Abandonia is awesome. Any site that gives consumers access to products that rights holders are just sitting on is great.

this

abandonia promotes the term abandonware. it promotes thinking that it is somehow a grey area.

it is a piracy and it is absolutely illegal and its a crime.

No you don't need to go on as you make no sense. The problem is not that people abuse. people abuse every single thing. The problem is that abandonia supports the abuse intentionally.

if they clearly stated that what they are doing is piracy no different than pirating batman arkham city from piratebay. if they did not use the term of abandonware.
the problem would be minimal/nonexistent.

They infringe on copyrights and therefore they and every single user commits a crime under international law as well as local laws of their home country. There is no grey area here, no made up term is necessary here.
Thats why they are to be blamed for the abuse. If only they educated their userbase that what they are doing is legally wrong, that is a crime under western world laws...
the abuse would be fault of people and not of abandonia. yet they are the problem.

Dude, piracy sites don't really educate their user base either. At best they have something saying "No transfer of copyrighted materials you don't have the authority to transfer." or some such like that.
Torrents actually very specifically have a way that 'bypasses the illegality' of it, which they basically flaunt making it "legal". (In case you're unaware, a small enough piece of something copyrighted, like a couple second clip of a song for example, falls under 'fair use' and can be used, distributed, altered, etc. without any fear of legal issues. Torrents break the files down in to lots of tiny pieces of it, small enough to easily fall under 'fair use', which you then get from numerous people.)

If your problem is what they do and how they do it, then your problem has nothing to do with the people who abuse it. It has to do with their setup. Don't call it on the people abusing it, when.. abuse is a natural byproduct of everything, and I think people who use sites like that (as opposed to direct piracy sites) are more prone to obtain the game legitimately if they have a chance to.

How you're defining this is like..
"I don't like Ford, because Ford makes the Mustang, which is a sports car, and doesn't advertise that driving fast is illegal and dangerous, so the people who buy the Mustang will want to drive it fast."

Also, for just a moment here, let's look at the 'legal grey area' completely honestly.

Yes, it's illegal in most countries due to being a copyright violation. However, copyright violation is something that is only an enforced law when the copyright holders go after those violating it.

Many of those games were probably acquired in bulk in some buy-out somewhere, completely unknown, or are in states where no one really knows (or cares) who the IP holders are anymore.

In so long as the copyright holders are not doing anything with the copyright themselves, nor have done so for many years, nor are protecting it in any way shape or form, a site such as that really isn't doing anything they can get in trouble for.

That's why they call it abandonware.
To compare it to Arkham City is like comparing taking an ink pen (which the owner left on the table a week ago) to stealing someone's car.

abandonware sites in some cases have preserved games that the sands of time would have destroyed. For this reason I like them.

However for the most part they do not have permission to distribute the games. Which I feel is illegal.

6 and half a dozen im afraid

I know is off topic but what the hell happened to those guys? I know there was a time when you had to have an account to download, which for me was a little shifty for that sort of thing.

EA sued and won

As long as the game isn't readily available for purchase anywhere, I have no gripes with the abandonware concept. It's the rights holders own fault that it is the only way of getting hold of their game.

I'm sorry, but that's complete bullshit. You quote US federal law when it's limited in jurisdiction and at any rate only applies to the distribution end of it. The end of it that the OP is asking about remains a matter of civil law. None of the information you provided changes that fact.

Claiming that it's unquestionably criminal and then citing a US only criminal law and demanding a retraction is just plain ignorant. The reality is that the OP didn't ask us about uploading or providing abandonware, he was asking about downloading it, something which none of your links have anything to do with.

By your argument it would still be criminal for abandonware sites that are operated out of countries where it isn't criminal.

Additionally, you only quote the portions that are convenient to your argument, you fail to take note of the fact that abandonware sites are sometimes the only place you can acquire games which are no longer provided for purchase for reasons of fair use. Imagine trying to write a book about the video game industry and being unable to play or critique some of the games because they're no longer for sale.

Then again, I'm not really surprised, IIRC you have a history of trying to turn this into something that it's not by conveniently hedging around areas that aren't convenient.

Had the OP asked about providing downloads that would have been a completely different matter. As bullshit as it is, that would be illegal as it presently stands. Although in the case of abandonware that would be somewhat questionable as there are plenty of non-infringing reasons why individuals would need access to those works.

just like in our country. we condone weed and can smoke it (everyone knows we have specials bars for them) but it's illegal to grow them.
bit the same as abandonware it is condoned to download them but its kinda illegal to provide links to them.

Its not really condoned to download abandonware, it just isn't prosecuted.

FTFY

What's the point of buying any media? It's ALL free on the internet.

Your concern is valid but way behind the curve. The reason people buy games on PC is because they want to purchase them, simple as that. No one is buying games on the PC because they can't get them for free.