Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in a love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: it's Friday, which means it's time for a classic episode.
Speaker 1: This one originally published on December twelve, two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and it's called tech Stuff Looks for abandoned Ware, where
Speaker 1: Chris and I talk about the concept of abandoned ware
Speaker 1: and what that actually means. I hope you enjoy the
Speaker 1: silence of a falling star lights up the purple sky,
Speaker 1: and as I wonder where you are, I'm so lonesome
Speaker 1: I could cry. Very nicely done, thank you. Today we
Speaker 1: think Hank would have done it that way, Hank. So
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about abandoned ware. Yes, we
Speaker 1: we've had requests to talk about abandoned ware, and this
Speaker 1: is UM and we've talked about abandon were in the past,
Speaker 1: just not as a dedicated topic. Yeah, we've also talked
Speaker 1: about vaporware, which is a totally different thing, UM, if
Speaker 1: you might wonder what the differences are. Vaporware is when
Speaker 1: a company has announced or information is leaked out that
Speaker 1: a company is working on a particular product, but that
Speaker 1: probably never seems to actually go to market. Oh I
Speaker 1: thought it was the kind of software that every once
Speaker 1: in a while just make you feel light headed. I'm
Speaker 1: already got a headache. I've already got a headache. So
Speaker 1: that's different. I'll tell you what that means, and you'll
Speaker 1: like it because you like that kind of humor. Uh.
Speaker 1: The but no, the the abandoned ware is when a
Speaker 1: company has produced a piece of well product mainly, but
Speaker 1: we usually talk about in terms of software, and more
Speaker 1: frequently than not, we talked about in terms of games,
Speaker 1: although that's not the only kind of abandoned ware. But
Speaker 1: the company produces this the the But then technology continues
Speaker 1: to evolve over time, and yeah, no, it's crazy, right,
Speaker 1: So they things like computers. Let's let's say a computer
Speaker 1: it gets so advanced that it can no longer run
Speaker 1: older software. Yeah, I'm aware of that. Yeah, where you
Speaker 1: get to a point where you know, if software has
Speaker 1: been produced before a certain point, your computer is not
Speaker 1: really able to run it anymore because things have changed
Speaker 1: so dramatically. And then companies will sort of stop supporting
Speaker 1: this old software that they produced years ago. Okay, so
Speaker 1: if they no longer provide any support or they've discontinued it,
Speaker 1: that's abandoned. Where if a company creates some software that
Speaker 1: is you know, it hits the market and then that
Speaker 1: company ceases to exist, that software may be considered abandonware
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 that as a result, pieces of software no
Speaker 1: longer have a kind of a a a shepherd really
Speaker 1: to keep the software going. So what happens to that software?
Speaker 1: What 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 uh, it's a little complicated. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The uh, the in the context we brought it up
Speaker 1: in before, we were talking about the multiple machine or
Speaker 1: multiple arcade machine emulator. Name, Um, you coax the blues
Speaker 1: right out of the horn. Sorry name name yes? Um?
Speaker 1: Not a n T I yes? Um? So yeah, name
Speaker 1: is for those of you who don't know, basically, a
Speaker 1: way of uh running the programs that old arcade mean,
Speaker 1: while 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 machine, the software for those machines
Speaker 1: was built specifically for the hardware inside the arcade machine.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't opening up an arcade cabinet and find a
Speaker 1: a 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. And uh yeah, and and so it's hardwired
Speaker 1: into the the hardware, like you know, you don't have
Speaker 1: you don't put a disc in at least not most
Speaker 1: arcade games. I know there are a few that run
Speaker 1: on laser disc, but that's not what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: We're talking about like it's reading directly from a chip.
Speaker 1: A similar example would be when you if you ever
Speaker 1: played console games that used cartridges. The cartridge had the
Speaker 1: ROM on it, right, and the console just had the
Speaker 1: the technology to read the ROM and then translate that
Speaker 1: into a game. So for a computer, you would have
Speaker 1: to create an emulator, something that could create an environment
Speaker 1: similar to the hardware that you would find inside that
Speaker 1: arcade machine in order for you to run the rom
Speaker 1: on a computer. And sometimes this would work well and
Speaker 1: you would have a pretty uh similar experience as to
Speaker 1: if you were sitting in front of an arcade machine
Speaker 1: and playing it. And in some cases it doesn't work
Speaker 1: so well because the computer's architecture and the arcade architecture
Speaker 1: are so different that the game stutters or just runs
Speaker 1: really slowly. Yeah, So then you have, uh the question
Speaker 1: you you're able to run this uh software and on
Speaker 1: your home computer, and you have something like say Kangaroo,
Speaker 1: and you want to play Kangaroo on your home computer,
Speaker 1: and you go, wait a minute, Atari still exists. I mean,
Speaker 1: truth is it's a different Attari 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 say, okay, well who owns the stuff
Speaker 1: that Williams used to make? Or Robotron for that matter.
