As a smart man once said "There are more important things to worry about" than the legality of abandonware.

One quick glance at their "free open source software" section, they clearly don't give a damn. 😒

Yes they have full programs ready to download.

I think I read somewhere that they had an exemption somehow, though I wasn't particularly convinced.

While that might explain why one company or another hasn't cracked down on what the Internet Archive is doing, it might just as well be another case of hoping to avoid the Streisand effect.

Legal action costs $. Pursuing may not be a smart way to spend $ for companies.

I just uploaded a copy of very old crosstalk communicator to Internet archive. I don't think that the company even exists and or cares anymore. Every other company who made software in the past or hardware does not really support it anymore. Sometimes you can get an old driver off an FTP site, but other times you have to go to driverguide (which bundles adware with their installer). And other times you can't find it at all. I had to go to driverguide to get an old SMC ISA NIC driver, and the lady from customer support did not know how to archive a file and kept trying to send the exe through Gmail (duh!).

PeterLI wrote:

Legal action costs $. Pursuing may not be a smart way to spend $ for companies.

All they have to do is issue a take down notice and if they refuse the feds jump in because willful refusal to comply is a criminal act. The copyright holder may be called as witness in the proceedings, but won't have to pay anything because the prosecution is in the hands of the government.

ahendricks18 wrote:

I just uploaded a copy of very old crosstalk communicator to Internet archive. I don't think that the company even exists and or cares anymore. Every other company who made software in the past or hardware does not really support it anymore. Sometimes you can get an old driver off an FTP site, but other times you have to go to driverguide (which bundles adware with their installer). And other times you can't find it at all. I had to go to driverguide to get an old SMC ISA NIC driver, and the lady from customer support did not know how to archive a file and kept trying to send the exe through Gmail (duh!).

Most companies won't take action over drivers, since they are usually distributed freely anyway (though at least one company that I know of did charge for extended driver support) but with the length of copyright terms, there is not a whole lot of computer or video game console software that is out of copyright protection. Copyrights don't just expire before the term is up unless the copyright holder takes steps to formally waive their rights, someone out there still has them even though they may not be aware of it.

Someone still has to initiate, work with the federal government et cetera: all costs $.

I noticed some users on Youtube claiming they got movies that are still under copyright protection that they uploaded from Internet Archive now, too, so they are no longer content to merely distribute pirated software they are distributing pirated films now, too. I think it's plainly obvious at this point that the organizers of Internet Archive have less than honorable intentions.

Dear forum members who don't approve piracy, please, do not read the next line.

What's the point of asking? Download it while you can, grab whatever you find interesting and save it for the future. It might not be available for long.

sliderider wrote:

I noticed some users on Youtube claiming they got movies that are still under copyright protection that they uploaded from Internet Archive now, too, so they are no longer content to merely distribute pirated software they are distributing pirated films now, too. I think it's plainly obvious at this point that the organizers of Internet Archive have less than honorable intentions.

"Honorable" is an interesting choice of terms. What about Youtube, then? They don't uphold the spirit or letter of the law any better than Archive does, they simply make it *easier* for copyright holders (and copyright trolls) to get things taken down, and add a horribly broken system to detect 'violations'. The only qualitative difference is that Youtube's motives begin and end with monetary profit.

As far as I respect all the work put into developing software, what's the point of bothering about some old piece of software that can't even be bought anymore (new - used copies shoudn't matter to this)? It doesn't make any sense. It's not like the dev is going to lose any sale because of it anyways.

Snayperskaya wrote:

As far as I respect all the work put into developing software, what's the point of bothering about some old piece of software that can't even be bought anymore (new - used copies shoudn't matter to this)? It doesn't make any sense. It's not like the dev is going to lose any sale because of it anyways.

I'm pretty sure this is a conversation that's been had before – if not here, then a whole bunch of other places out there on the Internet.

For instance, whoever holds the rights could conceivably lose sales. What if they hold the rights to something they later want to release on GOG (as has become increasingly popular during the last several years), but no one wants to buy a copy because everyone has pirated it already? Or what if they want to release a new, better, updated version, but everyone's already played the old version to death? Of course, one could argue that people might be willing to buy a copy out of goodwill and because GOG does a better job of promoting software than illegal channels do, or that the free, illegal distribution would actually serve in itself to promote the release of a new version.

And there are places like CD Access that do make their money selling "new old stock" and would conceivably be hurt by wanton piracy, but then places like that are going to become increasingly rare as time goes by.

Jorpho wrote:

For instance, whoever holds the rights could conceivably lose sales. What if they hold the rights to something they later want to release on GOG (as has become increasingly popular during the last several years)

There is a lot that archive.org has for download that is on GOG. Virtually every Sierra title that GOG sells and I am sure many others.

It's not just the 'open source software' section. There's a lot of modern warez hiding in the 'texts' sections as well, complete with high download counts no one is batting an eye at.

and by modern I mean 2015. This isn't your usual laundry list of 'abandonware' being stashed for alleged preservation.

A lot of what they have is from warez/abandonware releases. They have been hacked, cracked, ripped, spindled and/or mutilated, complete with warez release group "NFO" files. Many of the Sierra titles have been setup with my installers and includes some of the extra files generated by my installers for things like troubleshooting purposes and icons I made.

If they were truly working for preservation's sake they would be archiving copies from the original media.

collector wrote:

A lot of what they have is from warez/abandonware releases. They have been hacked, cracked, ripped, spindled and/or mutilated, complete with warez release group "NFO" files. Many of the Sierra titles have been setup with my installers and includes some of the extra files generated by my installers for things like troubleshooting purposes and icons I made.

If they were truly working for preservation's sake they would be archiving copies from the original media.

No media last forever. Especially optical ones, since they are prone to a multitude of factors (scratches, warping, oxidization, fungus, etc). Floppies are even worse.

A 1:1 digital copy is the only way to truly preserve it. Too bad most devs make it impossible for the original owner to make a backup from their paid copy for retaining purposes.

Snayperskaya wrote:

No media last forever. Especially optical ones, since they are prone to a multitude of factors (scratches, warping, oxidization, fungus, etc). Floppies are even worse.

Then take care of them. Use jackets, cases, non-cardboard storage, and don't leave them on the fucking floor.
Even my 1991-92 Sierra CD games still read fine

Snayperskaya wrote:

No media last forever. Especially optical ones, since they are prone to a multitude of factors (scratches, warping, oxidization, fungus, etc). Floppies are even worse.

A 1:1 digital copy is the only way to truly preserve it. Too bad most devs make it impossible for the original owner to make a backup from their paid copy for retaining purposes.

I never said that they should be preserving the actual floppies. What I said was

collector wrote:

If they were truly working for preservation's sake they would be archiving copies from the original media.

As to images of the disks this is possible for many of the old diskettes using controllers that can read the magnetic flux like the KryoFlux. It can even read the "hidden" CP tracks. Using mine I was able to make a working image of the old KQ2 Tandy booter. But how you make the images is missing the point. As I said, for archival purposes they should be working from the original media, not warez ripped copies.