Legal game downloads, legal to reproduce???

[Piru]

@Roman78

I found some sites were i can download much games. Old games like "The Secret of Monkey Island" or "Lotus III". These sites are legal.

Funny, as The Secret of Monkey Island isn't available for download legally. Lotus III is, though. However, Lotus III is "Commercial" and http://www.back2roots.org/About/Project/Policy/#1 applies:

For all commercial software offered here these additional rules apply:

- You are welcome to download and use the licensed software at no cost.
- You are not allowed to redistribute any of the licensed software without permission.
- Unless stated otherwise there is no support for the licensed software.

(while that is just back2root's policy, the bit about not being allowed to redistribute the files without permission applies generally.)

So i wondering is it legal to collect al those game's and press them on a collectors cd and resell it?

99.9% of the cases NO. The only exception is games that are released as PD. In all other cases you need a written explicit permission/license to sell the games, from the copyright holder. Don't trust some 3rd party for legal status of the games.

But i think rom 1.3 is copyright by Commodore, and they doesn't excist anymore. Does the copyright still excist than?

YES.

And the copyright is from 1987, and i learnd that a copyright wil disapear after a couple of years. (most are 10 years).

I don't know where you've learned that, but it's nonsense. This is not true (in any civiliced countries at least). It's at least 50 years after death of the author, in many countries even more.

See http://www.whatiscopyright.org/ and Berne Convention.

Amiga forever also sell it whit 2 rom files, do they have a contract?

Yes, they do.

See Amiga Forever FAQ: Distribution of Amiga ROM and OS Files.

I'm asking this becouse we want to start a webstore whit a lot of software. New and old. Opensource and commecrial software. And i also though C64, Amiga, Atari and that kind. I also wil connect "Amiga Forever" that i want to be a reseller.

Friendly suggestion: Try to figure out the law before setting up any business, you'll save lots of headache later.

[Piru]

@Roman78

So i have to ask the owner to reproduce, i thought that. But what if a company does not excist anymore?

Then you can't redistribute anything. Isn't this quite obvious huh?

(Often the rights to games are sold when the company gets defunct. In some cases the rights might return to the game author(s). Regardless, there is no such thing as abadonware, and the copyright remains even if the company dies. You must get the permission and if you can't, you can't redistribute.)

By the way, i found The secret on monkey island here, and thats a legal site, saying it's freeware. Or is that a trial?

It's quite obvious the site in question is NOT legal then.

I suggest you edit out the link. Amiga.org has strict posting guidelines regarding piracy.