
3. Old-fashioned IP protagonists who believe that collecting money forever from one work you made once (royalties) is fair,
4. Lawyers who will profit more no matter what since the existence of IP means more lawsuits,
5.
The proponents to IP should check which category they belong to, and find out if they like being there.
/Dervak
Would that course of action even be possible? I mean, doesn't the registrant's fee go to "owning" that name (barring legal constraints of the name in the first place, of course) for the period of time? If I'm selling warez CDs out of my (bought and paid for) car, can the BSA take my car away? Or if my car is leased, can they send a letter to my financing bank and ask them to take my car away?
What are your favorite abandoned games that you'd like to try playing again?
Silmarils' Metal mutant - lovely old DOS game. I've never cared much about game sound, but this one blew my mind away: thru the internal speaker - no soundcard! French, so I didn't have a clue what anything meant, and one enemy was blowfishlike (hey I was young).
--
mrBlond
CowboyNeal for president!
"Hit any user to continue."
In that case, half of my Mac software qualifies. Dammit! I paid full price for that crap.
How long until Dreamcast stuff fits the definition? Oh, wait. I don't own one- so it must not.
Pinochet Stages Violent Coups At Nursing Home
Problem is that the publishing companies have successfully lobbied time and again to extend copyrights well past the point of the original authors or their heirs profiting from them.
There are huge quantities of out of print books, some of which are very good, that should make it into the Gutenburg project, or something similar. But the original publishers hold on to the rights, and would rather that the old editions rot away to dust rather than have them become freely available online.
This is very similar to obsolete software, but applies to the broader cultural heritage.
If it has some possibility of commercial value, they will not give it away, ever.
And if it dis-appears, then it obviously had no commercial value.
[snort]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I know this pretty much OT, but I've always found it odd the the Declaration of Independence syas (and I'm paraphrasing here) that when the people feel that the government no longer serves their needs, the people have the right to abolish that government. This was used as the basis for seceeding from Britain. But, when the Southern States used the same argument...well, the damn Yankees just got all pissy about it cause they needed the cotton (picked by the slaves).
speaking of quarantine, i recently pulled that game out of my closet, and in an attempt to play it, i realized that there is this nice little chart that data has to be entered from, basically a copy protection.
i seem to have lost mine.
when i went looking for the gametek site to try to get a copy of the thing (i did actually buy this game) i found out that gametek had gone out of business. no worries, i had also read that they had ben aquired by take2 interactive. i then sent an email to them explaining my situation. they replied in a very polite manner explaining that most of gameteks older games (quarantine included) were released into the public domain, and as a result were no longer supported. the nice guy sent me to another website that was supposed to have the game.
basically they only had the demo version, and no documentation online. i tried emailing him, explaining what take2 had told me. he called me a liar, i forwarded the email, he apologized. my trail ended there, and now i have a game that is supposed to be public domain, yet i cannot find any sort of support for.
Drink more tea
organicgreenteas.com
flesh eating ants records
Check out Virtual CD-ROM, a program for win9x/ME machines that emulates a CD drive. The program copies the CD image so you can "load" it into the emulated CD drive to play the game. Although it doesn't work for all games, it has a good chance of success on older games and works for some newer games, I have played Starcraft (and expansion), Warcraft 2 (and expansion), Diablo, Age of Empires, and I think that Halflife and TFC might work on it, but, IIRC, one of the disks in the 3-CD halflife pack won't copy. :( Virtual CDrom is rather convienent if you have plenty of hard drive space and hate having to have a stack of CD's by your computer, or, in your case, if you have a laptop. The homepage is http://www.virtualcd-online.com/, and the product is shareware, with a 30-day evaluation period, and $40 to register. If the price seems a little steep, there are free equivelents that are supposed to do the same thing, I haven't used any of them so I can't give any reviews. Also, I'm using version 1.0, later versions might run more CDs.
And it is unconventional, if you haven't noticed there are a bunch of GPL-zealots here. I don't do that shit, if you listened to what I said - It is FREE, in all senses - that means you can do with it what you will, it's everyones property. Go put it in your proprietary product.
For Slashdot to accept this they'd have to drop every bandwagon they have jumped on (QT/KDE, GPL License violation witch hunts, etc). I'm not being angry, I'm turning your initial statement back around on you when you didn't stop to consider what the hell I was saying. I, in no way, called Sig11/Anne Marie/whoever mediocre, nor insult them. To go back to my original post, I stated that their post was incorrect (perhaps in a manner you think is wrong, that's your opinion). Now, if telling someone that they are wrong and asking them to stop being so vocally wrong is telling them they are mediocre, then sure.. that's one twisted perspective but I plead guilty. The kicker comes in is that whoever they are, they know they are wrong (it seems so most of the time) but post just to get the karma and the responses. That is my point, I never said they were mediocre (in fact, almost the opposite with one of my opening sentences: You got the game down perfectly.
