Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com. Hey there, it's tech stuff and this
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland. And as I sit in this studio,
Speaker 1: it's nearly time for the holidays, and then I have
Speaker 1: a trip out to Cees. Everyone at HowStuffWorks dot com
Speaker 1: is working super hard and no one has time to
Speaker 1: record an episode with me. But rather than leave you
Speaker 1: guys without an episode, we're going to bring you another classic.
Speaker 1: In December twenty eleven, Chris Palette and I explored the
Speaker 1: world of abandonwear. That's the stuff that disappears into obscurity,
Speaker 1: whether people still need it or not. Check it out
Speaker 1: to today, we're going to talk about abandonwear. Yes, we've
Speaker 1: had requests to talk about abandonwaar and this is and
Speaker 1: we've talked about abandonwear in the past, Yeah, just not
Speaker 1: as a dedicated topic. Yeah, we've also talked about vaporware,
Speaker 1: which is a totally different thing, if you might wonder
Speaker 1: what the differences are. Vaporware is when a company has
Speaker 1: announced or information has leaked out that a company is
Speaker 1: working on a particular product, but that product never seems
Speaker 1: to actually go to market. Oh, I thought it was
Speaker 1: the kind of software that every once in a while,
Speaker 1: this just means you feel light headed. I've already got
Speaker 1: a headache. I've already got a headache. So that's different.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what that means, and you'll like it
Speaker 1: because you like that kind of humor. But no, the
Speaker 1: the abandonwar is when a company has produced a piece
Speaker 1: of well product mainly, but we usually talk about it
Speaker 1: in terms of software. More frequently than not, we talk
Speaker 1: about in terms of games, although that's not the only
Speaker 1: kind of abandonwear. But a company produces this the the
Speaker 1: But then technology continues to evolve over time, and no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it's crazy, right really, so the things like computers,
Speaker 1: Let's say a computer gets so advanced that it can
Speaker 1: no longer run older software. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where you get to a point where you know, if
Speaker 1: software has been produced before a certain point, your computer
Speaker 1: is not really able to run it anymore because things
Speaker 1: have changed so dramatically. And then companies will sort of
Speaker 1: stop supporting this old software that they produced years ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if they no longer provide any support or they've
Speaker 1: discontinued it, that's Abandonwhere if a company creates some software
Speaker 1: that is, you know, hits the market, and then that
Speaker 1: company ceases to exist. That software may be considered abandonwear
Speaker 1: because now there's no there's no place you can buy
Speaker 1: it anymore because the company that was in charge of
Speaker 1: it is gone. This can happen through an acquisition or
Speaker 1: a merger where certain divisions get dissolved or merged into
Speaker 1: other divisions and as a result, pieces of software no
Speaker 1: longer have a kind of a shepherd really to keep
Speaker 1: the software going. So what happens to that software? What
Speaker 1: happens if you want to have access to that software?
Speaker 1: How can you do it? Are there legal ways of
Speaker 1: getting at it? And it's a little complicated. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: in the context we brought it up in before, we
Speaker 1: were talking about the multiple machine multiple arcade machine emulator, Mame,
Speaker 1: you coax the blues right out of the horn. Sorry, mame, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's anti name. Yes a t I yes, go INTI yes.
Speaker 1: So yeah, mame is for those of you who don't know,
Speaker 1: basically a way of running the programs that old arcade
Speaker 1: well actually not necessarily old that arcade machines would run
Speaker 1: in their cabinets on a home computer. Right now, keep
Speaker 1: in mind that arcade machines, the software for those machines
Speaker 1: was built specifically for the hardware inside the r cade machine.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't open up an arcade cabinet and find a
Speaker 1: computer in there, right, It wouldn't look like a computer.