Speaker 1: Um okay, So that's that's one version. Um My. My
Speaker 1: other example was was going to be I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you if you thought that if I brought my
Speaker 1: copy of Deluxe Video Construction Set to Electronic Arts for Miamiga.
Speaker 1: Do you think they'd support it, or cement 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 disks for sim AT even though I
Speaker 1: never really had enough memory in mi 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 the in in some cases the
Speaker 1: manufacturer is still around, in some cases it's a different
Speaker 1: version of the manufacturer who legally owns the copyright, and
Speaker 1: in other cases the manufacturer is gone and it's hard
Speaker 1: to identify who, if anybody, owns the copyright. And this
Speaker 1: actually is it presents some seriously thorny legal issues, right,
Speaker 1: So let's let's clear things up a little bit here. Uh,
Speaker 1: if there is an old piece of software, it's available
Speaker 1: online and there hasn't been any express permission from the
Speaker 1: copyright holder that that software can be distributed, distributing that
Speaker 1: software is illegal. Yes, it violates copyright. Now, that being said,
Speaker 1: copyright is one of those things that only works if
Speaker 1: you exercise your right to the copyright. In other words,
Speaker 1: the copyright owner would have to pursue action against anyone
Speaker 1: distributing that content. So if you are if you come
Speaker 1: across an old game from the the late eighties, let's say,
Speaker 1: and it's an old doss based game on the little
Speaker 1: from the late eighties, and you wanted to you love
Speaker 1: this game and you want other people to explore this
Speaker 1: game and experience this game, and there is no way
Speaker 1: to buy the game because the game, the company doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: or the company still exists but no longer markets this
Speaker 1: game or supports it. Then you might feel, well, what's
Speaker 1: the harm? I mean, no one's no one's trying to
Speaker 1: make money off of this. No one is losing money
Speaker 1: off of this because there's no way to legitimately get
Speaker 1: ahold of this. Why is there an issue? And it's
Speaker 1: all because of that copyright, and the copyright holder may
Speaker 1: choose to not pursue action. It doesn't mean that it's legal.
Speaker 1: It just means the copyright holder is allowing the that
Speaker 1: material to be distributed. Said, wouldn't you know what I
Speaker 1: picked a bad example for a video game was just
Speaker 1: its kangaroo? Really Attari it was distributed by Atari, but
Speaker 1: actually it was a product by Sun Electronics. Did you
Speaker 1: wear like little boxing gloves in that game and you
Speaker 1: had to box stuff as a kangaroo? I vaguely remember
Speaker 1: playing that. It was it was it was very Donkey
Speaker 1: Kong like because you climbed up to the top and
Speaker 1: had to find your Joey, you know, the baby kangaroo. Right.
Speaker 1: So anyhow, so substitute Centipede for what I said before.
Speaker 1: Chris and I will be back to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about abandonware in just a second, but first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So getting back to copyrights. Now, a copyright, the term
Speaker 1: of a copyright right now lasts for in the United States,
Speaker 1: last for seventy five years from the creation of the work,
Speaker 1: unless it's a work for higher right years, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: a work for higher would be last even longer, and
Speaker 1: most of these, I guess would be considered work for high,
Speaker 1: which is why I brought it up. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: So in other words, this is software that is going
Speaker 1: to be is still protected by copyright and will be
Speaker 1: for pretty much our lifetime, right, I mean, some of
Speaker 1: us might get really lucky to maybe the Singularity will hit,
Speaker 1: and it won't, that won't be a problem. But at
Speaker 1: that point, who's playing video games? But if you wanted
Speaker 1: to play Space War, you're probably in fairly decent shape
Speaker 1: because that was created so much earlier than this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the games that were created in the eighties. Um, even
Speaker 1: our our younger listeners would have problems with this all
Speaker 1: the way through. 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. Now at that point, you know, it's
Speaker 1: weird to call the software abandoned ware, because abandonware really
Speaker 1: means this software that doesn't have really any support or
Speaker 1: or access through legitimate channels, So it's not like it's
Speaker 1: abandoned where that point is just public to main work,
Speaker 1: so it becomes more like shareware in a way. But
Speaker 1: a copyright holder does have that option. Uh, And in
Speaker 1: some cases you you see companies take advantage of old, old,
Speaker 1: old libraries of content and repackage them and and market
Speaker 1: them again, which would mean that you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: host those abandoned ware games on your site, for example,
Speaker 1: because they are actually making money from this old content
Speaker 1: and there are legitimate ways to get hold of it.
