What's your opinion on abandonware?

[mtosev]

So what do you think about software and games that are abandonware?

I view it this way: if something isn't for sale anymore and not attainable I don't see any problem with using it.

I use legit software and I buy games that I like. I find it sad when something I like isn't for sale anymore and that I can't buy.

[Pentium4User]

So what do you think about software and games that are abandonware?

I view it this way: if something isn't for sale anymore and not attainable I don't see any problem with using it.

I use legit software and I buy games that I like. I find it sad when something I like isn't for sale anymore and that I can't buy.

If that is software that isn't involved with networking, that is reasonable.
But everything that is involved with networking and isn't being maintained, is most likely a security hole.
I don't like that.

[Moonchild]

I think abandonware is only OK if the author of it says it is. Simple as that.
Just because you "can't buy something anymore" doesn't mean you suddenly have the rights or license to use it free of charge "as if you actually bought it". That's not how software (or any other) authorship works...

So no, abandonware without explicit consent of the software author is at best a grey area, and at worst downright illegal.

[athenian200]

My opinion on it? It's still technically piracy, so it's not any better from a legal perspective. So it's not safe to do. But would I actually turn someone in for using it? Probably not, though if they were running a business I would think it was unprofessional and might not want to do business with them if I see they are getting by on unlicensed software.

As for home users? My opinion is that it's largely a waste of time and resources to go after them for piracy, and especially piracy of old, unmaintained programs that have no commercial value. The copyright holder is legally within their rights to do so, but honestly if I were running a big software company, I'd be too busy defending my rights on modern versions of my software to care very much about someone pirating, say, MS-DOS 6 or Xenix.

Where it would really become a big moral problem for me is if someone were selling abandonware or making a profit, especially if they are modifying the software in an unauthorized way and potentially making the original publisher look bad. I don't personally care very much if someone is using unmodified copies of abandoned software for non-commercial use, but anything outside of that is a moral problem as well as a legal one.

[mtosev]

My question / scenario was for home and non commercial use only.

I have to mention that I have an unlicensed copy of MS DOS 6.22. I don't think Microsoft cares too much about that. As far I remember Ms dos came out in 1994 so that software is 30 years old by now. I have multiple genuine copies of Windows.

[Mæstro]

Copyright and all intellectual property law are positivist, not natural. Sharing files does not transgress the Mosaic, dominical or Pauline prohibitions of theft; such acts are morally indifferent in themselves. Preserving old records for posterity is a good thing, and without this, all the scripture and all documents from before Gutenberg would have been lost.

[Moonchild]

So just because a publishing channel collapses, a creator should just condone "sharing" of what they created and previously sold copies of, without having to grant permission? I don't think that is in any way fair, nor does it follow natural law (it's neither moral nor just). Sharing a single physical item that one has purchased between people does not transgress the prohibitions of theft, but you are not sharing, you are creating new copies if you "share" software with others, and that is a whole different thing since it's reproduction.
If an author truly abandons their software, it requires at least an affirmation that they abandoned it or no longer care about anyone's use of the software. I think anything less than that makes it a violation of the creator's rights. it is THEIR product and THEIR work, so they should get to determine what happens with it even after any commercial life has ceased, not any user or curator. Trying to equate this with old scripture is very disingenuous, as the context, rights, authorship and purpose was entirely different in that case.

[Mæstro]

The author is irrelevant: all reproduction is in order except inasmuch as Caesar has declared that he shall see otherwise. The omniscient Lord had conceived all ideas millennia before any man has; we cannot pretend to originality, but only discover his thoughts after him. It is never the author’s work, but always Jehovah’s. Only God truly creates; to attribute creation to any man is a figure of speech or legal fiction. ‘Copying is not theft’ is a cliché among copyright abolitionists, and the arguments for and against it are well known in the right places. It should be obvious where I fall over that point, but I prefer to speak about the religious aspect, which I have never seen discussed anywhere else, instead of treading the same, stereotypical debates, even if it will alienate secularists. There is no moral problem, but true ethics is a branch of theology; secular appeals will fail on me as I am sure my apology for my own beliefs on copyright will on others.
My point in mentioning the situation before copyrights were first implemented is to illustrate that, under the conditions which prevailed through most of man’s history, copyright would have extinguished literature, and it can hence hardly be regarded as part of natural or moral law in the way that theft is forbidden.

