In most cases what you say about the company is simply not true. Sierra for example doesn't exist anymore, but before dismantling it, it was bought by someone and all it's IPs were transferred to the new owner.
Someone is always there to pick up the pieces. If a game is not sold anymore then usually because the rights were spread among several right holders working together at the time and they can't decide who now has the right to sell it (see Simon 4+5, Gods, No One Lives Forever) or some external licences expired which they would have to renew.

Many old "lost" games are making their way back now, Ziggurat is a good publisher who bought old licences. Others started to sell their games again, now that retro gaming is more popular than ever. (Atari50 is probably the most famous, then we have all the games we got from Piko Entertainment lately). These games haven't been sold for decades, but it would still have been illegal to aquire them during that time and now it's obvious that it is illegal.

Accepted? Yes, but not legal.

Btw, illegal distribution was already a thing before tapes. Some arcade machines even only had the game stored in RAM, supported by a battery. If the battery was empty, the machine became unusable. for obvious reason that practice didn't last, but they found other methods for protecting games from being copied.

.. and that was handled in the part of my post after that after that.

They pay for it (a lot), so you can hear it. The radio station pays for it in order to be allowed to send it publicly.

You are acting as if this is a new discussion, but it's not. For all your questions there are answers, most already given 50 years ago (except the CD and mp3 of course).
This is as I recall it:
no, no, only allowed privatly (not public, for that an extra licence is needed), yes, no, yes (as long as it's not your sister), yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes
The whole "what is allowed and what not" is regulated very clearly.

You can argue as much as you want, it's still not legal to use or distribute something without permission.

And that's the important point. No one cares, abendonedware sites are tolerated. But they are not legal.

I don't judge you for getting games that are not getting sold from abandonedware sites and no one else will. But acceptance does not make it legal.

The fuss is that you insist on these games being legal, which they are not. Just accept that you do something illegal and move on with your life (Or become a politician and change the laws so it becomes legal. Just demanding it won't make it so).

GOG however would get into trouble if they started distributing "abandonedware" without permission.

But I think we are running in circles here. All I could say I already said. And seeing that you are asking questions that have long been answered and I don't think you are too uninformed to know that, tells me that you don't want to ask or discuss, but preach. No matter if you come out of this argument as victor or not ... abandonware will still be illegal.
Really ... become a politician and change the laws so what you say becomes right.

For sure, but I got the impression this is a better way of doing it.
I also got the impression they were aiming for legit, otherwise I would never have suggested partnering with GOG.

That said, I did not get in real deep and read everything. I must have missed that bit, as all I saw was that they did not want to be known as just another case of abandonware, and while the initial page I linked to doesn't reveal much about the games shown, the page that linked to showing the next lot of games they were going to support, mostly seemed to be demos or shareware.

So it could be legit in the end ... that seems like their aim anyway.

Of course this browser approach is using DOSbox and some other program.

Anyway, I thought the whole thing interesting, and that maybe some others would too. I say that, despite the high likelihood I would never bother with such a browser approach myself.

From what I read , mouse and keyboard were supported too, possibly the default.

I never said anything about it being a great approach, just interesting.

And just guessing, there could be some scenarios where it might be handy or useful. I certainly wouldn't suggest this as a replacement for the standard better approach way of playing games.

But who knows what the future might be.

Luckily we have GOG right now and some others championing old DOS games, but it might not always be that way. Who knows if GOG will even exist in 10 years or still be DRM-Free.

We look down our nose at playing games in the browser now, but who knows what improved capability might be in the future. Could we even imagine playing DOOM for instance in a browser some 20 or more years ago.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

On another note.

If GOG were smart and had enough resources and finances, they should have developed their own Gaming PC brand years ago, that their games were well and truly tested on, like a console, and so played fairly flawless. Many folk still have issues with PC games, because hardware varies so much, and many mistakenly think it is all about how powerful their PC is, rather than how all the parts work together etc.

Certainly interesting but nothing new as that have been around for ages already. Might just be me on Linux but it seems horribly slow stuttering compared to other sites, like archive f.ex.).

The games are either full freewares/liberated or demos and so far seems 'legal' in the loose/classic term, if one is so inclined to use the word... To be fully pedantic, apart from shareware being as the name implies, "share ware", they might not have the right to distribute the demos or the freeware unless the license explicitly says so (I haven't bothered to look at them so I don't know), even if they're not locked behind some monetary value as we normally think is the only limited factor. Also, where on the ABOUT page does it say 'abandonware'?

And speaking of murky waters; even if they DID allow people to play full commercial / abondonware games no one would even care, as long as they stay away from Nintendos titles that is... and GOG wouldn't care to partner with them regardless if it was 'legal' or not. It's too near Steam for one.

The linked article does:
"DOS_deck seems to get this, providing the most frictionless path to playing classic DOS shareware and abandonware, like Doom, Jazz Jackrabbit, Command & Conquer, and Syndicate"

But it's wrong, Syndicate for example is all but abandoned.

And it's also not shareware. Neither is Warcraft.


Jazz Jackrabbit, Doom or Commander Keen could be shareware and therefore legal, but only if they don't have their payed content unlocked.

"Article 27
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author."

What would Author say? | )
Hello?!
IF there is no will from the Author, the will (of acknowledging the art) is mine/yours ^

We simply cannot commercialize libraries, it`s against humanity. That`s all. Ooh...of course we love brand new books from the bookshops. Brand new games from the games store, especially game that can play offline, without a client, with 30days refund option, some support, some DLCs, and a nerdy people on the forum. 🤓

There is no reason to discuss "abandonware". DOS_deck doesn't offer "abandonware". So far they have 16 games and these are demos, shareware versions and freeware titles.

Freeware:
Benath a Steel Sky
One Must Fall 2097
The Black Cauldron
The Lost Vikings
Supaplex Classic

Demos:
Lemmings
Syndicate
Command & Conquer

Shareware:
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
Jazz Jackrabbit
Doom
Epic Pinball
Wolfenstein 3D
Heretic
Commander Keen
Commander Keen 4


They also write the following on their website:

I'm not sure why. Playing games using a native emulator will always be better than a web version, for speed/efficiency reasons, not to mention being able to change settings, manage saves, and having more compatibility with hardware (joysticks etc.).

I can see it as a way to quickly check out games to see if they're something you're interested in, before installing using an emulator.

I was referring to previous methods of playing games in your browser.
An example would be that used at Archive.org
Thanks for all that info and clearing some things up ... for others especially.

what does the word "illegal" mean?

You'd think it would be something wrong, or by the shape of the word to suggest not-legal; But it's more like hate speech laws, it's 'things others don't like'.

'It's illegal to modify your house without a building permit' among other things. So the action is legal sometimes and not legal in others. Or in Florida Cape Cove fining a retired woman because she was succeeding in living off grid, and that was illegal. Collecting rain water illegal, making your own pond on your own private land, illegal.

In china, it's illegal to add cold veggies on cold noodles without a license/permit... illegal...

Say a tweet in the UK they government doesn't like and get visited by the police, or for liking a tweet....

Look down the rabbit hole and the more stupid the whole thing is.

no, just answer the question. it is a very simple question. What does the word "illegal" mean?

(if you dont know what it means, you may want to look it up in a dictionary)

Well if we look it up. the exact definition is .... So?