Speaker 1: A good example of that as Atari, because you've got
Speaker 1: the old Atari games that get repackaged occasionally as an
Speaker 1: app for a smartphone or tablet device. Also, you get
Speaker 1: some console games that will occasionally come out. They'll be
Speaker 1: like the best of and it will be whatever the
Speaker 1: old company was. Like, you can even get a version
Speaker 1: of the I you really want it. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: a little oh new one. They're making new ones now,
Speaker 1: is that on thinking? I'm not sure the Dreamcast was.
Speaker 1: Somebody told me recently that they saw a new quote
Speaker 1: unquote new packaged with some of the early games. That's
Speaker 1: basically a relieve the past. That's the whole retro thing.
Speaker 1: But they're there hundreds and hundreds of computer titles, PC titles,
Speaker 1: Windows titles, do space titles even that, Uh, well, we'll
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 abandoned ware,
Speaker 1: and these sites are the really the ones that are
Speaker 1: more legitimate, and I used 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 or otherwise unavailable, um, they're very
Speaker 1: much about not hosting what are also called wares Wares
Speaker 1: would be kinds of software that's essentially pirated or duplicated
Speaker 1: that's readily available on the market today. Basically the copy
Speaker 1: protection has been cracked and you can use it. You know,
Speaker 1: when I say freely, I don't mean you're allowed to
Speaker 1: use it. I mean you don't have to code. So.
Speaker 1: But but the more the more legitimate abandoned ware sites
Speaker 1: will only host games that you cannot get through any
Speaker 1: other means unless you were defined like someone selling an
Speaker 1: old copy. But you know that you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to go to the publisher and buy it because sometimes
Speaker 1: the publisher doesn't even exist. Well, um, there are there
Speaker 1: are people out there who, in some of them are
Speaker 1: content creators, who say there should be a more streamlined
Speaker 1: way too for for companies to release abandoned ware 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 uh. One of them is Greg Castickian. Now do
Speaker 1: you know who? Have you ever heard of? Greg Castickian.
Speaker 1: He's a He's a game designer who designs not just
Speaker 1: computer games but also role playing games. His name is
Speaker 1: really familiar to me, and I'm gonna go ah as
Speaker 1: soon as you say, well, he's He's designed a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. Most of it is kind of has a
Speaker 1: has sort of a satirical or otherwise humorous uh slant
Speaker 1: to it. For example, he created an role playing game
Speaker 1: called Tune back in nineteen four where you played as
Speaker 1: a cartoon character within a cartoon episode. Every single adventure
Speaker 1: was modeled after the idea of a seven minute cartoon episode,
Speaker 1: and you would have the capabilities of a cartoon character,
Speaker 1: and you would have friends and enemies within the cartoon,
Speaker 1: and you could do these outlandish things. It was hilarious.
Speaker 1: He also created a game called Paranoia, which was all
Speaker 1: about a post apocalyptic uh society where you live in
Speaker 1: a a essentially like a a biodome kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and a computer controls everything, but the computer is crazy
Speaker 1: and paranoid and thinks everyone is out to get him,
Speaker 1: and pretty much everyone is out to get him. And
Speaker 1: then but anyway, they hope because al right, the whole
Speaker 1: purpose of the game was to create this idea of paranoia. Well,
Speaker 1: this guy, who created several different computer games as well,
Speaker 1: said that actually, have a quote. Software is about as
Speaker 1: ephemeral as you can get, yet preserving it is essential.