[Moonchild]

Woah.

I'm sorry but without bogging ourselves down with heavily religious discussion (so please do not continue that tangent), let me just point out one thing:

true ethics is a branch of theology

That is patently false. And as long as you keep being convinced of this, we have nothing further to discuss.

[suzyne]

I find the question of abandonware interesting and more complicated than just what is right and wrong.

I have strong opinions about the fundamental rights of creators, but during the height of COVID I found myself in a weekly online movie club, where somebody would supply a link to a movie, we would watch it at our own convenience anytime before Sunday, when we would then join a Zoom call to discuss the film.

For me, belonging to the movie club was important socially, but week after week I was watching pirated films that were clearly obtained from sources where no one involved in the creative process was being compensated. (I had never pirated films before, and thought I was a firm supporter of copyright laws.)

Getting back to abandonware, after my movie club experience I feel I can't judge anyone who uses old software for personal use without being a hypocrite, and sometimes what we choose to do is more than a simple response to the perceived ethics of a situation.

[andyprough]

Only God truly creates; to attribute creation to any man is a figure of speech or legal fiction.

That's an excellent point, I was pondering that the other day - "God creates, humans just rearrange". I've never applied that to software before, but of course there would be no reason to exclude the field of authoring software from the same issues of creation. Humans are neither able to create or destroy energy, and software at its basic level is merely the manipulation of bits - 1's and 0's - that ultimately represent energy.

[athenian200]

I find the question of abandonware interesting and more complicated than just what is right and wrong.

I have strong opinions about the fundamental rights of creators, but during the height of COVID I found myself in a weekly online movie club, where somebody would supply a link to a movie, we would watch it at our own convenience anytime before Sunday, when we would then join a Zoom call to discuss the film.

For me, belonging to the movie club was important socially, but week after week I was watching pirated films that were clearly obtained from sources where no one involved in the creative process was being compensated. (I had never pirated films before, and thought I was a firm supporter of copyright laws.)

Getting back to abandonware, after my movie club experience I feel I can't judge anyone who uses old software for personal use without being a hypocrite, and sometimes what we choose to do is more than a simple response to the perceived ethics of a situation.

That is very important to note, the cultural and social aspect. It's something I missed in my analysis. The biggest problem with copyright law in the modern era, in my opinion, is that there is massive disconnect between what is culturally and socially acceptable, and what is legally allowed. Morality is separate from both. We can say all we want that the rights of creators are important, but at my school, kids talk openly about downloading ROMs and MP3 files and don't even feel nervous about saying it, not even with a police officer around. I've even seen them playing Game Boy games on their TI-84 calculators in the halls. And the police and teachers don't seem to care enough to tell them to cut it out. Even the teachers occasionally pass around handouts of dubious origin that look like they've been copied multiple times, and it's not clear what textbook they were originally from or if they had the right to copy that worksheet. Worse, sometimes these handouts make their way onto Google Drive or something and they ask students to download it, and this happened a lot during COVID. Copyright basically went out the window, and a lot of people found they basically couldn't figure out how to do their jobs or socialize without breaking it during that time. What really is worrying, though, is that recently there were speakers during class talking about college services, and they felt the need to say that because it's an open campus, they only regard theft as theft if something is taken off your body, or someone else sees the person taking it. Otherwise, if you leave something for a few minutes to go the bathroom and someone takes it, it's regarded as "missing property" instead. If people have that kind of mentality about even physical theft, that it almost doesn't count if no one observes the crime and you weren't watching your stuff, how do you get them to care about something more abstract like copyright?

I think what it ultimately comes down to a few practical factors:

1. People have been socially accustomed to interacting with each other in real life, in ways that cannot easily be replicated via the Internet without running afoul of copyright law. That is, they are used to being able to sit down and watch a movie together, or play a single copy of a video game on the same console, or let someone borrow a book. Even though in the digital world you can't do the same things without breaking the law, a lot of people just don't understand why it should be different if their intentions are the same. So when forced to choose between an abstract legal principle and doing what is socially expedient, most people choose the latter. Whether this is moral is besides the point, the reality is that if the social norms in a given place don't encourage respect for the law, then you wind up with a culture where the law is constantly broken and those enforcing it are seen as the bad guys.