Speaker 1: It would look like a whole bunch of different chips
Speaker 1: wired together. Yeah. Yeah, And so it's hardwired into the hardware.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't You don't put a disc in,
Speaker 1: at least not most arcade games. I know there are
Speaker 1: a few that run on laser disc, but that's not
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. We're talking about like it's
Speaker 1: reading directly from a chep. A similar example would be
Speaker 1: when you if you ever played console games that used cartridges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the cartridge had the rom on it, right, and the
Speaker 1: console just had the technology to read the realm and
Speaker 1: then translate that into a game. So for a computer,
Speaker 1: you would have to create an emulator, something that could
Speaker 1: create an environment similar to the hardware that you would
Speaker 1: find inside that arcade machine in order for you to
Speaker 1: run the realm on a computer. And sometimes this would
Speaker 1: work well and you would have a pretty similar experience
Speaker 1: as to if you were sitting in front of an
Speaker 1: arcade machine and playing it, and in some cases it
Speaker 1: doesn't work so well because the computer's architecture and the
Speaker 1: arcade architecture are so different that the game stutters or
Speaker 1: just runs really slowly. Yeah, so then you have the
Speaker 1: question you're able to run this software and on your
Speaker 1: home computer and you have something like, say Kangaroo, and
Speaker 1: you want to play Kangaroo on your home computer, and
Speaker 1: you go, wait a minute, Atari still exists. I mean,
Speaker 1: truth is it's a different Atari technically, but they own
Speaker 1: the copyright for that stuff. Now you know, that's one thing.
Speaker 1: Then on the other hand, you have something like say Defender,
Speaker 1: and then you'd say, okay, well who owns the stuff
Speaker 1: that Williams used to make or Robotron for that matter. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's one version. My other example was going to
Speaker 1: be I was going to ask you if you thought
Speaker 1: that if I brought my copy of Deluxe Video Construction
Speaker 1: Set to Electronic Arts for Miamiga, do you think they'd
Speaker 1: support it? Yeah? Probably not, or SimAnt for that matter,
Speaker 1: from Maxis before it was acquired by Electronic Arts. I
Speaker 1: don't think so. But the thing is, the question is
Speaker 1: you know I can legally use that software because I
Speaker 1: still own the discs for SimAnt, even though I never
Speaker 1: really had enough memory in my Amiga to run it,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be able to distribute it. I can't distribute it,
Speaker 1: but I legally can run that all I want to. Now,
Speaker 1: for something like Maime that in some cases the manufacturer
Speaker 1: is still around, in some cases it's a different version
Speaker 1: of the manufacturer who legally owns the copyright, and in
Speaker 1: other cases the manufacturer is gone and it's hard to
Speaker 1: identify who, if anybody, owns the copyright this actually is.
Speaker 1: It presents some seriously thorny legal issues, right, So let's
Speaker 1: clear things up a little bit here. If there is
Speaker 1: an old piece of software that's available online and there
Speaker 1: hasn't been any express permission from the copyright holder that
Speaker 1: that software can be distributed, distributing that software is illegal. Yes,
Speaker 1: it violates copyright. Now, that being said, copyright is one
Speaker 1: of those things that only works if you exercise your
Speaker 1: right to the copyright. In other words, the copyright owner
Speaker 1: would have to pursue action against anyone distributing that content.
Speaker 1: So if you are if you come across an old
Speaker 1: game from the late eighties, let's say, and it's an
Speaker 1: old doss based game on from the late eighties, and
Speaker 1: you wanted to You love this game and you want
Speaker 1: other people to explore this game and experience this game,
Speaker 1: and there is no way to buy the game because
Speaker 1: the game, the company doesn't exist, or the company still
Speaker 1: exists but no longer markets this gamer supports it. Then
Speaker 1: you might feel, well, what's the harm? I mean, no
Speaker 1: one's no one's trying to make money off of this.
Speaker 1: No one is losing money off of this because there's
Speaker 1: no way to legitimately get a hold of this. Why
Speaker 1: is there an issue? And it's all because of that copyright,
Speaker 1: and the copyright holder may choose to not pursue action.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that it's legal. It just means the
Speaker 1: copyright holder is allowing that material to be distributed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, wouldn't you know it? I picked a bad
Speaker 1: example for a video game. It was just Kangaroo really Atari.
