Seems like I've opened a can of worms. Shit.

Anyways, personally I think the site /should/ host games that are extremely hard to find or expensive. Ones that can be purchased should be taken down, though.

it was made during different time in a completely different world. and why public should receive anything in exchange.

"my book
my game
my song"

Author does not own you anything. its his work, not public's. he put heart and sweat in his creation and he can do whatever he pleases with it. whether he wants to sell it or not. we as public cannot demand that after 14 years his work is ours.

imo: 50 years after death of the author copyright should be voided. so author has full control over the works and his family can benefit from the works for some time.
Public interests are not relevant and they can gtfo.
isn't that a conflict?

and what is expensive?

people said that ultima 1-3 being sold here for six bucks is too expensive. can i now pirate it?

I think he was referring more to the likes of Wizardry 8, which is available for only 75USD or more despite being completely unavailable first-hand anywhere.

EDIT FOR CLARITY

Yes, it was made during a time when production of copies required greater resources, when distribution took significantly longer times and encompassed significantly smaller regions, and overall it took quite a bit longer to recoup the investment that went into making a work. If anything the length of copyright should have gotten shorter to reflect this. As for why the public should receive anything- do you want the public to buy into the idea of copyright or not?

You're right, the author owes no one anything. They are free to sell copies of their work, or lock it away in a safe and never show it to anyone. However, if they do choose to sell it, then under the default state of things whoever buys a copy is then free to do whatever they please with it, including making copies and selling those copies, or even giving them away. They owe the author nothing. Thing is, creators wanted a way to sell their works to the public while still keeping a measure of control over those works, hence copyright. But copyright only holds meaning if a large majority of the public buys into it, so unless you're making copyright a good deal for the public don't expect it be respected.

Funny, there's quite a few members of the public who would throw those sentiments right back at content creators. And at the end of the day the public holds just about all the cards on this matter. So you might want to try to play nice, otherwise you'll just get a big "Fuck you!" from a large portion of the public as they happily download whatever they please. And there won't be anything meaningful you can do about it.

That argument is frequently used in the US to justify legalizing marijuana. It's a bullshit argument and legalizing something because a sizable minority refuses to recognize the rule of law is a significant step towards anarchy.

In terms of 9/10, that mostly means that you've got an oligarchy or it's an insignificant issue that most voters won't vote against a politician based solely on that issue. Which is sort of what happened with prohibition is a very different matter than when it's a small enough group that they couldn't get the law changed through the legislative process.

Ultimately, in a nation with democratically elected officials the primary focus should be on change using the legislative process, not civil disobedience.

I like that they feel that they're preserving gaming history, which is a decent goal, but couldn't a couple of them simply buy the titles on eBay, accept donations, and put them in a protected archive?

I can't speak for everyone, but for my part, I have way too many games to play as it is, and there's really no reason that I can't wait till a company re-releases their titles, given that I have plenty to keep my occupied with. By then, half of them will likely be on GOG.com anyways. I don't see why I need to break the law if there's no truly important reason to.

Exactly, where else am I going to get games like Strife and MK2?

The thing is, though, for rule of law to function the laws must reflect the mores of a large majority of the population. Enforcement is only effective when used against a very small proportion of the population- basically it's only effective to keep the outliers in check. Trying to use enforcement against even a large minority just results in things becoming progressively worse, until you're potentially looking at something like violent uprisings. A significant portion of a population breaking a law means that one needs to take a close look at the law being broken, and try to change it to better fit the underlying mores of the entire population. Trying to do otherwise actually just serves to undermine the rule of law.

I like your reasoning and it makes sense to me. Many laws are made to benefit a certain group of people and to punish another group. Throughout history, we can find laws that were immoral and unjust. If people blindly follow every law created by the state, then perhaps they may be commiting crimes against humanity. In the 1600s, it was the law that allowed burning of witches at the stake in the US and burning of Protestants in Europe. Burning anyone alive is a crime against humanity.

This is off topic, but can you tell how you put A1 Antagonist under your Avatar name. I want to change my New User title to something else but I don't know how. Thanks.

They don't seem to allow downloads that are ESA protected and if the game becomes available retail they seem to link to the seller which is cool.

The games that are available for download seem to be unclaimed and no money is being made off them at current. So I really don't have a problem with this but then again, this also lessens the value for owners with the hard copy of the game, which companies like Nintendo have noted in the past is a course for legal action when protecting their intellectual properties. Protect the value of their investments, since they do own the right to the works and future releases based upon them.

Legally, it is shady since copyright on games is like 70 or 80 years. Personally, I wouldn't download stuff from there, but that's just me.

At the top of the page click on "My settings", there's a text field there where you can insert your forum title.

Thank you. I can't believe it was that easy.

No problem ;)

Then bloody well say up front that your problem with them is that they're a pirate site that tries to pass what they do off as not illegal because the games are abandoned.

If THAT is your point, I'm fine with it, we may disagree, but that's fine.