Speaker 1: Illegal abandoned ware sites are providing a critical service to
Speaker 1: game designers and scholars and gaming enthusiasts. They do, not, however,
Speaker 1: provide a lasting and satisfactory solution to the problem because
Speaker 1: they are illegal. So he was maintaining the point of
Speaker 1: these old games that exist are important, and they're important
Speaker 1: culturally because some of them were what helped usher in
Speaker 1: the era of personal computers in the first place. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, personal computers were great for productivity, but there's
Speaker 1: no denying that video games. Computer games really drove the
Speaker 1: industry as well. And as the the technology advances, our
Speaker 1: ability to access those old games decreases, and he says,
Speaker 1: that's that's a shame. There should be a way to
Speaker 1: preserve that. And also, as he points out, game designers,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these old games are very primitive
Speaker 1: when it comes to the graphics or the sound, But
Speaker 1: a lot of them had very innovative gameplay or very
Speaker 1: compelling storylines and are great lessons for game designers to
Speaker 1: to learn from. Sure, you know, I would argue the
Speaker 1: old Ultimate series, for example, is a very valuable series
Speaker 1: for people who want to create a storyline that spans
Speaker 1: several episodes and has a very kind of deep um
Speaker 1: and and immersive quality to it. Now, I should also
Speaker 1: had that the Ultimate Series has regularly been released in
Speaker 1: packages where you could buy it legitimately, So don't go
Speaker 1: out there and start piotying games, look and make sure
Speaker 1: or first before that, make sure there's a legitimate way
Speaker 1: of getting it, and go that way before ever going
Speaker 1: with abandoned ware route. But but yeah, as a producer
Speaker 1: of games, he was pointing out that this is a
Speaker 1: valuable service that abandoned weare sites are giving us that
Speaker 1: without it, we would lose these games. And you know,
Speaker 1: unless some company was like, hey, we need to roll
Speaker 1: out another product or we're not going to hit our
Speaker 1: revenue this year, what titles do we have in the
Speaker 1: vault that we could package together hastily and then shove
Speaker 1: out the door. And occasionally you see that happen. Well,
Speaker 1: it would be nice if some of the people who
Speaker 1: own the copyrights to these would release these these programs
Speaker 1: in some form um. You know, the the app stores
Speaker 1: for the mobile devices have proven that, you know, even
Speaker 1: even software that costs one or two dollars for a
Speaker 1: copy of it can still make a decent amount of money.
Speaker 1: And you know, some of these titles are languishing an
Speaker 1: obscurity when you know, people might really be willing to
Speaker 1: pay one to five dollars for an opportunity to play
Speaker 1: it again. It's not really a lot of money for
Speaker 1: most people, and they might relish the opportunity to give
Speaker 1: it another shot. I think we have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: actually see that happen now because digital distribution is a reality, right,
Speaker 1: Like Chris and I can both remember a time where
Speaker 1: you would go to your local computer store or electronics
Speaker 1: store and there would always be that bin of the
Speaker 1: old games that that were four three or four generations
Speaker 1: behind the current stuff that's up on the shelves, and
Speaker 1: you would sort through that ben and just look to
Speaker 1: see if there were any hidden gems in there, and
Speaker 1: then you find something like, oh, I always wanted to
Speaker 1: play that, and you pick it up, and you know,
Speaker 1: you might get a copy of Civilization that way. But
Speaker 1: that was back in the old day where you would
Speaker 1: get like the floppy disks I was thinking you were
Speaker 1: talking about during the video game console crash, when you
Speaker 1: would go into your corner drugs store and there would
Speaker 1: be a bin of really horrible Attari cartridges for you know,
Speaker 1: a dollar, the same sort of thing where they were
Speaker 1: just unloading their inventory. But those days are are you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much disappearing because you get to digital distribution, You
Speaker 1: get to the era of the c D really started
Speaker 1: to decrease it, but then digital distribution has has taken
Speaker 1: a big hit on it too. But that also gives
Speaker 1: the opportunity for companies to put potentially put up old
Speaker 1: titles for you know, like the same price that you
Speaker 1: would have for an app for for a smartphone. So
Speaker 1: let's say that you throw up Mule, the old Mule game,
Speaker 1: or ARCon ARCon Yeah, put those old us Populus, yes, um,
Speaker 1: put these old games up on or battle Chess, these
Speaker 1: old games up so that you can buy them for
Speaker 1: like cents or whatever and and have you know, maybe
Speaker 1: package it with a free emulator if you need it.