Speaker 1: It was distributed by Atari, but actually it was a
Speaker 1: product by Sun Electronics. Did you wear like little boxing
Speaker 1: gloves in that game and you had to box stuff
Speaker 1: as a kangaroo? Yes, I vaguely remember playing that game.
Speaker 1: It was very Donkey Kong like because you climbed up
Speaker 1: to the top and had to find your Joey, you know,
Speaker 1: the baby kangaroo and so anyhow, so the substitute centipede
Speaker 1: for what I said before getting back to copyrights. Now,
Speaker 1: a copyright, the term of a copyright right now, lasts
Speaker 1: for in the United States, lasts for seventy five years
Speaker 1: from the creation of the work, unless it's a work
Speaker 1: for hire, right years, right, and so yeah, a work
Speaker 1: hire would be last even longer, and most of these,
Speaker 1: I guess would be considered work for which is why
Speaker 1: I brought it up. That's a good point. So in
Speaker 1: other words, this is software that is going to be
Speaker 1: is still protected by copyright and will be for pretty
Speaker 1: much our lifetime, right, I mean, some of us might
Speaker 1: get really lucky, but maybe the Singularity will hit and
Speaker 1: it won't that won't be a problem. But at that point,
Speaker 1: who's playing video games? Well, if you wanted to play
Speaker 1: Space War, you're probably in fairly decent shape because that
Speaker 1: was created so much earlier than this stuff. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: games that were created in the eighties, even our our
Speaker 1: younger listeners would have problems with this all the way through. Yes,
Speaker 1: so lifetimes. So by legal definition, strictly going by that,
Speaker 1: it is not there's no real recourse unless the copyright
Speaker 1: holder gives permission for distribution or releases the copyright into
Speaker 1: the public domain. Yes. Now at that point, you know
Speaker 1: it's weird to call the software abandonwear because abandonwear really
Speaker 1: means this software that doesn't have really any support or
Speaker 1: access through legitimate channels. So it's not like it's abandonwear
Speaker 1: at that point. It's just public domain work. So it
Speaker 1: becomes more like shareware in a way. Sure, but a
Speaker 1: copyright holder does have that option, and in some cases
Speaker 1: you see companies take advantage of old, old, old libraries
Speaker 1: of content and repackage them and market them again, which
Speaker 1: would mean that you wouldn't want to host those abandoned
Speaker 1: games on your site, for example, because they are actually
Speaker 1: making money from this old content and there are legitimate
Speaker 1: ways to get hold of it. A good example of
Speaker 1: that as Atari, because you've got the old Atari games
Speaker 1: that get repackaged occasionally as an app for a smartphone
Speaker 1: or tablet device. Yea. Also you get some console games
Speaker 1: that will occasionally come out they'll be like the best
Speaker 1: of and it'll be whatever the old company was. I
Speaker 1: like you can even get a version of the Atari
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred if you really want it. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's the oh new one. They're making new ones now?
Speaker 1: Is that on think Geek? I'm not sure the Dreamcast was.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me recently that they saw a new quote
Speaker 1: unquote new Atari twenty six hundred packaged with some of
Speaker 1: the early games. Wow, that's basically that's the whole retro thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there there are hundreds and hundreds of computer titles,
Speaker 1: PC titles, Windows titles, DASS based titles even that will
Speaker 1: probably never re emerge, And so the question comes, well,
Speaker 1: what's the best way of handling this. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of sites out there that are dedicated to abandonwear
Speaker 1: and these sites are the really the ones that are
Speaker 1: more legitimate And I use the phrase loosely because again
Speaker 1: we're talking about violating copyright one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But the ones that are more concerned with offering people
Speaker 1: the chance to play games that are the equivalent to
Speaker 1: being out of print, yes, otherwise unavailable. They're very much
Speaker 1: about not hosting what are also called wares. Whares would
Speaker 1: be kinds of software that's essentially pirated or duplicated. That's
Speaker 1: readily available on the market today. Yeah, basically the copy
Speaker 1: protection has been cracked. Yeah, and you can use it.
