Technically, the copyright should do nothing to protect either "version" of the character (whether they were identical or not), it should only protect the book the character appears in, but thanks to the legal departments of companies like Disney, they have managed to extend the copyright protection to the content within creative works, rather than just the work as a whole.

the Ultima series is available here:

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/games.php?search=ultima

1-3 and 4-6 can be packaged as a trilogy as well.

This is a pretty good site, they're a partner with GOG, so when gog.com adds a game they replace their download with a link to buy from here.

for just 5 minutes of downloading you can have the entire series 1-8 including underworld and savage kingdom. They have maps and manuals and everything, and use a dosbox package, so it's almost as if you got it from gog :)

I never played these but thanks to the info in this post I think I might start at 4 and go up :)

As great as it is to find that game there, abandonware sites are illegal in many countries and we try to keep links to them far away from the GOG forums. We don't want to make GOG liable for anything here; the last thing we need is a potential publisher declining to join GOG because they allow copyright-infringing sites to be linked to in their forums.

That site in particular is a perfect illustration of the problem with the Ultima games. They are legally available for free, but not on that website, only on those websites with the specific permissions to distribute the free version.

Such is one of the many problems with our society, our economic model, and I agree.

We, as citizens, have an obligation to try and encourage movement towards improvement in that society.

In Australia it is techincally illegal to record a show with a VCR. Crazy, I know, yet it is a law that is largely ignored (or at least was back when VCRs were still used). In Australia it is also illegal, technically, to congregate publically in groups of 3 or more. I'm sure we can all think of similar laws in our own countries that are outdated, and eventually ignored by citizens and law enforcement alike.

The famous story in American history with an African American woman refusing to comply with racist segregation laws on the bus is a prime example of how this process can be hastened by citizens who believe in a more just society.

The fine balance between encouraging new cultural creativity and stifling it is one philosophically precarious, I know, which is why I am such a loyal customer of gog.com and the changes and ideals they represent. Yet if we do not have the financial or political resources to make these changes, we must at least live our lives according to them, and historically speaking society does indeed follow. If for no other reason than the temporary financial gains to be made in the short term, eventually the moral argument is recognised and accepted, as it is today by most everyone, just not those with a financial investment in stifling that process. :)

You bring up a good point about corporate image, yet I think your anxiety is exaggerated. GOG is firmly established, and if EA should somehow prefer to not make money from selling Ultima, then it is their loss only, as the public does indeed have access to other alternatives. But I'm considering what you said, and shall have to decide about posting such links in the future. If any moderators wish it removed I shall gladly do so, as I would not want what exists here to degenerate anymore than the rest of us :)

While I do agree with much of what you say in spirit, as I have said to others on the subject, do you really want to make video game piracy the "tent pole" of your fight against "the man"? Aren't there far more important things in the world worth fighting for? Advocating abandonware is like trying to convince the government to raise the speed limits by constantly driving 5 miles too fast. No one in the government is going to notice and eventually you are likely to get pulled over and issued a ticket. Trust me, if that does happen, the cop who pulls you over is not going to care one bit about your political views on what the speed limit should be.

Comparing abandonware to the American civil rights movement frankly cheapens the courage and sacrifice of those who peacefully struggled for their basic human rights in the face hundreds of years of overwhelming bigotry and hatred. The simple inconvenience of not being able to legally obtain a video game in an easy manner is nothing compared to that.

It's not about "corporate image" it is about what is legal and illegal. If GOG is found to be doing something illegal or allowing illegal acts on their forums, they are liable for it. At best, that might lead to someone like EA declining to be a part of GOG. At worst, it would lead to EA suing the pants off them. GOG is definitely not "firmly established", they are only about 2 and half years old now and way behind all of the other much more established digital download services. They can't afford to expose themselves to that kind of liability and by posting things like that, we are not supporting them in any way, we are just hurting them.

There are no moderators here, we police ourselves, hence why they advertise this as a "classy community".

This is hardly a "tent-pole of my fight against the man", you can be derogatory if you like, but it only cheapens your own integrity.

Our culture is important, and fostering a society where creativity is encouraged is equally as important as fighting against bigotry. If you think that the economic pressures of this world, as they impinge upon the fostering of creativity, and the exercise of the pursuit of intellectual and philosophical development, let alone those pressures' impingment on the very state of living for many of this world's citizens are somehow meaningless, then you are painfully naive. This is part of a bigger picture. I do not fight against the man, or anyone else, I advocate that each member of humanity be driven by their own moral compass, and do the best they are able to.

Just relax a little friend. I am aware that saying this may offend, and I sincerely apologise for that, but I see no need for us to get worked up about this, especially since it seems we are in agreement in spirit, which to me is of more importance than the matters of our division.

This is the point I think so many don't get. It's more important than people realize. It's somewhat linked, sociologically, to far worse atrocities. You don't have to spend much time reading about sociology, anthropology (specifically radically different cultures), and current/historical conflict to start to see the threads of a connection.

Okay, you read way too much tone into my words. There was no sarcasm intended, just a harmless joke (you can only write "<snip>" so many times before its starts to feel redundant). There was also nothing even slightly derogatory in my statements, I simply asked an honest question about the seemingly out of whack priority you assign to something as insignificant as your inability to obtain an old video game through legal means. I'm sorry, but there is no way you will ever convince me that playing video games is in any way remotely equal to the struggle and achievements of the American civil rights movement.

