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People have told me that downloading abandonware is illegal. Is it?

[Unknown Hero]

Well, we have already discussed this many times!
As far as I know, it's not illegal, until you prove opposite! It's in the middle of legal and illegal!

I hope you got my point! :bye:

Originally posted by Unknown Hero@Nov 23 2004, 12:05 AM
Well, we have already discussed this many times!
As far as I know, it's not illegal, until you prove opposite! It's in the middle of legal and illegal!

I hope you got my point! :bye:

Funny... I tried searching the forums for related topics, and found none.

[mouse31e]

The answer is that it is illegal to download Abandonware as it is material that belongs to somebody else and legally it is as serious as downloading any other copyrighted software but it is often overlooked by publishers and developers because if a game is not being sold, they are not losing any money by us making it available for download.

Copyright law exists because if everyone used copied software the publishers and developers would never make the money to develop new software. The point of abandonware is not to take money away from these people but if a game is not being sold then the publisher and developer are not making any money so there isn't really any harm in us sharing it.

If a publisher were to request the removal of a game from the site I am sure it would be done immediately.

[Rogue]

As long as abandonia is not making any money on stuff that somebody else did, this games can't be purchased (if they are, then abandonia just point to where to purchase the game) and a lot of developers do not even exist any more there is nothing illegal with abandonia 'preserving' those games.

So I don't think that stuff here is illegal, and even if it is, nobody really cares, as nobody is loosing any money. Not the case with movies, music and that kind of stuff.

[evilded]

This whole issue is kind of touchy...

I suggest we drop it before someone sees hehe...

[Eagle of Fire]

Ok, let's get facts straight here.

By providing games on the sites which are still under copyright laws (99% of the games on the site are probably under this law) Abadonia and all the users who download from it are immediatly and without a doubt doing an illegal act. There is no way around it, we are guilty.

Now, the point is that Abadonware is a "grey" area of the law because it is tolerated by the game owners. This mean that nobody can try to get Abadonia into justice (or the downloaders themselves) if the owners themselves refuse to allow them to pledge for them in this affair.

Some owners, on the other hand, decided by themselves that they do wish to keep their right and don't want their games distributed and that's why groups like IDSA (or whatever spelling) exist, patrolling Internet and sending cease and desist letters to sites who break the copyright law of the games they are protecting.

Any further questions?

[Tom Henrik]

Originally posted by evilded@Nov 23 2004, 01:30 AM
This whole issue is kind of touchy...

I suggest we drop it before someone sees hehe...

This topic stays.

It is important that everyone is clear on what we are actually doing.


And yes, if a company told us to remove some games, we would comply at once (regardless if the game(s) in question is sold or not).

[Rogue]

Originally posted by Tom Henrik+Nov 23 2004, 04:03 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tom Henrik @ Nov 23 2004, 04:03 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-evilded@Nov 23 2004, 01:30 AM
This whole issue is kind of touchy...

I suggest we drop it before someone sees * hehe...

This topic stays.

It is important that everyone is clear on what we are actually doing.


And yes, if a company told us to remove some games, we would comply at once (regardless if the game(s) in question is sold or not). [/b][/quote]
k:

[Titan]

As Tom said; We'r not out to hurt anyone, and we try to do this are gracefully as possible.

I think Lucas Art has requested us to remove games once, and we did.

It's a tricky issue this, and there are no clear court-convictions on this.

The only money we make here, is the ads, and they go straight to paying the servers *L*