I agree, I was curious myself about if the game was abandonware and wanted to peek. So i did the legwork. Gotta love irony :P

;)

Yeah the game is abandonware.. that's where I got it :D

Heck if gog hosted it on here, that would make my day none the less (also save me trouble with playing the game through dosbox/win95 manually)

Last I checked it was still for sale on Harlan Ellison's website. Abandonware or not at this point, considering that there is a legal alternative to obtaining it it's probably not "right" to download at this point.

I love the holier than thou corporate fanboys.
And BTW, copying media is certainly not illegal nor is it teft. It's a violation of copyright, a civil matter.

Theft refers to somone losing exclusive control over an object. With copying, a new non-exclusive copy is created.

Anyone who thinks that an unsupported 20 year old text adventure (basically) that is a complete bastard to run on anything modern is worth ripping people off at $30 a pop deserves to be 'stolen' from.

I have to agree. Charging $32 for a 16 year old video game is ridiculous.

I always thought that if a game was not available to purchase and was old then I had no moral objection to people downloading it and if it was available to purchase, you shouldn't download it.

The age of this game and the price being charged, make this game, in my view, morally fair game to be downloaded.

I mean seriously, $32?

Wait what? Abandonware, Public Domain, and Freeware are 3 ENTIRELY different things!

Freeware: Still in copyright distributed for free and transferable aslong as it's not altered etc. Has legal standing in most countries.
Public Domain: The copyright is gone either through time (a few movies etc) or authors choice (PD software goes here) has legal standing.
Abandonware: A term used in warez/piracy groups for software no longer supported/sold or easily available through official channels, has no legal standing.

The only known software to be out of copyright due to age is some code Ada Lovelace wrote for a theoretical Babage machine..

So, by your logic, by making old games available for purchase, GOG is simply obligating people to pay for something they would otherwise be entitled to download for free. Interesting.

So, by your logic, if a company no longer feels like selling certain games or can't due to licensing agreements, the world should just forget those games exist. Interesting.

So, by your logic, if A wants something from B. B has to sell it and A even gets to say the price, otherwise will just "copy" it.

And look, some even call that acting morally...

I and others explained this concept and others for various reasons in the thread about CDPR possibly suing TW2 piraters & others via extortion style threat letters, for various reasons, and several of the holier than thou crowd came out of the woodwork screaming things like "It's illegal!" (We knew that already and for the most part it had no bearing on the posts in the thread) or "You're trying to justify piracy! Stop that you filthy pirate supporter!" (None of us were trying to convert people to piracy or justify it technically....those that brought it up for the most part were just using info about piracy to explain the difference between theft and piracy to others, or talked about their own pasts in passing while discussing other matters.).
He never said that specifically. He said if a company or ip holder doesn't sell copies of a game or other media type anymore and no one sells used copies cheaply(i.e. Only 50 dollar eBay copies are available.) THEN in his mind it's ok to pirate it.

If A is a willing customer of Producer B, who manufactures copies of media X, and Bdecides to stop producing, then yes, A has no moral obligation to do without. Companies don't get to have it both ways. If the demand is greater than the supply, A has tried to do things legitimately. B does not get to hold that demand for ever until it suits them to meet the ssupply. And C with their used copy has no bearing on the discussion. Secondary sales have nothing to do with the issue.

I only "stretched" the topic back to the core of it, which has to do with a "customer's" sense of entitlement to someone else's product.

Sure the fact it's a copy and not a theft is a distinction, but it's not a fundamental distinction.

Your argument about some type of common good societal benefit being served by "copying" some software holds some merit in general. But I didn't notice anyone stating they want to create a videogame museum before you brought that into the thread as a strawman argument.

PS: And good alternatives to copying exist. I recall in the past month or so reading that some museum curators, after struggling with how to keep videogames for future reference (need to have the hardware maintained was a large hindrance) were exploring the pros and cons of having video playthroughs, commented or not, instead of trying to keep a "pure" videogame for full interactive by the museum visitor.