- #Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games software#
- #Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games license#
- #Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games download#
#Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games license#
In the Italian system, I can't think of a crime (which must be expressely defined by criminal law) committed by a person who has got a license for a software, but downloads it from a warez server. How would this be illegal? Again, I can't speak for all legal systems, so I will have to talk about the one that I know best: in Italy, when a crime is reported to the authorities, prosecution is compulsory (even if it's a poor starving man who stole an apple) so in this sense if it's illegal it is also prosecuted, and if it is not prosecuted it's not illegal.
#Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games software#
I agree abandonware exists not because it is legally allowed, but because of the lack of somebody who's willing to sue you for using certain sufficiently old software without having paid for it.īut I disagree that abandonware can be compared to the case of somebody who has a license to a software and, for some reason, obtains the software itself through unauthorized channels. That's my whole point, while my argument is legally correct no one will sue you for grabbing an ancient piece of hardware the company doesn't gain anything from anymore, which is why abandonware is generally ignored by the lawyers. Sat 8:07 amBecause no one gets prosecuted doesn't mean it's legal. That then as you say old software companies don't care anymore is another story. just because a lot of people think that "Abandonware" means downloading legal software no longer protected by copyright, obviously all false!
#Implication of year 2038 problem for abandonware games download#
It's just a loose term of software the owners don't care about anymore.Įven if I heard years ago some expert lawyers in the sector and they told me, you can download the songs from eMule, but you must have the original at home. There are no legal definitions of abandonware and every community may define it differently. However in practise there's little to no risk of doing this with abandonware, since as mentioned before, it's not developed, sold, supported or advertised anymore by the copyright holder, therefore they will not issue any expensive legal proceedings for anyone wanting an old copy of Commander Keen etc.įinally, our abandonware guidelines are just that, our guidelines. Steam for example doesn't own their games (except for those Valve made themselves), but they are licensed to distribute them.
Because you own a game of the Sims doesn't mean you're allowed to download it unless it's legally distributed through a service which the copyright holder (in this case EA) owns themselves (Origin) or have shared a distribution license with (Steam). It's simply a loose description of a piece of software that has been "abandoned" by the developer, i.e not developed, sold, supported or advertised anymore.Īnd there are no generic legal rules or guidelines that allows you to download any software even if you own it, unless the copyright holder explicitly allows it.
In theory you can only download stuff that you already own the originalįirst of all, abandonware has nothing to do with copyright. Any software is copyrighted, even MS-DOS and therefore illegal to download.
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