Speaker 1: Because some of these old games will not on on
Speaker 1: your current system unless first put through an emulator. I
Speaker 1: have old machines for strictly that purpose. And before before
Speaker 1: you write in and say, you know, why do you
Speaker 1: want people to spend this money, this property should be free, Well,
Speaker 1: that's an option too. It would be really cool if they,
Speaker 1: if these companies will released these games into the public domain. However,
Speaker 1: I think they might have more incentive if uh they
Speaker 1: charged a small price and then they would get something
Speaker 1: in return for it. It's sort of like the Chris
Speaker 1: Anderson's long tail and the online stores versus the brick
Speaker 1: and mortar stores. I mean, if you put that up
Speaker 1: for digital distribution, it could stay there virtually forever. You're
Speaker 1: still going to be a handful of people that are
Speaker 1: willing to fork over a couple of bucks for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and I think I think that solution really provides
Speaker 1: an elegant approach to this complicated issue because you've got,
Speaker 1: for one thing, you know, it gives an incentive to
Speaker 1: these companies to share this old stuff that you can't
Speaker 1: otherwise get. Um and and people can relive like that
Speaker 1: moment from their childhood when they played this one game
Speaker 1: that they loved and now they can't they can't get
Speaker 1: it anymore. Um. It also gives the the you know,
Speaker 1: it gives the fans what they want. It's not prohibitively
Speaker 1: expensive if you go with this this micro payment kind
Speaker 1: of app approach. Um. And also it tells companies what
Speaker 1: people are interested in. If you were to create an
Speaker 1: a section of your site, for example, that hosted the
Speaker 1: old titles for cheap purchase, and you saw that one
Speaker 1: of those titles was getting hit like crazy, people were
Speaker 1: just buying it up, you might think, you know, we
Speaker 1: could probably do a follow up, like just do an
Speaker 1: incredible follow up that is based on the same premise
Speaker 1: of this original game, maybe not a remake, but even
Speaker 1: perhaps a long awaited sequel and clean up, because we
Speaker 1: didn't realize there was this interest in this old title
Speaker 1: that we owned. Now, this does not solve the problem
Speaker 1: for those titles where the ownership is up in the air,
Speaker 1: like no one knows who owns this anymore. Those that's
Speaker 1: still you're gonna you're still gonna have that problem where
Speaker 1: if there's a title where you're not really sure that
Speaker 1: the is the copyright holder of the guy who made
Speaker 1: it is it this other company. Is it a company
Speaker 1: that bought you know, bought a company that bought a
Speaker 1: company that bought a company. That's where you start getting
Speaker 1: two issues where these games maybe hopelessly mired in red tape.
Speaker 1: That's just it's until you figure out who is the
Speaker 1: owner of that copyright and who has the authority to
Speaker 1: do this, it will never happen. And that you know,
Speaker 1: the abandoned ware approach is pretty much the only way
Speaker 1: you're gonna get hold of those games. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: not a legitimate way. Yeah, now, okay, this is from
Speaker 1: the from the perspective of the law. I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: should 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. Before we
Speaker 1: get to the end of the episode, I need to
Speaker 1: take another quick break and thank our sponsor. Well, this
Speaker 1: is where things get interesting. Um. Let's say you have
Speaker 1: um an old at and you bought a copy of
Speaker 1: Yards Revenge, and you have the machine, and you've got
Speaker 1: the the game. It's it's in your basement, it's in
Speaker 1: a box. But you got it, it's in storage unfortunately
Speaker 1: doesn't work anymore, or you don't have an adapter, and
Speaker 1: you really can't play because the machine is dead. But
Speaker 1: I know, hey, it's a museum piece. So you hold
Speaker 1: onto it and then you find an emulator for your
Speaker 1: computer with yours Revenge where you can play the a
Speaker 1: version of it. The thing is from what I understand. Again,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer, but theoretically, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, you're entitled to play that because you
Speaker 1: have a copy of the game. You already paid for it,
Speaker 1: you have a copy of the game in your possession,
Speaker 1: You're legally entitled to play it. Because the reason I
Speaker 1: get this is from the disclaimers on the main sites.
