Ha, I got a physical copy of Betrayal at Krondor from a European games magazine several years back (it might’ve been sanctioned but judging by the cartoon orc on the front of the case, somehow I doubt it). Surely nobody in the US or UK could get away with it.

They thought that through propably very well, and again, they don't "distribute" the software, they present the software in the browser for research only.

Most probably they are doing something illegal here. I don't want to be the owner of IA in the next months...

If you would have read the Wikipedia article about IA they are doing this all the time, for instance with video cuts of concerts. Up to now, they survived the discussions and complaints of the copyright holders very well.

Infact, I think the people here overestimate the impact & importance of some (OK, many) outdated software pieces with very limited economical value (even now with digital distribution).

You know, you keep using that defense even though it has been proven false. IA does provide a great deal of direct downloads. So yes, they do distribute the software.

I doubted it too, I just said it's not as black and white as you stated it to be. It was not impossible that the rights holder had granted two licences. You said "That's piracy, no matter how you cut it.", but you didn't have the necessary information to state that.

You basically missed the point of my previous post. Read it again as well as your post that I was replying to.

No, they don't. The offer it for research & science inspection only. You have to differentiate between what is technically possible and what they are legally doing, a exhibition. That you can somehow grab the content is not relevant as it was not distributed by them to you. So it is you who do the pirating if you redistribute or use it outside the "science and research" limitation.

This is similar to a physical museum's exhibition, where a museum offers some artwork to broad public view & most often it is not allowed to grab the "content" (physically or digitally e.g. by photo). The law offender is not the museum if you still grab it....

Usually, when one site is hosting a game for free that is sold elsewhere, there must be a reason. Either, the game must have been released freeware and for the license holder to not to have revoked its status (like the Command and Conquer series) or they must have gotten special permission from the license-holders which they should publicly display. Given the complete randomness of the addition, as well as any lack of information, I came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no possibility that the hosting of games on Internet Archive was legal. Add to the fact that legal responsibility falls upon the uploader and not upon the Internet Archive staff itself and I had absolutely no doubts about the illegality of those uploads.

It was a sound conclusion and one I agreed with, I just felt you shouldn't state things as facts if you can't confirm them. I only disagreed with your assertion that it could only be piracy.

Never intended to pass it as a fact. It's just what I felt.

Let's see when the first GOG ads show up on the Internet Archive. They're like the unofficial insignia of every abandonware site.

Yes, a cooperation would be the most clever solution for both sites.
GOG could present themself as part of the ongoing effort for protecting and archiving the digital heritage of the mankind.

It doesn't work that way. In fact there is no law authorizing distribution of games for "research" purposes. It's all piracy, and the site can try to shift liability, but that doesn't usually work. Pirate Bay claimed the same thing, but even better. All they are is a tracker, no files are on their servers. They lost and were ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines for infringement.

This site is hosting these games on their server...how well do you think that will go over?

And if GoG did as you suggest, they go out of business with all the lawsuits from the publishers they screwed over.

Indeed, there is no law authorizing this. As in general laws only limit the freedom and not granting freedom. As far as I know in the US & Europe the countries still following the idea "everything is allowed until forbidden in a law" and not vice verse.

Infact, they got exemptions as library from common digital law.

(Also, I would credit such line of thinking to the bad influence of decades of EULA like licensing, people already gulped the cool aid from the companies that everything what is not explicitly granted to them is forbidden.)

Except that in the case of PC games, the computers are commercially available. They are skating on thin ice in this regard. We aren't talking about ROMs for the Magnavox here...