That is not a sign of mediocrity, and also: you don't actually have your own thoughts but only listen to those with the loudest bullhorn., this goes into the whole karma whoring game. They are saying what the people want to hear, regardless of the truth behind it.
You have a serious problem with perspective, and reasoning it seems. You decided that I was calling him mediocre for whatever reason. Feel free to your own opinion, but you are absolutely wrong.
Perhaps you should really look at what I said, it was no attack - it was a request. And everything I said was factual (they did not read the article, perhaps skimmed it - but to come it at #22 with missing massive points of the article provides very conclusive evidence that they did not in fact read it) So, if you compare this with the guidelines for how to get karma that are all over the place, "Get in clear and early, go with the herd" is what they did. They karma whored. Now that that is proven, where the hell did I attack the person? I merely told them that I didn't want to see their karma whore posts anymore. Are they going to listen? No. I know that, I just wanted to post and nothing more.
So, if you have any chance of saving grace at this moment you will just shut up and walk away, because you do not even understand the start of this thread.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
once you start copying the stupid bread, you've taken away the shopkeeper's ability to profit
So, you would reject a solution to world hunger, just because it would reduce ability for shopkeepers to make massive profits? This is ridiculous. If this is the way most of the world thinks, I want out. You must have been sent mad with greed if this is the way you think, you obviously don't put things in perspective. Let me propose a question - which is a more evil thing: a few grocery stores going out of business, or rejecting a solution to world hunger because it would 'cut into profits'. I am sickened by the extent to which society has become obsessed with obtaining money, no matter what has to be sacrificed to achieve these ends. People should think of the greater good, and work towards that, rather than selfishly striving to better their own conitions, no matter who they have to exploit to achieve it.
why in the fucking world should i spend three years writing an app just so some lazy jerkoff can say "but, DOOd, i'm poor and underprivileged, but i really have to have the latest version of your program.
That is exactly what the members of the Free Software comunity do. If you read the GNU Manifesto, that is exactly what the aim of the community is. The Free Software community do not look for profits, the reward we get from writing software is the knowledge that we are making the world a better place. Many people, such as Richard Stallman, have devoted their life to this cause. There is more to life than collecting large amounts of green paper.
We have the ability to easily provide everybody on Earth (that has a computer) with every piece of software ever written. Don't you see this as a wonderful thing? Copyright laws were written with hard-goods in mind, not easily-reproducible intellectual property - the extension of these laws to IP was seen as natural, but is it?
You state that IP laws restrict the distribution of software, so we shouldn't distribute it. But are these laws rational? I don't think so. They extend the right to restrict distribution of goods that was imposed on solid hard-goods to IP, as if it was a natural thing to do, but there are a growing number of people who see the flaw in this logic. You can see many essays on this subject at www.gnu.org. What we must consider is whether existing property rights should apply to IP, or whether we need an entirely new set of laws. Personally, I think that IP laws are wrong, and that is why I cannot condemn software 'piracy'. Libraries were established so everybody has the right to read, but is the right to use software any less of a right?
There are many games that I would gladly pay for, if they were still published (the Quest for Glory series, Shadows of Yserbius and sequels, Moraff's Revenge and sequels, etc). But, since they are not (and believe me, I've tried...I emailed Sierra many times and I've called Moraffware), I am forced to scour the abandonware sites. And, indeed, I've been pretty successful. The fact that these people, who are doing something ostensibly illegal, can keep up with these games but the original companies (all of whom are still around, for the games I listed) can't is ridiculous. $5/download...$10/download...I'd pay.
Sure, some people would still 'share' it, but the real fans would pay for it. I'd especially like to pay $5-$10 for games that I no longer have the original media for (Wing Commander I and II, much of the early Kings Quest games, etc).
I wouldn't even care if they didn't offer support. I'd understand.
Anyway, I think it's patently foolish for companies not to offer these games for (for pay) download. Free would be nice, but I'd understand if they still wanna make a buck or two.
Ahh, that brings back memories. Well, one memory at least.
Phantasy Star, no bloody II, III, or IV Just Phantasy Star on the original Sega Master System. Man that game was great. Three planets, tons of dungeons, you had to talk to virtually EVERYONE to get info you NEEDED! Explore every freakin INCH of every world and then do some quasi-dimensional-transport thing to beat the big bad villan, only the big bad villan wasn't the real big bad villan! Try as I might, I can't beat the Succubus no matter how long I wait before I go to the Governor the first time. That damn thing is TOUGH. A good mix of new characters and old favorites like Medusa. Good story too.