Speaker 1: You know, when I say freely, I don't mean you're
Speaker 1: allowed to use it. I mean they're on anse code
Speaker 1: to do it. So, but the more the more legitimate
Speaker 1: abandonware sites will only host games that you cannot get
Speaker 1: through any other means unless you were to find like
Speaker 1: someone selling an old copy. But you know, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to go to the publisher and buy it
Speaker 1: because sometimes the publisher doesn't even exist. Well, there are
Speaker 1: there are people out there who in some of them
Speaker 1: are content creators, who say there should be a more
Speaker 1: streamlined way too for companies to release abandon wear so
Speaker 1: that there isn't this, uh, this legal barrier, especially considering
Speaker 1: the fact that software changes much more rapidly than say print.
Speaker 1: And one of them is Greg Costickian. Now do you
Speaker 1: know who? Have you ever heard of? Greg Costickian. He's
Speaker 1: a He's a game designer who designs not just computer games,
Speaker 1: but also role playing games. His name is really familiar
Speaker 1: to me, and I'm gonna go ah as soon as
Speaker 1: you say, well, he's He's designed a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: most of it is kind of has a has sort
Speaker 1: of a sitturical or otherwise humorous slant to it. For example,
Speaker 1: he created an role playing game called tuone back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four where you played as a cartoon character
Speaker 1: within a cartoon episode. Every single adventure was modeled after
Speaker 1: the idea of a seven minute cartoon episode, and you
Speaker 1: would have the capabilities of a cartoon character, and you'd
Speaker 1: have friends and enemies within the cartoon, and you could
Speaker 1: do these outlandish things. It was hilarious. He also created
Speaker 1: a game called Paranoia, which was all about a post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic society where you live in a essentially like a
Speaker 1: biodome kind of thing, and a computer controls everything. But
Speaker 1: the computer is crazy and paranoid and thinks everyone is
Speaker 1: out to get him, and pretty much everyone is out
Speaker 1: to get him. And then but anyway, the whole just because,
Speaker 1: all right, the whole purpose of the game was to
Speaker 1: create this idea of paranoia. Well, this guy, who created
Speaker 1: several different computer games as well, said that I actually
Speaker 1: have a quote. Software is about as ephemeral as you
Speaker 1: can get, yet preserving it is essential. Illegal abandonedwar sites
Speaker 1: are providing a critical service to game designers and scholars
Speaker 1: and gaming enthusiasts. They do, not, however, provide a lasting
Speaker 1: and satisfactory solution to the problem because they are illegal.
Speaker 1: So he was maintaining the point of these old games
Speaker 1: that exist are important, and they are important culturally because
Speaker 1: some of them were what helped usher in the era
Speaker 1: of personal computers in the first place. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: personal computers were great for productivity, but there's no denying
Speaker 1: that video games. Computer games really drove the industry as well.