2. Making infringing copies is just too easy. In the past, reproduction of copyrighted works was something that took actual resources, like a printing press or tape duplication equipment. You also had to be located in the same place as the people you wanted to sell infringing copies to, and language barriers helped reduce international involvement. Now, any kid with a computer, anywhere in the world, can essentially make a copy of any copyrighted work, and distribute it for free. Only one person has to pick the digital lock (if there is one), and then everyone has access. Even in the physical world, there are sayings about how "good fences make good neighbors," and "locks help keep people honest," suggesting that if it weren't for locks and fences helping to uphold the concept of respect for other's property, it would quickly go out the window. And in the digital world, locks and fences are not really possible in the same way, and when they are implemented cause a lot more problems for legitimate customers than they do for tech-savvy criminals.

3. Most pirates who infringe on copyright now, have little or no money to compensate the copyright holder, or are not even in the jurisdiction of the same courts to be held accountable. They've committed a crime, yes, but since copyright infringement is mostly considered a civil matter if not done for commercial gain, there's very little that can realistically be done about it.

4. The organizations charged with protecting copyright like the RIAA and MPAA largely failed to make a compelling case to the public about why respect for copyright law is important in the digital era, and were mostly laughed at and dismissed for efforts like "You wouldn't download a car," meaning that the pirates have unfortunately won the "culture war" on that issue. We are left with a culture where most people no longer respect copyright.

To sum it up, the Internet has created a world where copyright no longer matches up with most people's intuitions about morality, and where it is almost impossible to enforce in many instances. This is not a good thing at all, and I think it is directly related to why we've seen a decline in quality of media in recent decades. People don't value the creativity or work that goes into such things enough to pay for it now, and I think AI will probably make this even worse, with a lot of people reasoning that the creative professions are just another thing that AI will automate away eventually, just like manufacturing jobs, further eroding the value of the output of creative professionals in the eyes of the public.

What does the solution look like? Well, unfortunately, I think we're seeing one very likely solution already. On the software side at least, the solution is simply turning as many products as possible into services, because people's intuitions about services include the understanding that they don't own the thing they are using and that it can be taken away if they misuse it or don't pay. And if most of the functionality of a product is "in the cloud," there's nothing for pirates to pirate because the meat of the software never makes it to the end user's phone or desktop. And it also has the benefit that even if someone gains access to unauthorized service temporarily, they can be cut off the moment it's discovered, and even punished by not being allowed to use the service in the future. Because the service is provided on their terms and is under their control, they can take the service provider mentality of cutting off people who don't pay from access, and you have to keep paying to keep accessing a thing. I'm also seeing things like Netflix cracking down on password sharing, Xbox Game Pass making it so you pay a flat monthly fee to access a whole library of games as long as you keep paying, and AMC theaters offering a monthly movie pass with a certain number of free movies with popcorn if you pay a certain amount per month. In other words, I believe that the lack of respect for copyright in the digital age is moving everything over to a service model where you effectively own nothing. Why? Well, copyright was a possibility when owning a copy meant something... and if owning a copy no longer means anything because copies are so easy to make, the IP has to be protected in some other way, such as making it available only as part of a service they do control rather than as part of a product they don't control. They have to be able to cut people off in a meaningful way to keep making money, and selling people permanent licenses to IP in the form of a product is no longer an option that works outside of maybe B2B transactions.

So ultimately, discussion of whether copyright should be respected is irrelevant... the fact is that regardless of your personal stance on the matter, there's a critical mass of people who either can't understand copyright at all or outright refuse to respect it, and business models and society have already been impacted by this in negative ways. It's not 2003 anymore, it's 2023, and all the decisions have been made for us. Copyright has not been respected by enough people, and businesses will continue to, unfortunately, adapt in ways that you will probably not like. There's always a price, always a cause and effect... and if you aren't willing to pay for a copy, perhaps you'll pay for a service, or society will pay because no value will be seen in creative works and those who would have created them will be forced to pursue other lines of work to make a living.