I still have that SMS and the cart around. I have it in a box in the attic and emulate the system and load a ROM for the game(in fact, that's the reason I downloaded an emulator and the ROM, because I wanted to play PS again, no other games, just PS). I'd love to be able to play some of my old favorites again without rummaging through garage sales or illegally downloading ROMs.
Sadly, I don't think it will happen. Why? It's not just the market and the consumer who have moved on, technology has as well. I found an old copy of S(pace)Q(uest) IV and loaded it up on my PII-450 and it's unplayable. The game is tied to system clock and while you're supposed to have a certain amount of time to hide before the bad guys come and shoot you, the time runs out before you can do anything. Yes, I know I could run a emulator for an older/slower machine and get this taken care of, but the average joe expects software to work out of the box. If he buys SQ as part of a collection of old games for a buck at the local bookstore and it doesn't work, he's going to want someone on the other end of the support line. Sure turning your old games back into a revenue sream sounds great, but would you get enough revenue to offset the support costs? I doubt it.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Corporate mentality? Maybe you should say corporate egomania. I don't care what opinion you have on warez and abandonware, this line should scare you:
...in November of 2000 the IDSA sent a cease-and-desist letter to the site's domain registrar requesting that the domain name be cancelled.
I hate the implications of that line. Without a legal trial, they tried to remove the domain name of a site. Just imagine all the news sites that have been sued for libel/slander, and now imagine what would happen to those sites if this became an accepted practice.
...iff (if and only if) I was able to download the game and all of the packaged 'goodies' (as PDFs of course). Remember the Infocom games? Those weren't just copy protection schemes, but your introduction into the virtual world of the game. The price would have to be right, you know, about $1-2. Though, any game with a 'pure' copy protection scheme (code wheel/req'd disk) would have that protection removed, or if I needed an emulator, they should give one to me.
For me, the equation balances as follows: if the game was good enough to hunt for and download, why shouldn't I support the people who make/distribute good games? After all, I don't want to be awash in a world of Quake-clone games!
Do you like Japanese imports?
You can't compare ownership of hard goods and owenrship of software. It doesn't make sense to apply the same law to those fundamentaly differents things.
Protecting hard goods: Good. Protecting software the same as natural goods: Bad. That's why I'm Against Intelectual Property.
'nuf said.
You're pathetic. If someone expends effort to create something and wants compensation, you have no right to deny them this. If you do not want to pay, you can go and create yourself instead.
Spot the difference?
Not for the original creator, who still expends time and effort. If there is no return, there will be no incentive to create "intellectually" as a way to make a living: You would be surprised at the number of stores which do not accept the zero money 'your' artists get for their labour as payment.
I do want stuff for free, but I am able to and willing to give away stuff for free as well. Thus I do not fit the definition.
Why not? You give away stuff for free because you have another source of 'income'. You're basically advocating that creation of intellectual property should be a hobby, not someone's job, which is another way of putting yourself in my "category 3".
Based on your "category 5", it seems you are willing to ruin the livelihood of artists because of the existance of corporations who profit from them. Your black and white world view apparently has no shades.
>>Yes, it's different. If you steal my IP, I
>>still have my IP. We both have it now.
>Do we both have the blood, sweat, tears and long
>lonely hours that went into creating it?
No, but that doesn't mean that everyone should have to suffer so. Suffering does not entitle compensation. Creation of something that is easier to obtain through payment than through effort entitles compensation.
I get my copies of old games here. Things are available legally to those who don't succumb to the dark side.
One of the measurements analysts look at is ROA, or Return On Assets. It is equal to the company's income (some form of it, anyway) divided by the value of the company's assets. If you have assets which can produce no income, you can improve your ROA by eliminating those assets.
However, it's long enough (life+75 if owned by an individual or a hard 95 years if owned by a corparation IIRC) as to make it useless -- particularly as (at least by current trends) it gets increased by Congress every 10 years. I totally agree that this time period should be drastically cut on software and other IP to a level that still permits owners to make back development costs (with enough of a margin as to encourage production) but no more.
I have worked at many "real" companies. Generally speaking, the successful ones have been the ones where people can make decisions without fifteen levels of approval. As for the others, well, I don't work there any more, do I?
OT: this is the second reply I've had in the last couple of weeks that has assumed I'm still in school. Apparently some people think that getting a paycheck magically removes any idealism you may previously have had. I have to reassure that majority of Slashdot readers that are still in school that this is not the case. Of course, as the system sucks you in it gets harder to fight it, and not just because you have more to lose. But you have to keep hoping you can change it, even if only in little ways.
Just give me a TTY and access to hack and trek. GOD I feel old.
