Abandonware Sites

[KoolHndLuke]

Found a site with quite a few old titles. I guess some or most of them are free and they give compatibility instructions/patches with the ones I've looked at. Just thought someone else might like a few of these. Some are pretty hot! 

 

[ZenBuddhist]

20 minutes ago, KoolHndLuke said:

I guess some or most of them are free and they give compatibility instructions/patches with the ones I've looked at

 

thanks for sharing, Luke.

cheers

[KoolHndLuke]

An interesting (old) article I found. Most noteworthy is that apparently "Abandonware" is not a legal concept and is not considered "public domain". But who is going to enforce copyright on an IP who's creator is now defunct/missing? Since this is an old article, does anyone know if the EFF ever pushed this through?

[DeadSomething]

On 6/17/2019 at 2:47 AM, KoolHndLuke said:

An interesting (old) article I found. Most noteworthy is that apparently "Abandonware" is not a legal concept and is not considered "public domain". But who is going to enforce copyright on an IP who's creator is now defunct/missing? Since this is an old article, does anyone know if the EFF ever pushed this through?

abandonware is legal IF the creator/holder of the rights announces that status.

then, abandonware means that everyone is legally permitted to copy and redistribute the product, but is only allowed to do so for free.

if the holder of the rights sells their rights, this status can be revoked (a nice example is SystemShock1 which was abandonware, but is now sold at GOG and all abandonware downloads have been removed).

[smward87]

Hmm 90% of the games are Japanese visual novels from the late 80s and early 90s. They are most assuredly legit abandonware for anyone concerned about the legality of it all.

[saviliana]

According to a japenese copyright lawyer I know of, they would assume that the holder of material form publisher company, then publisher shareholders, then developer company(if exist), then developer personal(s), if all of above were not unavailable then the largest funding provider would had the legal copyright.

Unless all of above were gone, then the copyright would be going on a bidding, unless there is no bidder want it.

 

So it won't be a chance that old titles were going into the grey area of abandonware.

[DeadSomething]

On 6/27/2019 at 5:28 PM, saviliana said:

According to a japenese copyright lawyer I know of, they would assume that the holder of material form publisher company, then publisher shareholders, then developer company(if exist), then developer personal(s), if all of above were not unavailable then the largest funding provider would had the legal copyright.

Unless all of above were gone, then the copyright would be going on a bidding, unless there is no bidder want it.

 

So it won't be a chance that old titles were going into the grey area of abandonware.

except if the copyright holders announce this state themselves.