tfishell: GOG is not going to remove the game from their store no matter how much you may want them to. It is up to 2K to re-negotiate the music rights, and obviously they don't want to for reasons between them and music companies. I do not think the hosted music will be affected nor will any anti-music patches happen.
Ancient-Red-Dragon: I'd argue it's
also up to 2k and GOG not to take unethical actions, which releasing a butchered version of the Mafia game is, because it's committing desecration against the art.
Gotta disagree with you there.
First of all, "desecration against the art" is kind of a silly argument, because it is based on the idea that art is "sacred" and thus untouchable. As with everything art-related, that's dependent on the viewer's thoughts and some will agree with your view, some will not and no one can tell the other side is wrong about it.
But ignoring the purist artistic view on this matter, let's face why this game lost its music. Simply put, it's because of the stupid way copyright laws work. You can thank your beloved RIAA for what happened to this game. 2k is kind of guilty as well because when they licensed that music they either chose to pay a smidge less for a temporary license, (
hooray for next-quarter short-sightedness) or their lawyers were dumb enough to accept a contract that specified that the license would be limited to X years. Which was eventually enforced when the time expired.
Now we come to the present. There's a negotiation between GOG and 2k. 2k could make a new deal with the RIAA for the music again, hopefully permanent this time. But let's be honest: how much do you think they'll get from this reselling? Lawyer time is expensive. If they had to do that I'm pretty sure 2k would say "screw it, that will cost more than we'll get in return". Can't fault their reasoning. And BTW none of this was GOG's fault or an "unethical" action.
So now GOG and 2k can choose to either:
a) not release the game because it'll offend your purist views, be damned anyone who wants it despite this issue;
b) release it in the state it currently is.
As long as I can mod the music back in, I'm pretty sure what I want them to do.