Other than a possible shareware version that did the rounds, the only other thing I can think he's getting confused with were OEM copies. I received it free with a new PC back in the day (along with Redline Racer and GPolice)...

How about 'public domain'? As far as I'm concerned, Congress's unconstitutional extensions of copyright shouldn't be counted, so JJ2 would be out of copyright unless renewed.

They're not unconstitutional. They're wrong on so many levels that I can't count them all, but they're not unconstitutional. I hope the next extension won't happen though. I have something pretty amazing up my sleeve for when Mickey comes into public domain.

But that's about it. Wrong and stupid, motivated fully by greed? Yes. Unconstitutional? No.

It is for limited time, though the U.S. constitutions doesn't specify that time so they can extend it at will. And they can always pay some artists off to strike and say to dumb journalists who won't look deeply into it (unlike, the entire team of TechDirt whom I greatly respect) that they won't be able to eat and live if Congress won't extend copyright to promote progress of science and arts.

So yes, it's completely legal, but not everything's that's completely legal is right and this is one of these things. But let's not drago this thread off topic, okay?

"Abandonware" is not freeware, and the Jazz Jackrabbit games were never freeware. Sure, you could find them in some "abandonware" sites, but abandonware is nothing more than a grey area some people made up to justify piracy. Though I don't work with video games, I do work in the publishing business, and I can say, with all certainty, that so-called abandonware has no legal standing whatsoever. None. At all. Never had, never will. If you're downloading an "abandonware" product, you're downright pirating. Whether you feel good or bad about that is not up to me to say, but it *is* just piracy.

Unless the rights owner makes the product freeware, which the Jazz Jackrabbit games *never* were. You can still find shareware versions throughout the internet, but shareware is not freeware, it's basically a "demo" locked version of a game so that players could try it out before deciding whether they wanted to buy the full version. Shareware is legal, but it's not the full version of a game.