I sure hope you're talking about the demos since distributing games for downloading off the net is illegal.

hmm....i thought it was an abandonware game....and abandonware games are for free....."but" it wasnt 🙁

Abandonware is not legal. EVER.

The games that were previously retail but given away as free such as Sierra with their Betrayal at Krondor series are not abandonware but are for some reason considered abandonware by many sites.....

oh....🙄 i thought abandonware games were leagal...such as: http://www.the-underdogs.org/ and many more.....

I guess I'm getting Technical. I don't consider any software that was once retail but is now given away for free by the company as abandonware. I consider abandonware as software "abandoned" by the company and who refuse to acknowledge it's existence by either selling or offering support.

There is that better?

*ack*

Perhaps there needs to be a new term for "Freely Distributable Formally Commercial Software" (I'm pretty sure FDFC won't catch on.). Like you said, "Betrayal at Krondor" isn't abandonware, but it's not commercially available anymore, yet it's still freely available.

Sometimes companies will allow you to have the software, but only within certain circumstances. A good example is "Ultima IV", which is available freely, but only from one of the "Ultima Dragons" (a collection of Ultima fans with a presence on the net).

Also, to confuse matters, rights aren't always crystal clear. A good example of that is "BLOOD".

Engine by Ken Silverman
Engine modified/Game Programmed by Monolith for GT Interactive
GT Interactive bought by Infrogrames.

Ken has released his source code.
Monolith doesn't have the rights to the game engine
GT Interactive no longer "owns" the game, Infrogrames has the rights now.

Infrogrames doesn't know and doesn't care about BLOOD.

Also, QBlood/Transfusion is remaking BLOOD (from their site:
Monolith Productions owns all intellectual property rights to the Blood franchise. Jason Hall, the CEO, has given us his blessing and we've had a lot of help from Matt Saettler and Nick Newhard who lead the original Blood development team.

So technically, remaking Blood from scratch is perfectly legal using the Quake engine. Using the BUILD engine is also legal as it's source has been released. But distributing the original BLOOD using the BUILD engine is not. Make sense? Of course not.

Distributing BLOOD does not hurt the programmers, nor the company that held the rights. If someone from the QBlood team was crazy enough, they could actually use the BUILD source code to create an exact duplicate of the original BLOOD and that, technically, would be distributable.

While the motivation for most "abandonware" collectors is at least partly selfish, there is a legitimate cause behind the preservation movement. If steps aren't taken (fortunately, they are) old titles will simply stop working. By the time you reach that stage, it is very difficult to find a way to port or emulate when there's no "original system" to make comparisons.

Oddly enough, it seems that old games will probably be in a better position than some other forms of digital data:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-01-17-digital_x.htm

hmmm......ok 😀

Well, here's the deal.
Most companies don't care that their software is redistributed. Some don't even know that it is their software. The only time they REALLY care is if they are REALLY anal, planning to re-release it, or if they are still selling it. So, it isn't legal per SE, but most companies don't care (and those that do usually tell sites to remove the particular game(s), the site complies, and everyone goes on living their lives).

Nicht Sehr Gut wrote:

Sometimes companies will allow you to have the software, but only within certain circumstances. A good example is "Ultima IV", which is available freely, but only from one of the "Ultima Dragons" (a collection of Ultima fans with a presence on the net).

An even better example would be Back 2 the Roots that have old Amiga games for download. Completely legal since they have gotten the permission from the companies.