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
I would love to see an implementation of Sundog from the Atari ST (and prior to that Apple II). It was an excellent game of space exploration and trading. I think it could even be pulled off as a web based game. Of course its still playable with an ST emulator like Pacifist, but I think a wider audience would appreciate it.
"Symantec will come to the conclusion that releasing the source code for products that they have decided to TOTALLY ABANDON may generate goodwills for the company..." it's surely true, the pity is that they will wait until they'll be sure it will make good publicity for them. That will not be a pure altruist gift ;o)
"To all software authors, for crying out loud..." : some of the warez came from the autors because they made the program and they haven't got the control on it. Author made the software, but sellers make the money ! microsoft, sony music, sierra, addobe etc... etc... are crying and hawling not the authors (well most of the time -little preaky fuckin' metallica's son of...- ;)
but your idea is the good one !
This is simply absurd. While any author/company who wants to release source code is just fine, insisting that it's the right thing in all (or even most) instances is just crazy. Good will for the company? Baaah.
:::: Mike Snyder
:::: Mike Snyder
Now if we look at software and other copyright materials we have no rights at all.
Imagine that GM decided to sue the owner of the car under copyright law, In a sense the owner of the car is modifying the IP of GM (DESIGN).
It would make more sense if copyright law would permit you to do as you pleased provided that;
1) You were not reselling the product.
2) By your actions you were not preventing the owner from earning revenue on his/her IP.
In this case abandonware would be modifialble, and distributable.
Otherwise you would agree that you have no right to repaint a car unless you use original paint or stick CDROM's all over it and make it look line a fish. If I can copyright an idea then any idea including the construction of a material object may not be modified.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
with IP it isn't about the bits or the words that make up the work - it's about the control over distribution of those bits (or words). if you take my IP and distribute it under whatever "free stuff" flag you're sponsoring, then you have taken away my control of the distribution, and thereby reduced my ability to generate revenue from those bits. that is what IP laws protect - the ability to profit (or not, in the case of abandonware) from your bits by controlling who gets copies.
or, put differently: the asset isn't the bits, the asset is the control of the bits. if you take away that control, then i indeed have lost something.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Who says there's no gain? Given that a company's directors can usually spend perfectly good cash on advertising, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to do someone similarly as a means of capitalizing on an otherwise worthless asset. If I'm not mistaken, Sierra released 'Betrayal at Krondor' for free right before its sequel came out.
Is that they are loosing propositions for those who live in societies that function under capitalism. Bandwidth costs money for most of us, and it's a miracle that any abandonware site, such as home of the underdogs had until recently, can stay up for a long period of time. The days are numbered for a certain popular mame rom site that I won't advertise here, because I'd hate to see the bottomfeeders of slashdot bring it to its knees.
As far as money for IP goes, I think Alexy P. (tetris creator) handled it best when Nintendo was going to pay royalties to him for Tetris. But they couldn't. He lived in socialist Russia at the time. (Don't worry, he's well off nowadays.)
If it's truly abandonware, then stick with it. There's plenty of games, such as Subspace, that were released without copy protection after the parent company died in some manner (such as VIE in this case).
Then again... maybe not.
yes. yes. yes.
it's not about the stupid bread. it's about the control over distribution of the stupid bread. once you start copying the stupid bread, you've taken away the shopkeeper's ability to profit from the control over distribution. this is exactly what IP laws do - they give you control over distribution (by making it illegal for anyone else to make copies of the stupid bread).
There are many people living in poor economic conditions, who could not afford to use a computer if it wasn't for unauthorised software duplication. [...] These people would surely not be purchasing the software otherwise, so who is harmed by these actions?
so, people are entitled to have everything they want, even if they can't afford to pay the sticker price? why in the fucking world should i spend three years writing an app just so some lazy jerkoff can say "but, DOOd, i'm poor and underprivileged, but i really have to have the latest version of your program. don't put me down, free everything for everyone, yeah."
I don't see duplication of software as 'piracy' or theft, I see it as sharing.
then you are ignorant or blind.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Yes, it's different. If you steal my IP, I still have my IP. We both have it now.
IP is a concept fabricated by the government. If you have an idea that you want to hide, that's fine. But making laws so you can sell those ideas and enforce their containment creates artificial value and outlandish expectations for law enforcement.
Not injuring people is an obvious societal law. (Fear of injury precludes order.)
Not taking people's stuff is almost as obvious. (To remain a stable society, people must be confident they won't forcefully lose the goods they already have.)
IP is not obvious, and, I believe, not justifiable. Do IP laws encourage innovation? That's not certain. That would imply that corporations would always out-innovate academia.
Do people deserve money for work done on ideas? This one's tougher. What determines what's worth money? Something is worth money only if someone's willing to pay for it. Government or no government, someone will pay for a chair. Government or no government, someone will pay for a service. IP is only long-term valuable if the government says it is. Otherwise, the purchaser of IP is able to sell it for less to someone else, and he is able to sell it for less to someone else, and so on until it is free.