Speaker 1: And as the technology advances, our ability to access those
Speaker 1: old games decreases, and he says that's a shame. There
Speaker 1: should be a way to preserve that. And also, as
Speaker 1: he points out game designers, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: old games are very primitive when it comes to the
Speaker 1: graphics or the sound, but a lot of them had
Speaker 1: very innovative gameplay or very compelling storylines and are great
Speaker 1: lessons for game designers to learn from. Sure, you know,
Speaker 1: I would argue the Old Ultimate series, for example, is
Speaker 1: a very valuable series for people who want to create
Speaker 1: a storyline that spans several episodes and has a very
Speaker 1: kind of deep and immersive quality to it. Now, I
Speaker 1: also add that the Ultimate series has regularly been released
Speaker 1: in packages where you could buy it legitimately, So don't
Speaker 1: go out there and start pirating games. Look and make
Speaker 1: sure first before make sure there's a legitimate way of
Speaker 1: getting it, and go that way before ever going with
Speaker 1: abandonwar route. But yeah, as a producer of games, he
Speaker 1: was pointing out that this is a valuable service that
Speaker 1: abandonwear sites are giving us. That without it, we would
Speaker 1: lose these games. And you know, unless some company was like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need to roll out another product or we're not
Speaker 1: going to hit our revenue this year, what titles do
Speaker 1: we have in the vault that we could package together
Speaker 1: hastily and then shove out the door. And occasionally you
Speaker 1: see that happen. Well, it would be nice if some
Speaker 1: of the people who own the copyrights to these would
Speaker 1: release these these programs in some form. You know, the
Speaker 1: the app stores for the mobile devices have proven that,
Speaker 1: you know, even software that costs one or two dollars
Speaker 1: for a copy of it can still make a decent
Speaker 1: amount of money. And you know, some of these titles
Speaker 1: are languishing an obscurity when you know people might really
Speaker 1: be willing to pay one, two, five dollars for an
Speaker 1: opportunity to play it again. It's not really a lot
Speaker 1: of money for most people, and they might relish the
Speaker 1: opportunity to give it another shot. I think we have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to actually see that happen now because digital
Speaker 1: distribution is a reality. Yeah, right, Like Chris and I
Speaker 1: can both remember a time where you would go to
Speaker 1: your local computer store or electronics store and there would
Speaker 1: always be that bin of the old games that were
Speaker 1: for three or four generations behind the current stuff that's
Speaker 1: up on the shelves, and you would sort through that
Speaker 1: bin and just look to see if there were any
Speaker 1: hidden gems in there, and then you find something like oh,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to play that, and you pick it up,
Speaker 1: and you know, you might get a copy of Civilization
Speaker 1: that way. But that was back in the old day
Speaker 1: where you would get like the floppy discs I was
Speaker 1: thinking you were talking about during the video game console crash,
Speaker 1: when you would go into your corner drug store and
Speaker 1: there would be a bin of really horrible Atari cartridges
Speaker 1: for you know, a dollar, say, the same sort of
Speaker 1: thing where they were just unloading their inventory. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: those days are you know, pretty much disappearing because you
Speaker 1: get to digital distribution, you get to the era of
Speaker 1: the CD really started to decrease it, but then digital
Speaker 1: district has has taken a big hit on it too.
Speaker 1: But that also gives the opportunity for companies to put
Speaker 1: potentially put up old titles for you know, like the
Speaker 1: same price that you would have for an app for
Speaker 1: a smartphone. So let's say that you throw up a mule,
Speaker 1: the old mule game or ARCon oh ar Con, Yeah,
Speaker 1: put those old populous populous, yes, put these old games
Speaker 1: up on or battle chess, these old games up so
Speaker 1: that you can buy them for like ninety nine cents
Speaker 1: or whatever. And and you know, maybe package it with
Speaker 1: a free emulator if you need it, because some of
Speaker 1: these old games will not run on your current system
Speaker 1: unless first put through an emulator. I have old machines
Speaker 1: for strictly that purpose. And before before you write in
Speaker 1: and say, you know, why do you want people to
Speaker 1: spend this money, this property should be free, Well that's
Speaker 1: an option too. It would be really cool if they
Speaker 1: if these companies were released these games into the public domain. However,
Speaker 1: I think they might have more incentive if they charged
Speaker 1: a small price and then they would get something in
Speaker 1: return for it. It's sort of like the Chris Anderson's
Speaker 1: long tail and the online stores versus the brick and
Speaker 1: mortar stores. I mean, if you put that up for
Speaker 1: digital distribution, it could stay there virtually forever. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: still going to be a handful of people that are
Speaker 1: willing to fork over a couple bucks for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think I think that solution really provides an
Speaker 1: elegant approach to this complicated issue because you've got for
Speaker 1: one thing, you know, it gives an incentive to these
Speaker 1: companies to share this old stuff that you can't otherwise
Speaker 1: get and people can relive like that moment from their
Speaker 1: childhood when they played this one game that they loved
Speaker 1: and now they can't they can't get it anymore. It
Speaker 1: also gives the the you know, it gives the fans
Speaker 1: what they want. It's not prohibitively expensive if you go
Speaker 1: with this this micro Paine meant kind of app approach.
