snowkat is the only one who ever calls me that.

Are you an alt. :P

not an alt. Just someone who thinks you do not contribute anything positive to this community.

Several people have been given bans already and haven't seen any of them sneak back in here yet.

Now that I think about it, I haven't seen NES or any of his "army" in a while and that's all one user. Maybe they did go with an IP. I can't believe after three years he would just up and decide to stop PMing me.

And that's fine. A lot of people hate me, and with good reason.

Just remember to please keep that to yourself in here from now on. I will do the same.

deleted

I'd like a clarification on a few of the rules.

On the matter of pirated content, what if the company relating to said software is long dead? Or to phrase this in another way, where does GOG define abandonware?

On the matter of thread bumps, does that account for necroposting, accidental or otherwise?

"unreleased game content", are we talking games yet to be released, or is this wiki entirely forbidden?

"Posting cheats, hacks, game exploits, and game spoilers - unless you clearly note that this is what your post is about at the top of it.", does this apply retroactively? If so, I have a few threads to edit. But more seriously, what's the statue of limitations for when this rule no longer applies?

I hope they take a hard line stance against anything like "abandonware" which isn't a legal term in Canada nor in most countries that I'm aware of.

In Canada there's always some law in effect. Even if it's the public domain law & no PC game falls under that in Canada.
If you're doing "abandonware" you're pirating.

FYI law in Canada (in general terms):
"In Canada, the copyright for a work usually expires 50 years after the death of the creator, at the end of the relevant calendar year.

E.g. Since Mordecai Richler died on 3 July 2001, his novels will remain copyrighted until 31 December 2051, and will pass into the Public Domain on 1 January 2052.)"

So no PC game falls under public domain unless put there by the copyright holder.
There's some laws about renewing a copyright license but generally a work will remain under the authors control unless otherwise specified by a contract.

Regardless of whether he's a problem or not (and trust me, we've had far worse for far longer), fables22 has already stated that she will not be banning people based on past actions. Now that the new rules are in place, the only justification for an accusation of such would be if he did something only recently.

Sure, that's fine and dandy. But the scenario in question I speak of is where the company forfeited existence over ten years ago. It no longer legally exists, on paper or otherwise. The company is factually deader than the corpse of Atari.

It defaults back to the author or whoever registered the copyright essentially.

"Registration is not required for protection in Canada. However, a certificate of registration of copyright is evidence that copyright exists and that the person registered is the owner of the copyright. Copyright exists automatically when an original work or other subject-matter is created, provided the conditions set out in the Copyright Act have been met."

So if no copyright is on file it belongs to whomever created it. If a company ceases to exist & there's no one copy right holder each item in the game is owned by whomever created it. (This is how a game can enter "development hell" by the way.)
It's a little different in the USA (they don't have automatic copyright but an author can still register his work 10 years down the line as far as I know to stop the use of his work unless sold & then it belongs to whomever holds the sale contract) and I have no idea what Poland's laws are but the honest proper thing to do is a blanket cover of no copies of someone else's work allowed unless public domain is proven. I wouldn't want my work stolen cause "it's abandoned".
You likely create something as well... even as a hobby. Fly tying etc... would you want someone coming along & selling the design cause you haven't used it while fishing for 10 yrs etc.?

There is no such thing as "Abandonware". There are games that are no longer sold by their rights holders. But this doesn't give anyone the legal rights to download those games from a third party. Even if the "company" (developer/publisher) doesn't exist anymore, there's most certainly still someone holding the rights to the inexistent company's former intellectual properties. Someone who bought the rights for a Dollar, some bank who gave the company a credit but didn't get it paid back, a lawyer who managed the liquidation, etc. Rights don't vanish that easily.

The unreleased game content stuff is indeed a bit troubling... Let's take the restored content mod for KotOR 2 as an example. It... well... "restores" unreleased game content. But yet someone from GOG made the thread about KotOR 2 mods (including the restored content mod) a sticky in the subforum! This is... slightly confusing.

Nope. None of the rules apply retroactively. This is bad when it comes to our scammer brigade who turned the forums to shit with their alt armies. This is bad when it comes to comments about "subhuman scum" that some ... "users" posted in the past. But it's good for rules like that one! You shouldn't be banned for posting

ATTENTION! I'M GOING TO POST A CHEAT NOW!

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A

NO MORE CHEATS FROM THIS POINT ON!

in the past.

It just occurred to me that perhaps the "unreleased game content" clause is a nod toward things like the Hot Coffee mod. The placement of that line makes more sense when viewed in that context.

I'm also wondering about "Hey, this game is on sale over at Steam, here is the link!"

Seriously. :P
Goat Sim is a great game and if it goes on sale we shouldn't be punished for it not being here.