Legal wrangling over intellectual property is only going to get worse as bandwidth increases. I think that's a sign that it was a flawed idea to begin with.
Right now, I respect IP laws. I don't trade in warez, I ripped all my mp3's from my own CDs. But that's not because I think the reasoning behind IP is valid. It's because I've agreed to live in the United States, and part of that agreement is abiding by laws whether I agree with them or not.
Sourcecode, and general info can be found
on his personal page, located right here.
Penguins love to play games. The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
I know, but I'm quoting Duke, quoting the movie ;)
-lb
Dear sir,
The reason why Symantec bought the company which produced the Optasm is NOT for Optasm, rather, it is for ANOTHER product that the company produces, a disk utility (the features were eventually included in the Norton Utilities).
Optasm ended up in the list of the product the author sold along with his company.
Symantec never produces, and NEVER DID, any compiler of any kind, and the Optasm is only good for one thing only, and that is, compile Assmbly Language Very Efficiently.
The reason for Symantec's refusal to release Optasm's source code is unclear, but it probably is linked to the legal stuffs or something like that (copyright matters) but that should not provent a company like Symantec to do so.
After all, Sun DID release the source code of StarOffice under GPL, and if Sun can do so, why can't Symantec?
I know, I know, not everyone is fond of Sun, but at least, with the release of StarOffice's source code under GPL, Sun has gained quite a coup in the goodwill department, and THAT is the most important thing we gotta acknowledge.
I hope that in the future, other companies will end up be also "enlightened" to the fact that hording source code for a product that IS NOT GOING TO MAKE ANY MONEY will not make them any richer, but releasing that souce code to the public WILL MAKE THEM A LOT OF FRIENDS !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Star Control 3, Buy it today!
I think SC3 was Ok, but I did enjoy SC2 more. SC 3 was just a little tedious, although it did have the better story. Such is the nature of things.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Similar reasoning can be given to napster. I personally have little problem with people trading mp3s like it was done 5 years ago, and if i'm not mistaken, this is protected under US law. The problem is when a company tries to make money off of someone elses intellectual property.
Napster tries to make people believe that its survival is the survival of future peer to peer networking, when it is only the future of for profit intellectual property violation. Metallica has never cared about private bootlegging, but if a high profile startup based their business of this it is different.
This is why Napster is bad for freedom. They use individual freedom to try protect illegal corperate action.
. By saying "we recognize that you used to have a right to your copyright but aren't still using it", you're saying that anyone anywhere can determine which property rights are valid and which aren't and which should be respected and which shouldn't
Okay, let's review here -- Copyright expires. It currently expires after 75 years for these sorts of things (video games, but terms are different depending on the exact circumstances).
So we already have a situation where we "take away" what someone else owns, we just wait 75 years. The abandonware folks are saying the period of time should be shorter for software since it disappears so quickly (and loses commercial value equally as fast).
No one is suggesting we man the barricades to burn the companies to the ground, just that we reevaluate whether the current situation really addresses the reality of the monopoly copyright grants (the same reason folks are suggesting we think about making computer patents expire quicker as well!)...
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Maybe he uses a different gnutella than I do, but never have I downloaded something substantial via that service. Music is one thing, but Porn, Games, etc always timeout or take forever (read days for 100MB).
Games don't need 3D or crappy CG cut-scenes to be fun! Why can't a game be visually basic and still have good game mechanics?
Games like Bosconian, Warlords, Pac-Man, Sinistar, Discs of Tron, Galaga, Track & Field, Star Wars (vector graphics), Golden Axe and Pitfall were all fairly basic visually but they still are fun to play, moreso than newer graphics rich games (not to mention they only cost $0.25 a pop). Seriously, whats worth more fun wise? A player vs. player game of Arkanoids or a round of "Dance, Dance Revoloution"? (BTW, down with [club | disco] sub-culture!).
Anyway, I would love to see new development in games that skimp on graphics but increase playability and entertainment value. How much development time / money gets spent on graphics alone? And how much money goes to design, testing and QA? Sure the market demands big 3D polygons dazzling the easily impressed casual arcade goer, but what legacy do these flashy games leave?
I go to the arcade for fun, not eye-candy.
P.S. Don't even get me started on the decline of Pinball!
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
They are public companies, mostly.
As a public company, their Intellectual Property is viewed by the investment community as an assett.
A company giving away it's assets for no monetary gain runs the risk of having it's directors in some severe class action lawsuits, for improperly managing company assets.
THAT is why public companies don't just 'give shit away because it's the right thing to do'. Because even if the Management, and the Board think it's okay... it opens a VERY REAL door for a class action lawsuit from the shareholders.