Speaker 1: And also it tells companies what people are interested in.
Speaker 1: If you were to create a section of your site,
Speaker 1: for example, that hosted the old titles for cheap Purchase,
Speaker 1: and you saw that one of those titles was getting
Speaker 1: hit like crazy. People were just buying it up. You
Speaker 1: might think, you know, we could probably do a follow up, like,
Speaker 1: just do an incredible follow up that is based on
Speaker 1: the same premise of this original game, maybe not a remake,
Speaker 1: but even perhaps a long awaited sequel and clean up,
Speaker 1: because we didn't realize there was this interest in this
Speaker 1: old title that we owned. Now, this does not solve
Speaker 1: the problem for those titles where the ownership is up
Speaker 1: in the air, like no one knows who owns this anymore.
Speaker 1: That's still you're gonna you're still going to have that
Speaker 1: problem where if there's a title where you're not really
Speaker 1: sure this is the is the copyright holder of the
Speaker 1: guy who made it? Is it this other company? Is
Speaker 1: it a company that bought you know, bought a company
Speaker 1: that bought a company that bought a company. That's where
Speaker 1: you start getting to issues where these games may be
Speaker 1: hopelessly mired in red tape. That's just until you figure
Speaker 1: out who is the owner of that copyright and who
Speaker 1: has the authority to do this, it'll never happen. You know.
Speaker 1: The abandoned weear approach is pretty much the only way
Speaker 1: you're going to get hold of those games, and it's
Speaker 1: not a legitimate way. Yeah, yeah, now, okay, this is
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the law. I'm sorry I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, because sometimes I'm like, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: I love that game. I bought that game, I played
Speaker 1: that game. There's no way for me to get it,
Speaker 1: and my sense of entitlement is crying out. Well, this
Speaker 1: is where things get interesting. Let's say you have an
Speaker 1: old Atari twenty six hundred and you bought a copy
Speaker 1: of Yards Revenge, and you have the machine, and you've
Speaker 1: got the game. It's in your basement, it's in a box,
Speaker 1: but you got it. Yeah, it's in storage. Unfortunately the
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred doesn't work anymore, or you don't have
Speaker 1: an adapter. Yeah, and you really can't play because the
Speaker 1: machine's dead. But I know, hey, it's a museum piece,
Speaker 1: so you hold on to it, and then you find
Speaker 1: an emulator for your computer with yours Revenge where you
Speaker 1: can play the Atari twenty six hundred version of it.
Speaker 1: The thing is from what I understand. Again, keep in mind,
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, but theoretically, from what I understand,
Speaker 1: you're entitled to play that because you have a copy
Speaker 1: of the game. You already paid for it, You have
Speaker 1: a copy of the game in your possession, you're legally
Speaker 1: entitled to play it. Because the reason I get this
Speaker 1: is from the disclaimers on the main sites. They say
Speaker 1: that if you have a copy of the ROMs basically,
Speaker 1: if you have the guts of the arcade machine, yeah,
Speaker 1: the chips, then legally you can play the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you are, That's why they haven't been shut down. Yeah. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you're only supposed to hold onto a ROM up to
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Yeah, and then after that you're supposed
Speaker 1: to delete it, yes, on your on Yeah, you as
Speaker 1: a person who downloaded the ROM from that site, not
Speaker 1: the sites themselves. But if you own a legal copy
Speaker 1: of the ROM, you're supposed to be able to play it,
Speaker 1: even if the machine that you had it on. Now,
Speaker 1: I imagine that's there's some probably legal gray area where,
Speaker 1: you know, if the copyright police they don't exist. But hey,
Speaker 1: like the copyright police come in your house, say wait
Speaker 1: a minute, your Atari twenty six hundred is broken. You're
Speaker 1: not supposed to play it on your home computer. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to play it on this machine. You're in trouble Man.
