rtcvb32: My personal opinion on the matter? If the game/franchise was abandoned for 10+ years then it's public domain... Same for software, OSes, books, etc.
dudalb: Legally,you are wrong.
Copyright applies regardless of whether a book is in print of not. To keep it in print of not is strictly a business decision ,has nothing to do with copyright rights. Same thing applies to Software. There is no such thing legally as Abadonware.
Legally doesn't matter.
One of the heavy purposes of copyright, was to limit who could make '
copies', and in the age of the printing press and different presses/companies vying to print books, only one of them could get the permission by the copyright owner who then dropped some privileges and freedoms, which was fine because there was no way in order to capitalize or use them. That has heavily changed in the modern age.
Also, applying to books doesn't matter. If copyright lasts for a million years, you can still pick up a copy of the book and read it after it's been printed and in circulation. With books it was a win/win for everyone because the authors made their money, and the people got the information in the public domain (
even if they couldn't make bulk copies themselves). Software is very different as it's contents are locked shut, much like the example of a car with it's engine welded shut.
And yes there is something legally as abandonware. If copyright was kept as it originally was intended (
14 years) then after 14 years, something drops to public domain, and is no longer in copyright to the owner. But with companies dropping left and right, and copyright saying the businesses still own them, they won't go to public domain for 100+ years. Do you REALLY think no one will play
Xixit or other games, or use software for 100 years after it's relevance just to follow the letter of the law? If no one's following the law, then there's something wrong with it.
I've heard second hand (
from my mom? A friend? I can't remember) that if you had no money and no resources, that it was legal to steal to feed yourself. Mind you hopefully you'd be doing what ends up in the trash anyways... But with the sheer amount of
food waste in the country, i'm not sure if that makes a difference...