Sales you say? I should update my welcome to GOG image . . . =)

Follow the links post by post to your original questionable comment about Mr. Gog profiting from abandonware sites.

I read the entire post, and if that's what you intended to communicate you did a poor job of articulating it.

They might not care about abandonware sites, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they can't care about people talking about how to crack their software. Especially in cases where we don't know what the software is and could definitely still be available for sale.

On top of that, whether or not there's an abandonware site, from which Mr. Gog is trying to convert downloads to sales, there is no causal relationship between gog and the abandonware sites. The sites predate gog by years and while they do still exist they do carry fewer titles as a result of converting them to links to store pages.

Also you need to realize that "personal use" and "back up" are code words that are often used to describe piracy. Yes some, and perhaps many people, do use them for personal use or for back up, it's also common for those words to be used to cover up the fact that they want to know how to pirate a copy.

No because those same tools and techniques can be used to crack DRM on newer games and that they do care about. Regardless of your intentions or stated intentions, they see those links and they see piracy. They see abandonware sites and they see piracy on products they don't care about anymore and where they wouldn't get any money out of going after them since no one, including them, is selling the game. It's not that they like abandonware sites, it's that they don't care about them. If they did, they'd have gone after them. Now if an abandonware site sold those old games without permission, then there is money to be made going after them. Otherwise it is a waste of time and resources from their perspectives. However, they are very jealous over their profits from new games. And anything related to spreading information about how to crack DRM - regardless of the users actual intent - is seen by them as condoning and supporting piracy of their precious new games.
Because publishers never believe anything is for your own personal use. They don't trust you. Whoever you are and whatever your capabilities, to them you, the legitimate customer, are nothing more than a potential pirate and criminal of their brand newly released, still making money product.

That's why they have tried to pass laws in US and I believe have succeeded getting them passed in the EU saying that the act of removal of copy protection itself is a violation of the copyright on the product whatever your intentions are for it.

What if someone said, "hey, I know that old game, and I can program it to run perfectly on your newer computer. Also, you don't have to worry about the legalities since I'll deal with the companies and lawyers. I'll also find and include as many scans of the documents as I can find, and provide soundtracks and other goodies as well".

You would probably be interested, right? Then he says, "I will do all of this for $5.99 or $9.99, and sometimes even for free."

Since legitimate used disc purchases through E-bay or Amazon may run hundreds of dollars for some classic titles (just look at the costs of some of the early Ultimas with full documentation for example) you would probably pay for this service.

"Also," he says, "I will keep your games for you on a database so you can re-download them if your computer crashes or something else goes wrong."

Now you are probably really interested, right?

That individual is none other than Mr. GOG.

Also, any game you find being distributed for free through the copyright owner's own site is perfectly legal, as with Daggerfall when it appears on Bethesda's site (which is rather often these days). Also, Ultima IV through Ultima Forever or here is a perfectly legitimate free download since Ultima Forever belongs to the publisher and GOG has been approved to carry it.

The only other way to "legally" obtain abandonware is if the company has collapsed or if the creator/programmer has maintained the rights and wants the game handed out. One programmer stated he would rather people play his game for free than let it disappear.

GOG has ad banners on abandonware sites: LINK


It seems this site links to GOG whenever it has a GOG game, such as Ultimas I-VI. So for those games they supply links to purchase, and only offer completely non-available games for download. Still, it would probably be better if they only provided write-ups and photos for those games such as the later Ultimas rather than downloads which can be construed as piracy.

Of course we have to wait for those games to be released here on GOG so we can do that right thing, or we can go to Amazon or Ebay and pay through the teeth.

In short, GOG, you're doing a very good thing by providing a service to legitimately get these games for fair prices. I don't think, at all, that you are supporting piracy, rather you are doing just the opposite by providing a legal way to obtain classics without resorting to piracy.

Now I'm off to play some Planescape or the Ultima Avatar adventures which I downloaded....from Gog.

Keep up the great work. Yes there are pirates out there, but GOG are more like privateers.

Sorry, in the US you have to sign an agreement to give up your copyright (or indicate your agreement in some other way in some cases, such as the GPL). Modders and crackers doing their work in the US very much own the copyright on any code they create themselves.

Yes, it's a screwed up system, but that is how it works in the US.
The US is a huge jurisdiction and that statement is 100% correct in the US, while yours is actually incorrect.

Hey - I like this image. Reasembles me gog's "back to school" banner. If someone asks: "Name one cool thing that came from US" - I say: 50'.

You'll have to quote me because I still don't see where I mention torrenting the Witcher 2. And are you implying I favour torrenting the Witcher 2 or am I against it? Are you sure it wasn't someone else and what does it have to do with the topic at hand anyway?

It had crossed my mind that the beer might have been talking but crazy_dave got what I was saying and my posts look fine to me now through sober eyes too. But I digress, it seems you finally got it.

I didn't say there is a casual relationship. It is a professional relationship. The abandonware sites are GOG's marketing partners.

Perhaps I'm just not paranoid enough to understand that reasoning. The truth is that is the language of the Copyright Act. Regardless, it's a fair guess in the absence of any official answers.


Stephen Harper is trying that here again too. And the scary thing is he now has a majority government. Oh well, if it goes through there's always a chance it to blow up in their faces like the blank media levy. *fingers crossed*

no.

artwork in mod might be indeed copyrighted, so the designs of character. I was referring to the code of the mod as we are talking about cracks here. It does not belong to the coder. the mod also does not belong to the moder and it cannot be copyrighted, therefore anyone really can do whatever one pleases with it. including beths.
Only if the stuff they do is legal. Crackers work is not legal therefore it is not copyrighted. Only legal stuff can be. simple like that.
Modders are a bit different case, they do own artwork and designs and stuff like that. they do not own the code tough.

How's that work if you make a mod off of GPL code? Say if I made a new game from the Doom3 source and then released my code as required by the license. id can turn around and sell a closed derivative of my mod without releasing their changes? That sounds messed up.

That is messed up - and also incorrect in the US. If you write code for a mod (scripts, etc), you own that. And while it's kind of stupid to copyright illegal things, it actually happens in the US because we don't require artists to register their works to get copyright. Copyright is in effect from the time a work is published.

Like I said earlier, the modder doesn't own the GAME ENGINE CODE. But they do own any code they wrote themselves.

but the thing is that even if you somehow go through cracks and copyright something which is illegal or already been copyrighted before, it won't be enforcable at all.

It is similar in a way to suing someone for a breach of contract which was illegal (in extreme case: suing someone for not killing another person even tough you had written contract)

writing crack is I believe criminal activity under digital milenium act as it. Therefore only right owners to the crack software can us it or allow companies like gog to use it.

but okay. i admit it is not my field and i am not 100% about what I said. I just scratched copyright law while doing contract laws. I'll try to find something more concrete a bit later.
So everyone who says opposite especially USA, can you provide source of your knowledge?

I think KingofGNG either admitted pirating or was quite pro-piracy oriented.

Yeah, a copyright on a crack is unenforceable. Technically, due to the copyright-on-publish thing, illegal software still is copyrighted. I'm not sure it's ever been tested in court, though. Copyright law in the US is so messed up it's pretty funny.

I understood your argument as saying that any modification was illegal and therefore belonged to the copyright holders of the original, that's why I brought mods into it. I may have misunderstood that.