I remember Merchant Prince was the game where they had the "delayed" copy protection. You could invest a good couple of days playing and then it would turn you into a "pirate" if it was determined that you were playing a bootlegged copy. That pretty much ended your game as you couldn't trade anymore.
This is something everyone should read.
Think about it... you work for months on a game, doing the artwork, or fiddling with the code, or tweaking the gameplay until it's perfect. Do you really want to see this game disappear, to see it become unavailable to buy, after all your hard work? After several years most games couldn't be sold, mainly due to how fast technology moves on and how player's expectations change. Why not just release it for free, rather than holding the copyright close to your chest, with no intention of ever releasing it commercially again?
I buy the game and it has a bug that won't let you go past turn 88. Than they repackage it as Machiavelli and I buy it AGAIN but they didn't fix the bug. And now, I can find the patch to fix the bug, but the game is nowhere to be found.
That's why we need abandonware.
"...heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
One of my all time favorites. I've always been an rpg nut and at the time this came out, it was a nice change from the fantasy stuff. Wasteland and Mars Saga(apple2) rank pretty high up on my favorites list too.
A couple of points:
A. Equating intellectual property rights with actual property rights is an extremely ify proposition. The awful consequences you trot forth in the case actual property rights are not observed (breaking into a home) actually do a pretty good job of illustrating why intellectual property rights are completely different from, and don't deserve the same level of respect as, actual property rights.
B. I have bought (that is paid for, with actual, real money) quite a few games which I am no longer able to play because either: (i) the media has worn out (ancient floppies), (ii) I no longer have a reader for the media (5.25" disk drives), or (iii) I no longer have the necessary hardware (Atari 2600). Abandonware sites, and modern emulators of old hardware, permit users like me to continue playing games we already paid for.
And yes, I am a lawyer. Actually, an intellectual property attorney, although I am in the process of extracting myself from that cesspool of intellectual dishonesty.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
While I still think it should be up to the companies to decide whether they want to make their games free [beer] or not, and not enforced by law, I don't understand why they wouldn't. At some point, the interest in some game is so low that reprints (e.g. "classic" editions) cannot bring revenue. Then why not release it to the community? It wouldn't hurt the brand if the copyrights are kept, but more likely help build up a community around real classic that would increase sales for updated version through branding by word-of-mouth.
Take for instance the Monkey Island classics from LucasArts - we are quite a few who spend long night adventuring through the Caribbean Waters as Guybrush-you-know-who-Threepwood. I would be fun play the first milk-out-your-nose-funny editions again. It would even increase my interest in the Monkey Island series in general and I would probably make a few other interested in the game while babling about how awesome the are, and we would all buy the just-released "Escape from Monkey Island".
Why be forgotten when you can promote yourself and be famous -- at no cost?!
-larsch
I have a huge rant about abandonware, but my fingers hurt far to much to type that now ;)
Concerning warez: what's the deal? Where's the problem? Show me one person who runs to the store to buy a $50 game without ever playing it first and I'll show you someone who either has a huge income, or doesn't know where to find warez *grin*
Seriously, though, most people at least try out a shareware version of a game they're going to buy, or have already played it somewhere else (friend? etc). And of course pre-releases (q3a) and, of course, the hyped games everyone is going to buy the second it hits the stores (tribes 2). This is all fine and good for the big games, but tons of other games don't achieve this hype. Say, for instance, Baulder's Gate.
Warez is a great way to find software you may not have tried before. A friend may comment that a certain game's cool, but without having tried it are you going to buy it? But you might spend the bandwidth downloading it.
Which brings me to the point: most warez is going to be stripped of fluff (unless you get the complete ISO which is annoying as all hell -- maybe my burner just sucks), probably have wierd problems, require registry hacks, have chopped sound, or other problems. Or even if its perfect, no manuals, no original jewel case, nothing like that. If someone really likes a game, they're not going to just download it, burn it, and archive it. That happens to the crap. If you like it, you buy it. It's much nicer (updates are guaranteed to work, online services are guaranteed to work, etc)
Case in point: I downloaded Diablo2, played it for two days, and then purchased two copies so my boyfriend and I could both play on bnet at the same time. I *never* would have bought even one copy if I hadn't been able to play it first.
Software companies have got to admint that warez is not going away. If they want to ensure revenue? Then add more than just 0s and 1s. Add a detailed map, artwork, ANYTHING as a perk for actually buying the product. If you just ship a crappy app in a cardboard cd holder don't excpet folks to pay $50 for it.
DranoK
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
Shh! Nobody knows I'm gay!