Speaker 1: The thing is, for one thing, there aren't any copyright police,
Speaker 1: not specifically copyright police. And you know, for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, this just people aren't gonna bother doing it.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not gonna sue Jonathan because you know,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. They say that you can sue anybody
Speaker 1: in America for anything, but generally people sue people who
Speaker 1: have money, right, So so they're not gonna come out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna come after Jonathan or me for doing
Speaker 1: that unless they really believe that they can prosecute us
Speaker 1: with good cause and are going to get something. You know,
Speaker 1: that's worth putting the time and money into a legal
Speaker 1: case for doing this. And that's even more so for
Speaker 1: these companies and organizations that don't exist. And that's why
Speaker 1: that's the biggest case I've seen for making abandon wear legal.
Speaker 1: Basically saying, hey, company X doesn't exist, this is a
Speaker 1: great game, I want to play it. I would give
Speaker 1: them twenty dollars if they were still around, but there's
Speaker 1: nobody to pay please, you know, but technically technically it's illegal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the law, by the letter of the law, it's illegal.
Speaker 1: And again, if the copyright holder doesn't pursue any action
Speaker 1: against you, then you're in the clear. And in almost
Speaker 1: every single case that's going to be that's going to
Speaker 1: be what happens if you if you run an abandon
Speaker 1: wear site, you might occasionally get a take down notice
Speaker 1: from a copyright holder, and then of course you should
Speaker 1: very much adhere to that if you don't want to
Speaker 1: encounter legal difficulties. But I used to have pants and
Speaker 1: if you have them sued off of you. Oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, it gets drafty. Here's here's a pop quiz.
Speaker 1: Hot shot. Okay, so hot shot? Yeah? The guy who
Speaker 1: the guy who made Yards Revenge, Yeah, he made another
Speaker 1: very famous Atari game. Do you know what it was? Oh?
Speaker 1: Who was it that made ours Avenge? It was Howard
Speaker 1: Scott Warshaw, the actual game designer. Who does I don't
Speaker 1: know et the extraterrestrial. I don't blame him, I don't
Speaker 1: He was paid, he was playing paid. A truck glows
Speaker 1: me something very quickly, Yes, but yes, one of the yars.
Speaker 1: Revenge was one of the games that was considered to
Speaker 1: be a big hit, with Atari twenty six hundred, followed
Speaker 1: by a game that that often people credit as killing
Speaker 1: not just the Atari twenty six hundred, but the video
Speaker 1: game industry, the home video game industry as a whole,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty three. He was just following orders. That
Speaker 1: was just some trivia for all of you guys. So
Speaker 1: lest you think we are telling you to run out
Speaker 1: and download all the abandoned where you want and play it,
Speaker 1: we're not telling you to do that, right, because that
Speaker 1: would be illegal. What we're telling you is there's some
Speaker 1: awesome games that are out there, and some of them
Speaker 1: are hosted on abandoned where sites, and man, those games
Speaker 1: are neat and you know what, I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: copyright holders wouldn't come after you. But don't do it.
Speaker 1: If you do, go back and redo that. If you no. No,
Speaker 1: if you do that, it would be technically illegal. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is technically illegal. Whether or not it's a shame.
Speaker 1: Whether or not it's unethical is another question. Unethical and
Speaker 1: illegal are two different things. Yeah, and unethical that's a
Speaker 1: weird question too. Yeah, because again, if there's no one
Speaker 1: to pay, then those games essentially are forgotten. Yeah, they're gone.
Speaker 1: You might as well do the same thing. Like this
Speaker 1: book came out in nineteen eighty we're locking it away
Speaker 1: in this library and you have no access to the library.