Speaker 1: They say that if you have a copy of the ROMs, basically,
Speaker 1: if you have the guts of the arcade machine, the chips,
Speaker 1: then legally you can play it a game. Otherwise you
Speaker 1: 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, and then after that you're supposed to
Speaker 1: delete it. Yes you you Yeah, you as a person
Speaker 1: who downloaded the ROM from that site, not not the
Speaker 1: sites themselves, But if you own a legal copy of
Speaker 1: 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. There's some probably legal gray area where,
Speaker 1: you know, if if the copyright police they don't exist.
Speaker 1: But hey, the copyright police come to your house. They
Speaker 1: wait a minute. You're is broken. You're not supposed to
Speaker 1: play it on your home computer. Are supposed to play
Speaker 1: on this machine. You're in trouble man. The thing is,
Speaker 1: for one thing, there aren't any copyright police, not specifically
Speaker 1: copyright police. And you know, for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: this just people aren't gonna bother doing it. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna sue Jonathan because you know that's the thing.
Speaker 1: They say that you can sue anybody in America for anything,
Speaker 1: but generally people sue people who have money. So so
Speaker 1: they're not going to come out. Yeah, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: come after Jonathan or me for doing that unless they
Speaker 1: really believe that they can prosecute us with good cause
Speaker 1: and are going to get something. You know, this worth
Speaker 1: putting the time and money into a legal case for
Speaker 1: doing this. And and that's even more so for these
Speaker 1: companies and organizations that don't exist. And that's why that's
Speaker 1: the biggest case I've seen for making abandoned ware and 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: no way to pay please. You know, technically, technically it's illegal. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the law, by the letter of the law, it's illegal.
Speaker 1: And again, if if the copyright holder doesn't pursue any
Speaker 1: action against you, then you're in the clear. And in
Speaker 1: in almost every single case that's gonna be. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be what happens if you if you run an abandoned
Speaker 1: ware site, you might occasionally get a takedown notice from
Speaker 1: a copyright holder, and then of course you should very
Speaker 1: much adhere to that if you don't want to encounter
Speaker 1: legal difficulties. It used to have pants and if you
Speaker 1: have them, suit off of you. Yeah. By the way,
Speaker 1: it gets drafty. Here's here's a pop quiz. Hot shot,
Speaker 1: so hot shot. Yeah, the guy who the guy who
Speaker 1: made Yards Revenge, he made another very famous Atari game.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it was? Who was the main
Speaker 1: Yards Avenge. It was Howard Scott Warsaw, the actual game
Speaker 1: designer who don't e t the extraterrestrial. I don't blame him.
Speaker 1: He was something very quickly, but yes, one of the
Speaker 1: yards Revenge was one of the games that was considered
Speaker 1: to be a big hit with his Hardy twenty six hundred,
Speaker 1: followed by a game that that often people credit as
Speaker 1: killing not just the Autori, but the video game industry,
Speaker 1: the home video game industry as a whole in nine three.
Speaker 1: He was just following orders. That was just some trivia
Speaker 1: for all of you guys. So lest you think we
Speaker 1: are telling you to run out and download all the
Speaker 1: abandoned where you want and play it, we're not telling
Speaker 1: you to do that because that would be illegal. What
Speaker 1: we're telling you is there's some awesome games that are
Speaker 1: out there, and some of them are hosted on abandoned
Speaker 1: ware sites, and man, those games are neat and you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm pretty sure the copyright holders wouldn't come
Speaker 1: after you, But don't do it. If you don't really
Speaker 1: go back and redo that you if you do that,
Speaker 1: it would be technically ill. Yes, it is technically illegal,
Speaker 1: whether or not a shame, whether or not. It's unethical
Speaker 1: is another question. Unethical and illegal are two different things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and unethical that's a weird question too. Yeah, because again,
Speaker 1: if there's if there's no one to pay, then those
Speaker 1: games essentially are forgotten. They're gone. You might as well
Speaker 1: do the same thing, like this book came out in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, we're locking it away in this library and
Speaker 1: you have no access to the library. In fact, no
Speaker 1: one has any access to the library, and it's it's
Speaker 1: gonna stay there in the library. So you could have
Speaker 1: access to it if we opened up the door, but
Speaker 1: we're not gonna see That's that's an issue, right because
Speaker 1: then you're like, well, what's the point of it even
Speaker 1: existing if no one can use it? So yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there is an the ethical and the ethical standpoints different
Speaker 1: from the legality standpoint. This is definitely a technology issue too,
Speaker 1: because if you really want to read Beowulf, there's a
Speaker 1: copy in print somewhere, probably it's a local bookstore, possibly
Speaker 1: in a used bookstore. It's not even gettingto that. But
Speaker 1: it's also the thing is you can find a copy
Speaker 1: of it. You can download it for free on the
Speaker 1: internet because it's out of copyright I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 1: in the public domain, I would think. But the thing
Speaker 1: about it is for the technology behind these games, you
Speaker 1: know that that is one of the issues behind it.
Speaker 1: And there's there's the other thing too. Uh. In case
Speaker 1: you're saying, well, you're just talking about games, really, do
Speaker 1: you want to you want to download a copy of
Speaker 1: physicalc so you can run that? Really? Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: the other part of that. I mean, people don't Adobe
Speaker 1: won't necessarily support Photoshop three. Um, you could probably find
Speaker 1: a copy of it somewhere out there, but you know,
Speaker 1: I would consider that to an effect abandoned where too,
Speaker 1: because they've moved so far beyond that point. It's been
Speaker 1: on a print for so many years, you're on your own. Um.
Speaker 1: But legally, if you've downloaded a copy of it, a
Speaker 1: cracked copy of it online, you'd be in the same boat.
Speaker 1: But the reason we're talking about games predominantly is because
Speaker 1: that's the stuff that people go back to. Ye. The
Speaker 1: reason that people in a lot of cases keep old
Speaker 1: gaming machines around just because every once in a while
Speaker 1: that nostalgia thing hits. But I don't think you find
Speaker 1: it for something like a spreadsheet or work for a
Speaker 1: legacy issue, in which case that could be In some
Speaker 1: cases that's that's an issue too. But I think I
Speaker 1: think it's used more abandoned wears more in the minds
Speaker 1: of a lot of people for games simply because there's
Speaker 1: that nostalgia and retro factor. Yeah, I'm thinking back to
Speaker 1: some of the games I I used to love to
Speaker 1: play that I would I would really enjoy seeing an
Speaker 1: updated version of that game, or or having the ability
Speaker 1: to play the old one again, like um Tie Fighter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now that one has a double whamy against it, right,
Speaker 1: because it's a licensed game, not just a not just
Speaker 1: not just the fact that you've got the software and everything,
Speaker 1: but you've got the actual content that's all. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a much more complex situation. Well, it was LucasArts. It
Speaker 1: was Lucas Arts, so great game, fantastic game. Wish that
Speaker 1: they would come out with a new one. And then
Speaker 1: there's hint, Well you've seen you've seen the success of
Speaker 1: the Monkey Island franchisees it's renewed and Island and Oregon
Speaker 1: Trail as it has popped up on Facebook and and on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's the funny thing about some of
Speaker 1: the stuff. Um can be updated and refreshed and people
Speaker 1: and added dimension things that she couldn't do thirty years ago. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no there's some such good reason to update and
Speaker 1: keep these things around, right and and again, like I said,
Speaker 1: if they took my approach where they host that abandoned
Speaker 1: where they reclaimed the abandoned ware and host it for
Speaker 1: super cheap, they might be able to find out what
Speaker 1: trends people are really gravitating toward, and that could help
Speaker 1: them design their next game. It's all part of Jonathan's
Speaker 1: plot to take over the world. Look, there's certain games
Speaker 1: I want to play, and I'm desperately trying to get
Speaker 1: them to back my plans so that I can. I
Speaker 1: can shut shut. I'll hand over the money. I am
Speaker 1: more than happy to purchase this game. Well, that wraps
Speaker 1: up abandoned ware for the time being. Of course, we're
Speaker 1: seeing software getting abandoned all the time. Things just sometimes
Speaker 1: peter out, So I'll probably do a follow up on
Speaker 1: this in the future. But if you've got any suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should tackle, make sure you let me
Speaker 1: know about them. Go visit our website, It's tech stuff
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. You'll find all the different ways to
Speaker 1: contact me there. I greatly appreciate hearing from you guys,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to it. Also, don't forget to
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Speaker 1: you can find the merchandise store. Every single purchase you
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