This has nothing to do with "fostering creativity" or our culture. Your or anyone else's ability to play a game does nothing to to improve our culture or creativity, it's just a game. That's all abandonware is about. Some abandonware sites may claim to be the bastion of "cultural preservation", but the simple fact is, no one uses them to to explore their culture, they use them to get games they can play, no more, no less. Believing they are more than that is a little bit denial-ish.

Frankly, I'm not really worked up about the abandonware issue itself, I'm only worked up about the possibility that you or anyone else posting links to such sites could possibly harm GOG. I like this site, I like what they stand for and I don't want to see anything, especially an act by anyone who also likes this site, cause harm to them. Until the law changes and adandonware becomes legal, its really not worth putting the one real chance we have at legally getting some of these games at risk.

Well said :)

Could the dark ages have been averted had not the library of Alexandria fallen? It is our cultural heritage that inspires us, allows us to move forward, morally, philosophically, intellectually. Our culture is all we have, is what speaks to the heart of humanity, allows us introspection and psychological maturity. And so much of history is lost already, we have an obligation to preserve as much as we can, now that our technology is capable of doing so.
Then I apologise for the misunderstanding.

Those are all important, but they are not remotely the same thing as video games. I do undervalue them (as you put it) because they do not have that same culturally intrinsic value as the historically significant works of art you describe. No one is going to look back a hundred years from now at a game like Doom and think that it is the pinnacle of human culture of the time.. or at least I really hope no one does. There are far more significant expressions of our culture in our music, movies, books, art, etc. that say much more meaningful things about us than video games ever will. That's not to say that video games as whole say nothing at all about us, but rather that they say very little in relation to the rest.

You make a good point about preserving the source code, and if that is what the purpose of abandonware was, I would support it wholeheartedly, but that is not what it is about. The only purpose abandonware serves is to give people free and easy access to work that they otherwise have no legal right to possess or use. For example, that Greek vase you describe, you can go to a museum and look at it, or you can see pictures of it in a history or ancient art text book, but you can't take that vase home with you and place it on your mantle. This is what abandonware does; gives you the means to take the "vase" home with you, regardless of whether or not it is yours.

It is great that you want to support the preservation of our culture, and I am all for that, but abandonware is not preservation, it's just software piracy. Preservation is what museums like the Smithsonian are doing with exhibits like The Art of Video Games. That is maintaining a record of our culture, giving everyone free copies of games is not.

Which is why we disagree, I believe. In Shakespeare's own time he was also regarded as 'trashy', one who wrote low-brow entertainment for the lower classes.

A painting is looked at, but music is listened to, a film is watched, and a game is played. The digital nature of the medium invalidates arguments of theft, as I am sure we could agree, and in terms of the infringement of intellectual property, which do you think the author would prefer? That after 25 years their work is highly regarded and a meaningful experience, or that an exploitative system owns financial rights to their creation and prohibits its use?

And in a hundred years time, I may be proven wrong in this respect as Shakespeare's critics were (sort of, he did actually write low-brow entertainment for the lower classes, however that's not what made his work significant). Either way, you and I won't be around to see it.
It's not about money, its about the legal rights to the game. If abandonware sites simply had the correct permissions to distribute the games, I would have no problems with it, but they don't. Instead of even attempting to do the right thing, they just give them away to everyone illegally. All they have to do is ask if they can distribute them and if they are told no, then store them (actually preserve them) until such time that they can legally distribute them, even if that means waiting until they properly enter the public domain. Granted, with the screwed up state of copyright law, that's going to take a really long time to happen, but if they really care about such things, then they should works towards correcting the flaws in our laws, rather than openly flaunting them.

I would say they are doing just that, working towards correcting the flaws in those laws. Strong public opinion has to fight here against corruption, it is true, but we must simply do what we can. The fact that they work closely with gog.com and stop hosting a game once it is sold again shows that they are trying hard to work within and respect intellectual property ownership and copyright laws.

This is why we have public libraries, offering material to the public for free, all from a single copy, which are ever increasingly storing movies as well, especially those considered classics and also those recently released. I happen to buy my books, but if some organisation of publishers wanted to shut down our public libraries I am sure we would all be up in arms.

Changing laws is not accomplished by breaking them, it is accomplished through the established structures within our legal and political system. Going back to your civil rights example, the breaking of a law did bring to light the unfairness of the law, but it didn't actually change the law. The politicians, lawyers and concerned citizens who worked within the system did that. With abandonware, no one in the general public is even paying attention to it, and only very few people like the EFF are actively working to change it. If those abandonware sites did more than just provide illegal downloads, they might have both the moral leg to stand on as well as the pubic opinion required to force the issue.

Removing software once it becomes available on GOG is not respecting intellectual property ownership, it's fear. They know that as soon as the games become available for purchase, game publishers suddenly have a reason to go after them for copyright infringement and they don't want to increase their risk any more than they already have. Those sites only work as long as they stay under the radar and continuing to offer games that GOG sells is definitely not staying under the radar.

Huge difference with libraries: unlike abandonware, they actually do have the necessary legal permissions and rights to do what they do and it would take an incredible amount of effort on the part of rights holders to change that. Additionally, while you could take a movie or book out of the library and watch it, you still can't legally copy it and keep it for yourself. If abandonware were somehow able to work like a public library, I'm sure the rights holders would have no problems at all with it, but that would likely involve some kind of time-limited demo/DRM function which is not what abandonware users want. They want the full game, free of charge forever, which is never going to happen unless or until the rights holders allow it or they enter the public domain.