Speaker 1: In fact, no one has any access to the library,
Speaker 1: and it's going to stay there in the library. So
Speaker 1: you could have access to it if we opened up
Speaker 1: the door, but we're not gonna see. That's that's an issue,
Speaker 1: right because then you're like, well, what's the point of
Speaker 1: it even existing if no one can use it? So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there is an the ethical and the ethical standpoint
Speaker 1: is different from the legality standpoint. This is definitely a
Speaker 1: technology issue too, because if you really want to read
Speaker 1: Balo Wulf, there's a copy in print somewhere way it's
Speaker 1: a local bookstore, possibly it a used bookstore. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not even un in to that. But it's also the
Speaker 1: thing is you can find a copy of it. You
Speaker 1: could download it for free on the internet because it's
Speaker 1: out of copyright. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's in the
Speaker 1: public domain. Yeah, I would think. But the thing about
Speaker 1: it is for the technology behind these games, you know
Speaker 1: that that is one of the issues behind it. And
Speaker 1: there's there's the other thing too. In case you're saying, well,
Speaker 1: you're just talking about games, really do you want to
Speaker 1: you want to download a copy of physical So you
Speaker 1: can run that really. Yeah, that's the other part of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, people don't. Adobe won't necessarily support Photoshop three.
Speaker 1: You could probably find a copy of it somewhere out there,
Speaker 1: but you know, I would consider that to an effect
Speaker 1: abandon whear too, because they've moved so far beyond that point.
Speaker 1: It's been out of print for so many years. You're
Speaker 1: on your own. But legally, if you've downloaded a copy
Speaker 1: of it, a cracked copy of it online, you'd be
Speaker 1: in the same boat. But the reason we're talking about
Speaker 1: games predominantly is because that's the stuff that people go
Speaker 1: back to the reason that people in a lot of
Speaker 1: cases keep old gaming machines around just because every once
Speaker 1: in a while that nostalgia thing hits. But I don't
Speaker 1: think you find it for something like a spreadsheet or
Speaker 1: you know, or issue, in which case that could be
Speaker 1: a Yeah, in some cases that's that's an issue too,
Speaker 1: But I think I think it's used more. Abandonedwear is
Speaker 1: more in the minds of a lot of people for games,
Speaker 1: simply because there's that nostalgia and retro factor. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking back to some of the games I used to
Speaker 1: love to play that I would I would really enjoy
Speaker 1: seeing an updated version of that game, or the ability
Speaker 1: to play the old one again like Tie Fighter. Ah yeah,
Speaker 1: and now that one has a double whammy against it,
Speaker 1: right because it's a licensed game, not just a not
Speaker 1: just not just the fact that you've got the software
Speaker 1: and everything, but you've got the actual content. It's all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a much more complex situation. Well, it was LucasArts.
Speaker 1: It was LucasArts, so great game, fantastic game. Wish that
Speaker 1: they would come out with a new one and then
Speaker 1: their hint, well you've seen you've seen the success of
Speaker 1: the Monkey Island franchise, is it's renewed, and of the
Speaker 1: Monkey Island franchise and Oregon Trail as it has popped
Speaker 1: up on Facebook and on h Yeah. But I mean
Speaker 1: that's the funny thing about some of this stuff can
Speaker 1: be updated and refreshed and people in an added dimension
Speaker 1: things you couldn't do thirty years ago. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed that episode. Chris and I had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun exploring the world of abandoned war and the Murky
Speaker 1: thinks about what to do once something becomes unavailable in
Speaker 1: the market, And of course I'd never abandon you guys.
Speaker 1: Remember if you have suggestions or questions, write me. My
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at HowStuffWorks dot com. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to follow me on Twitter, that's at tech STUFFHSW. And
Speaker 1: you can always drop me a line on Facebook or Tumblr.
Speaker 1: We use tech STUFFHSW for both. And I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks dot com