When playing a game I always thought of extra stuff I would have wanted in the game. A prime example of this is Colonization where I always wondered - like many others - why the Portuguese and other nations where not added (memory concerns?), or the lack of some type of unit, etc., etc., etc..
Therefore I was wondering, is there a time by which software automatically becomes free, and one is allowed to de-compile, fix, compile and distribute (free of course)? Would this be feasible?
I think this page describes
abandonware pretty good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware"Definitions of "abandoned" vary; generally it refers to a product that is no longer available for legal purchase, over the age where the product creator feels an obligation to continue to support it, or where operating systems or hardware platforms have evolved to such a degree that the creator feels continued support cannot be financially justified. Software companies and manufacturers may change their names, go bankrupt, enter into mergers, or cease to exist for a variety of reasons. When this happens, product rights are usually transferred to another company that may elect not to sell or support products acquired.
In most cases, software classed as abandonware is not in the public domain, as it has never had its original copyright revoked and some company or individual still owns exclusive rights. Therefore, sharing of such software is usually considered copyright infringement, though in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights."Bottom line: there are no rules, no laws, that defines when software becomes "abandonware", since this is not something that exists in a legal context. It's more of a
"de facto" thing; when copyright holders no longer cares one bit about the product, and when they would no longer bother to enforce their copyright (that strictly legally speaking applies for a very long time, as others already said above), then you are
in practice free to do what you want with it.
As for Amiga games and applications (as in
*real* Amiga, SW made for the 68k machines of the 80's and 90's that has been gone for almost two whole decades now); I think it's safe to consider 99.9% of it abandonware. That's how these large online ADF collections can exist, containing almost every game and applications ever made for Amiga; the SW (and the whole platform for that matter) has been dead for so long now, that in practice, nobody (as in copyright holders, the legit IP owners) cares one bit about it anymore in a strictly legal context, it's
abandoned! Hence no real moral obstacles exists either, although the latter may vary a great deal on an individual level (as I think you may be about to find out in this very thread, if it continues long enough); if I'd put a link here to a downloadable set of ADF's for Deluxe Paint 5 (which I could easily do, since I actually have it in front of me on my screen as I write this), then I could (almost) bet you a hundred dollars that at least some dude would cry "PIRACY!1!" quite loud, since in some people's mind, everything Amiga is sacred and can never be "abandoned", since if we would get away with labeling Amiga SW as "abandonware", it would at the same time mean that we label the Amiga as dead, and that is a big "don't compute" for some Amigans, despite it has been so in practice for almost two full decades now. :lol:
So I'd say that you are perfectly safe do do what you say you want to do. As long as you get away with it!
:lol: See my point?
Another way would of course to develop a *patch* for the game, that changes the original in the way you want, adding your own contents, etc, and distribute that patch instead (and let others distribute the ADF's)!