It is out there and you can buy it from SSG directly. But it will not work on any OS higher than Win 95... really I would like to see this game recompiled for Win 98 and higher compatibility. I would buy that game ($59 easy), but as far as I have heard from them they have no plans or wishes to do this... so I sit here with my top of the line system and am unable to play one of the best and most versatile wargames ever designed in my opinion.
Its really quite sad.
Except the repackaging & hosting is being done by the enthusiasts and not by the companies. And if it's that hard for a company to make a decision about a product line that generates zero revenue, that company has bigger problems than mere abandonware.
Yes, Intellectual Property IS different. When the original copyright laws were being made, there was a realization that a person should not be able to control an idea forever. Thats why there is a time period for copyrights. Medical patents only last 7 years so one pharmecutical company cannot corner the market on a particular drug. Copyrighted material should (and does) become public domain after the creator is given plenty of time to recoup any losses on its creation.
Anybody remember M.U.L.E. for the C64? We'd stay up all night playing it. I know that you can play it on C64 emulators, but I'd like to see an updated version, but with the original feel.
I have considered buying a Sega CD system just to play the one game.
Spectre by Velocity. As far as I know the company simply doesn't exist any more, but the great thing about Spectre was that it had a sort of stark purity that set it apart from other Battlezone/MechWarrior-type games. Even when wireframe graphics gave way to (primitive) texture mapping, Spectre was easily one of the most distinctive first-person shooters of all time.
For those unfamiliar, Spectre was heavily inspired by Battlezone, but with an added capture-the-flag element and a sparsely populated abstract environment. It went through three iterations; the first two were Mac-only, while the third, Spectre VR, was also available for Windows. A fair amount of cyberpunk garbage was grafted onto it, but it was still a cool game, and I rather wish someone had written an Open Source equivalent...
/Brian
If you can't defend it, you don't own it. Sorry, physics trumps man's law and that fantasy of "natural" law. Any notion of property rights is ideology, and your ideology is just an opinion.
Refute me, putain de karma, without using lame platitudes, emotional appeals, or the word "period".
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
Every company that uses a piece of software should pay for it, they are making money using that software. I cannot accept warez in the industry.
But, private user is something much different. I don't have the money to pay for my MS Office, my Photoshop or my programming suite, so I have copied them: this is what they call warez.
Instead of beeing something harmful to Microsoft, Adobe or Borland, I think that the fact that I use software from them is good for them! I would never pay for it, so they cannot claim that they are losing sales.
Instead, I am helping to make their software popular and on the long run that's what is important.
Microsoft knows that very well, they defeated Netscape by making Explorer popular giving that for free (just imagine where would explorer be now if people had to pay bucks for it). MS never used copy protection of any kind, always it's been really easy to copy any original MS media. Do you remember the 123412345678 serials on Office?
Let's face it, warez is good for big companies because it makes their products available to the public, that can evaluate them, make them popular, and when they are popular start beeing sold.
I read once an interview with the boss of a music warez group (Radium, I think), he told that companies where happy to have their software released as warez, this way all the enthusiasts out there would be able to evaluate the software, and eventually buy it. Otherwise the software would remain unknown forever.
That's the story about warez.
Games are different, I think that the drawbacks of warez for the game industry are much more evident.
The stuff in your home, and even the bits on your hard drive are yours, and if I take the physical stuff, you don't have it any more. That's why every society has some version of property rights. It's never ok to take peoples stuff, in general, because for all you or I know, their livelihood or lives might depend on it.
Here's how IP differs: if I copy a program / book / whatever which you have sold me, you still have your copy. This is why the very idea of IP is a very recent innovation; it came into being with the printing press, as I understand it. The reasons advanced for copyrights and patents are always to provide monetary incentives for creative endeavors. Patents and copyrights are monopolies granted to the employer of the creator. Economists generally consider that monopolies are very bad things (I can talk with some authority about what economists think, I am one). I don't think that anyone has ever investigated whether this practice of granting monopolies is optimal, or what terms would be optimal for what industries.
Ownership of physical property is vital to the American dream, and basic human dignity. Ownership of IP, in my opinion, is nowhere nearly so fundamental. I believe that it is optional, and should be abandoned as a bad idea, if that is what it is.
Human progress has depended on humans building on the work of others. Encouraging disclosure (as patents have done in the U.S.) is a step in the right direction. Encouraging inventors to invent new algorithms because current ones are patented does not seem an optimal use of scarce resources (and if inventions are not a scarce resource, then what do we need to encourage them for anyway!). The recent problems with patented compression algorithms (such as GIF's) and patented encryption algorithms (such as RSA) should show that IP does not unambiguously increase social welfare in all cases.
