I also think that one can safely assume that a party owning the rights to a game that still isn't sold anywhere at this point also won't mind unauthorized distribution through abandonware sites. It's certainly safer to make such an assumption these days than when abandonware first became a thing.

*captain arrives*
Nothing to do for me here
*flies away*

thanks a lot for the replies! again i didnt want to say "ok let'S download the f*ck" but i was googling some old games which are not available on stores digitally and some i didnt find as retail yet, and some pages popped up with downloadlinks and looked not shaby, but im not into this kind so i thought is abandonware officialy really abandoned and legal. seems not and i hope that gog will get the games and more im looking forward to play :)!

Accurate. Though I still want me some Tekwar on GOG.

Usually the copyright owners have basically vanished so they won't complain. But not really legal at all.
Well, some old games have been nice enough to go free after being so old. Here a list.

Do note that sometimes you'll find games that are still being sold in those abandonware sites. You can get Doom from MyAbandonware.com, but it's still sold on Steam.

Really, abandonware sites are shady at best. But it's just like it is with ROMs and emulation: it's illegal, but nobody gives a shit.

By the way, anyone know what's up with MyAbandonware.com claiming to have some partnership with GOG, and advertising GOG games in there? I'd think GOG wouldn't want anything to do with those types.

this is interesting with the page advertising.

and sure games like Doom i didnt mean ;), also those classics i got 5 editions or so :D.

Yes. And in many cases I have seen people running abandonware sites saying they have communicated with publishers and were told it would be ignored.

Abandonware is a great thing since many games, especially licensed ones, could never be re-sold anyway.

Search all the digital distribution stores, the developer or publisher website. If there is no indication it's being sold still, that's when I say fuck it. Grab it.

It's not a grey zone, it's illegal, period. The fact that copyright owners do not enforce their rights does not make it legal. We don't have any game yet that had its copyright "expire".

From a moral standpoint i do agree that it's a grey area, but from a legal perspective it's perfectly clear.

Yeah mostly. Some of those are like that and some of them are in limbo where nobody really knows who owns the rights. So, they're still technically owned by somebody, but nobody really knows who. And in some cases the rights are spread across more than one party making it impossible for any one party to initiate action.

My general feeling on it is that if you can find a copy to buy, you should buy it. I won't personally buy a copy if it's a ridiculous sum of money though. I'm not going to spend more on a used copy now than it cost originally. That would be nuts for anybody that isn't collecting them and needing to get the disc and the box for the collection.
Morally, they're stealing from the public domain, so stealing from them isn't any worse than what they're presently doing. Anything from the early to mid '80s would have already fallen into the public domain if not for the MAFIAA's abusive policy demands.

Legally, if they do have the right to enforce their copyright, but in most cases they lack the documentation necessary to do so.

EDIT, and even if they did try to enforce it they'd be able to collect maybe $50 or whatever the cost of the game was to begin with. The sites distributing them would presumably be on the hook for more.

Most likely they'd get nothing in court as the games aren't being sold which means that there are no damages to collect.

It's not legal, but it's not illegal either. Yep, very messy. :)
Anyway, if the game isn't sold anywhere, you shouldn't hesitate to download it if you want to play it.
If it turns out to be a game you really like and if it later becomes available for sale somewhere, you should buy it and you'll have both a clean bill and a clean conscience.

It's illegal, like someone else said the copyright isn't always enforced.

It is morally speaking. From legal perspectve is pretty straight cut, but even a lot of old school devs are pretty much okay with it, where as some others not as much.

This whole thing wouldn't be an issue if people OK with it would just go ahead and PD their works, but even that's not always possible and the current rights holder might just no be interested to do a thing with the IP, including selling it. So in those cased abandonware is pretty much the only possible solution to let the game to the masses. And in many cases the big companies don't really care enough about some old game in order to say one thing or an another about some of their old IP's being in some abandonware site, as they are busy selling their new games.

So even if it is illegal, not that many companies really care, especially if it's about very old games and IP's that are not relevant today.