What solution would I have preferred? I don't know, maybe I would have liked it if we had found some way to make people feel a sense of shame at a cultural level about copyright infringement and attach a stigma to it, such that people would either not do it, or at least not want to admit to doing it, and be afraid of others judging them for it. Sort of like the one that used to exist around drugs. Something that would keep enough people honest that the system could continue to work. That maybe they could have had the awareness to realize that the right to own a copy of something based on someone else's intellectual property is fragile, and that if respect isn't given, we can lose that and be forced into far less desirable arrangements for access to IP, or even suffer as a result of IP not being created at the same levels of quality if at all. But at this point, even the businesses have mostly realized that "it is what it is," and we don't really live in a world where copyright is likely to be respected anymore. And the end result is that we are seeing the end of perpetual licenses attached to purchase of a copy, because in most people's eyes a copy has no intrinsic value.

[Mæstro]

That is very important to note, the cultural and social aspect. It's something I missed in my analysis. The biggest problem with copyright law in the modern era, in my opinion, is that there is massive disconnect between what is culturally and socially acceptable, and what is legally allowed. Morality is separate from both.

I agree with this in itself. On the whole, I agree with most of what you have said, if I am much more optimistic, even jovial, about it and where it is headed. To this, I could add that one’s individual taste is distinct from all of these: one might regard abandonware as pleasant vice or popular frivolity. I like the original question’s ambiguity, and had chosen to answer from the moral perspective as I thought this would offer the most novel thoughts for others.

Even the teachers occasionally pass around handouts of dubious origin that look like they've been copied multiple times, and it's not clear what textbook they were originally from or if they had the right to copy that worksheet.

I have had professors tell us outright to pirate our textbooks or even upload complete PDF themselves to the course site.

Even in the physical world, there are sayings about how "good fences make good neighbors," and "locks help keep people honest," suggesting that if it weren't for locks and fences helping to uphold the concept of respect for other's property, it would quickly go out the window.

I have never heard these expressions myself. Curiously, I had lost my wallet ereyesterday while shopping, and it had been returned to the police station, with all the money and cards still in it, within an hour. This had taken place in Lower Saxony. Respect for others’ property is a personal or cultural value, which might be abundant or scarce in different places.

the pirates have unfortunately won the "culture war" on that issue. We are left with a culture where most people no longer respect copyright.

The thought that one could actually win a culture war, and moreover that one might miss that one has won, whether because of the law or other factors, is fascinating in itself. What if we won the culture war and nobody noticed?

To sum it up, the Internet has created a world where copyright no longer matches up with most people's intuitions about morality, and where it is almost impossible to enforce in many instances. This is not a good thing at all, and I think it is directly related to why we've seen a decline in quality of media in recent decades.

So ultimately, discussion of whether copyright should be respected is irrelevant... the fact is that regardless of your personal stance on the matter, there's a critical mass of people who either can't understand copyright at all or outright refuse to respect it, and business models and society have already been impacted by this in negative ways.

For my part, I welcome these developments. The law must simply catch up and tear the whole dilapidated edifice down.
As 21^st century anime is my favourite variety of film, I perceive no such decline according to my taste. Your country’s animators had a silver age in the 1990s and 2000s, flanked by mediocrity on both sides. Human bodies are ugly, so I make no comments on live action.

I think we're seeing one very likely solution already. On the software side at least, the solution is simply turning as many products as possible into services, because people's intuitions about services include the understanding that they don't own the thing they are using and that it can be taken away if they misuse it or don't pay.

The game of cat and mouse never ends. Over twenty years ago, Stephenson likened the large firms, ever overhauling their software as existing releases are pirated, to mammoths struggling to escape a tar pit. New DRM technics are employed and broken. This agrees with what you have said: streaming is the youngest of an ancient dynasty. Ten years ago, it was libraries that phoned home. Ten years hence, it will be something else. From your signature, you should be used to ideas engendering their contradictions, clashing against them and thus leading to new ideas.

no value will be seen in creative works and those who would have created them will be forced to pursue other lines of work to make a living.

Though I do not accuse you of identifying them, I shall caution the careless reader that aesthetic and market value should not be confused. Alternative measures of supporting artists materially so they can freely discover new concepts already exist. (The author’s relationship to his creation is properly Herschel’s to Uranus or the Curies’ to radium.) Publishers as we know them are doomed, but so much the worse for them. I will not mourn the deaths of Axel Springer or GEMA. Collins issues my favourite line of dictionaries, so I might shed a tear, but his recent bar fight against the Archive makes me reconsider.