After all this, I agree: if you don't own it, it's not yours. Period. We should work to get more sensible copyright and patent laws, but we shouldn't harm the owners of "rights" under the current laws. These shouldn't be called rights, since they cannot predate the existence of governments. They are priviliges, granted by the governments, and unimaginable without government. Rights (in the U.S. at least) are a pre-existing condition, which might be enforced or violated by government, but can never be created or destroyed by it. If I were a lawyer, I could quote you a case or two in which the supreme court said exactly that. But I don't remember the citation. If there is a lawyer reading this, please fill in the blank.
See what I've been reading.
>But that's not because I think the reasoning behind IP is valid. It's because I've agreed to live in the United States, and part of that agreement is abiding by laws whether I agree with them or not.
I wish everyone thought like you. Then I wouldn't have had to have read "Walden". It would make English class so much easier.
I can sympathize. I've got a whole truckload of vinyl albums at home. Soon I will have a bunch of VCR tapes laying around, too. But that's how it goes...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Arcade Tetris? Blech.
The Tetris experience, to me, should be never-ending, increasingly frenetic block dropping and positioning, line after line, as the music slowly drives you nuts. For all I know, Alexei Pazhitnov may have originally designed the game like this, but as far as game play is concerned Atari's Tetris bears almost no relation to the Tetris I know and love (whatever version I may be playing).
/Brian
To extend your house analogy, what happens when the owners of the house die and the house and it's contents just sit there...?
Do you leave everything there, sitting and rotting till the end of time or do you declare salvage rights (I belive this is what it's called in the naval side of things (or maybe it's star trek, who knows anymore)) and let someone at it?
If a game isn't being sold anymore then I'd have to agree with you (sort of), but for dead companies, I vote free for all!
I would like to see scorched Earth released to the open source world. I've contacted the current maintainer of it but he is reluctant to do it. There are a few clones of it in alpha right now but I don't find them to be what I want yet. Of course if I could program something more than a VCR or my TiVo I would pitch in.
Since you insist that real property and "intellectual property" are the same thing, fine. Let's put the analogy in real-world terms. You dropped your wallet on the street and left it lying there. Five years later some homeless person finds it (now empty and covered with dust), picks it up, brushes it off, and puts it to its original use. Do you claim you still own that wallet?
--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Grey (Chris Lusena)
I know I'll be modded down, but...
You got the game down perfectly. Unfortunately, your argument is completely assinine. Obviously you didn't read anything at all, and you don't actually have your own thoughts but only listen to those with the loudest bullhorn.
I am a programmer, you are an escort. I give my stuff away for free and encourage it's use where ever (so don't give me that corporate-theft bullshit either). You are talking out your ass, and before you decide to take up a cause why don't you learn about it and stop just karma whoring. You are already at 50, so just shut up and stop polluting slashdot with your idiotic rampages about civil rights.
IP is bad.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Why is it that games are the only things that get mentioned when Abandonware is thought of?
---
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
To all software authors,
For crying out loud, when the users pay money to purchase the programs you wrote, the did it because of their trust in you.
I am not a warez user, nor will I ever be. I respect the goodworks and time and effort you've put into your software product, but if you ever decide to ABANDON the product you have written, please consider the users who have PAID THEIR MONEY to purchase the product! Please, don't leave them holding the empty bag.
The VERY LEAST you can do is to let the users have the SOURCE CODE of the ABANDONWARE, and let them decide what they (the users) gonna do with it.
I am speaking from experience, both as a user and an author of an already abandon software. I feel very sad that after I have paid good money for something - which I thought might have SOME MORE MILAGE TO GO, for years to come - and wake up to find that the software I use can no longer be used on newer OS environments, and the original author has decided to abandon the product altogether !
One example I can point to is Optasm, an excellent Assembly Language compiler. After the author sold his company (along with all the copyrights of his software) to Symantec corp, Symantec decided to DISCONTINUE the development of Optasm, and YET, they (the folks at Symantec) steadfastly refused to release the source code for Optasm, and we, the users who have appreciated the way Optasm compile the assembly code, are now facing NO OPTION but giving up our favorite assembly language compiler altogether.
Had Symantec releases the source code to Optasm, I bet someone (even perhaps moi!) may try to modify it to run on other OS environment, including the Open-Source ones, such as Linux or FreeBSD !
Now, I am not saying that the assembler language utilities for LInux or FreeBSD is not good, but if you compare the way Optasm did the compilation to those currently available for Linux and FreeBSD, there's just NO comparison at all!
Hopefully, one day, Symantec will come to the conclusion that releasing the source code for products that they have decided to TOTALLY ABANDON may generate goodwills for the company, goodwills that may reap MORE BENEFITS in the future, in term of support and sales of future products.
Let me re-iterate my point again, I am NOT interested in Warez, but please give me the source code of the product if you the author decides to abandon it.
Thank you again for reading.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !