Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: And much as I have wanted to abandon him in
Speaker 1: the past, sitting across from me as usual, senior writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, the silence of a falling star lights up
Speaker 1: the purple sky, and as I wonder where you are,
Speaker 1: I'm so lonesome I could cry. Very nicely done. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Today we think Hank would have done it that way,
Speaker 1: Hank SA. Today we're going to talk about abandoned ware.
Speaker 1: Yes we uh, we've had requests to talk about abandoned ware,
Speaker 1: and this is UM and we've talked about abandon weare
Speaker 1: in the past, just not as a dedicated topic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've also talked about vapor ware, just a totally different thing, UM,
Speaker 1: if you might wonder what the differences are. Vaporware is
Speaker 1: when a company has announced or information is leaked out
Speaker 1: that a company is working on a particular product, but
Speaker 1: that probably never seems to actually go to market. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought it was the kind of software that every
Speaker 1: once in a while just meaning you feel light headed,
Speaker 1: I'm already got a headache. I've already got a headache.
Speaker 1: So that's different. I'll tell you what that means, and
Speaker 1: you'll 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. More frequently
Speaker 1: than not, we talked about in terms of games, although
Speaker 1: that's not the only kind of abandoned ware. But a
Speaker 1: company produces this the the but then technology continues to
Speaker 1: evolve over time, and no, yeah, I know it's crazy,
Speaker 1: right really, so the things like uters, Let's let's say
Speaker 1: a computer, it gets so advanced that it can no
Speaker 1: longer run older software. I'm aware of that. Yeah, where
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you know, if software
Speaker 1: has been produced before a certain point, your computer is
Speaker 1: not really able to run it anymore because things have
Speaker 1: changed so dramatically. And then companies will sort of stop
Speaker 1: supporting this old software that they produced years ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if they no longer provide any support or they
Speaker 1: discontinued it, that's abandoned ware. If a company creates some
Speaker 1: software that is, you know, hits the market and then
Speaker 1: that company ceases to exist, that software may be considered
Speaker 1: abandonware because now there's no there's no place you can
Speaker 1: buy it anymore because the company that was in charge
Speaker 1: of it is gone. This can happen through an acquisition
Speaker 1: or a merger where certain divisions get dissolved or merged
Speaker 1: into other divisions and as a result, pieces of software
Speaker 1: no longer have a kind of a a a shepherd
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 anti name yes?
Speaker 1: Um not a n T I yes um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: name is for those of you who don't know, basically,
Speaker 1: a way of uh running the programs that old arcademan
Speaker 1: will 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 the software for those
Speaker 1: machines 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 yeah, and and so it's hardwired into
Speaker 1: the uh the hardware. You don't you don't put a
Speaker 1: disc in, at least not most arcade games. I know
Speaker 1: there are a few that run on laser disc, but
Speaker 1: that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about
Speaker 1: like it's reading directly from a chip. A similar example
Speaker 1: would be when you if you ever played console games
Speaker 1: that used cartridges. The cartridge had the ROM on it,
Speaker 1: and the console just had the the technology to read
Speaker 1: the ROM and then translate that into a game. So
Speaker 1: for a computer, you would have to create an emulator,
Speaker 1: something that could create an environment similar to the hardware
Speaker 1: that you would find inside that arcade machine in order
Speaker 1: if you to run the ROM on a computer. And
Speaker 1: sometimes this would work well and you would have a
Speaker 1: pretty uh similar experience as to if you were sitting
Speaker 1: in front of an arcade machine and playing it, and
Speaker 1: in some cases it doesn't work so well because the
Speaker 1: computer's architecture and the arcade architecture are so different that
Speaker 1: the game stutters or just runs really slowly. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: then you have the question you you're able to run
Speaker 1: this uh software and on your home computer, and you
Speaker 1: have something like say Kangaroo, and you want to play
Speaker 1: Kangaroo on your home computer, and you go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: Attari still exists. I mean, truth is, it's a different
Speaker 1: Attari technically, but they own the copyright for that stuff.
Speaker 1: Now you know. That's one thing. Then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you have something like say Defender, and then you'd say, okay,
Speaker 1: well who owns the stuff that Williams used to make?
Speaker 1: Or Robotron for that matter. Um okay, So that's that's
Speaker 1: one version. Um My. My other example was was going
Speaker 1: to be I was gonna 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 or sim Ant for that matter, from Maxis
Speaker 1: before it was acquired by Electronic Arts. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, the question is you know I
Speaker 1: can legally use that software because I still own the
Speaker 1: disks for sim Ant, even though I never really had
Speaker 1: enough memory in my Amiga to run it. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to distribute it. I can't distribute it, but
Speaker 1: 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 manufacturers gone and it's hard to
Speaker 1: identify who, if anybody, owns the copyright. And this actually
Speaker 1: is it presents some seriously thorny legal issues, right, So
Speaker 1: 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: gamer supports it, then you might feel, well, what's the harm?
Speaker 1: I mean, no one's no one's trying to make money
Speaker 1: off of this. No one is losing money off of
Speaker 1: this because there's no way to legitimately get ahold of this.
Speaker 1: Why is there an issue? And it's all because of
Speaker 1: that copyright and the copyright holder may choose to not
Speaker 1: pursue action. It doesn't mean that it's legal. It just
Speaker 1: means the copyright holder is allowing the that material to
Speaker 1: be distributed. And said, wouldn't you know what I picked?
Speaker 1: A bad example for a video game was just Kangaroo
Speaker 1: really Attari. It was distributed by Atari, but actually it
Speaker 1: was a product by Sun Electronics. Did you wear like
Speaker 1: little boxing gloves in that game? And you had to
Speaker 1: box stuff as a kangaroo. I vaguely remember playing that.
Speaker 1: It was it was it was very Donkey Kong like
Speaker 1: because you climbed up to the top and had to
Speaker 1: find your Joey, you know, the baby kangaroo right, right,
Speaker 1: So anyhow, so the substitute centipede for what I said before. 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, And
Speaker 1: so yeah, a work for high would be last even longer.
Speaker 1: And most of these, I guess would be considered work
Speaker 1: for high, which is why I brought it up. That's
Speaker 1: a good point. So in other words, this is software
Speaker 1: that is going to be is still protected by copyright
Speaker 1: and will be for pretty much our lifetime, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of us might get really lucky, maybe the Singularity
Speaker 1: will hit, and it won't that won't be a problem.
Speaker 1: But at that point, who's playing video games? Well, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to play Space War, you're probably in fairly
Speaker 1: decent shape because that was created so much earlier than
Speaker 1: this stuff. Yeah, the games that were created in the eighties. Um,
Speaker 1: even our our younger listeners would have problems with this
Speaker 1: all the way through. Yeah, so by legal definition strictly
Speaker 1: going by that, it is not there's no real recourse
Speaker 1: unless the copyright holder gives permission for distribution or releases
Speaker 1: the copyright into the public domain. Now at that point,
Speaker 1: you know it's weird to call the software abandoned ware
Speaker 1: because abandoned ware really means this software that doesn't have
Speaker 1: really any support or or access through legitimate channels. So
Speaker 1: it's not like it's abandoned where that point, it's just
Speaker 1: public domain work, so it becomes more like shareware in
Speaker 1: a way. But a copyright holder does have that option. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in some cases you you see companies take advantage
Speaker 1: of old, old, old libraries of content and repackage them
Speaker 1: and market them again, which would mean that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to host those abandon and wear games on your site,
Speaker 1: for example, because they are actually making money from this
Speaker 1: old content and there are legitimate ways to get hold
Speaker 1: of it. A good example of that as Atari, because
Speaker 1: you've got the old Atari games that get repackaged occasionally
Speaker 1: as an app for a smartphone or tablet device. Also,
Speaker 1: you get some console games that will occasionally come out.
Speaker 1: They'll be like the best of and it will be
Speaker 1: whatever the old company was. Like. You can even get
Speaker 1: a version of the if you really want it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's a little oh new one. They're making new
Speaker 1: ones now, is that on thinking? I'm not sure the
Speaker 1: Dreamcast was. Somebody told me recently that they saw a
Speaker 1: new quote unquote new packaged with some of the early games.
Speaker 1: That's 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 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 or otherwise unavailable. Um, they're very
Speaker 1: much about not hosting what are also called whares. Whares
Speaker 1: would be kinds of software that's essentially pirate, ID or
Speaker 1: duplicated that's readily available on the market today. Basically the
Speaker 1: copy protection has been cracked 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 you don't have code.
Speaker 1: So but but the more the more legitimate abandoned ware
Speaker 1: sites will only host games that you cannot get through
Speaker 1: any other means unless you were defined like someone selling
Speaker 1: an old copy. But uh, you know that 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, um, there
Speaker 1: are there are people out there who in some of
Speaker 1: them are content creators, who say there should be a
Speaker 1: more streamlined way too for for companies to release abandoned ware,
Speaker 1: so that there isn't this, uh, this legal barrier, especially
Speaker 1: considering the fact that software changes much more rapidly than
Speaker 1: say print. And uh. One of them is Greg Kostickian.
Speaker 1: Now do you know who have you ever heard of?
Speaker 1: Greg Custician. He's a He's a game designer who designs
Speaker 1: not just computer games but also role playing games. His
Speaker 1: name is really familiar to me, and I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ah as soon as you say, well, he's He's designed
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. Most of it is kind of
Speaker 1: has a has sort of a tyrtcal or otherwise humorous
Speaker 1: slant to it. For example, he created an role playing
Speaker 1: game called Tune Back In, where you played as a
Speaker 1: cartoon character within a cartoon episode. Every single adventure was
Speaker 1: 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 essentially like a biodome kind of thing, and a
Speaker 1: computer controls everything. But the computer is crazy and paranoid
Speaker 1: and thinks everyone is out to get him, and pretty
Speaker 1: much everyone is out to get him, and then but anyway,
Speaker 1: they hope just because al right, the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: the game was to create this idea of paranoia. Well,
Speaker 1: this guy, who created several different computer games as well, said, uh,
Speaker 1: actually have a quote. Software is about as ephemeral as
Speaker 1: you can get yet preserving it is essential. Illegal abandoned
Speaker 1: ware sites are providing a critical service to game designers
Speaker 1: and scholars and gaming enthusiasts. They do, not, however, provide
Speaker 1: a lasting and satisfactory solution to the problem because they
Speaker 1: are illegal. So he was maintaining the point of these
Speaker 1: old games that exist are important, and they're important culturally
Speaker 1: because some of them were what helped usher in the
Speaker 1: 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 owned,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them had very innovative gameplay or
Speaker 1: very compelling storylines and are great lessons for game designers
Speaker 1: to to learn from. Sure, you know, I would argue
Speaker 1: the Old Ultimate series, for example, is a very valuable
Speaker 1: series for people who want to create a storyline that
Speaker 1: spans several episodes and has a very kind of deep
Speaker 1: um and and immersive quality to it. Now, I should
Speaker 1: also had 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 piotying games. Look and make
Speaker 1: sure 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 um, but yeah, as a
Speaker 1: producer of games, he was pointing out that this is
Speaker 1: a valuable service that abandoned weare sites are giving us
Speaker 1: that 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. Occasionally you see that happen. Well, it
Speaker 1: would be nice if some of the people who own
Speaker 1: the copyrights to these would release these these programs in
Speaker 1: some form. Um. You know, the the app stores for
Speaker 1: the mobile devices have proven that, you know, even even
Speaker 1: software that costs one or two dollars for a copy
Speaker 1: of it can still make a decent amount of money,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know some of these titles are languishing
Speaker 1: an obscurity when you know people might really be willing
Speaker 1: to pay one to five dollars for an opportunity to
Speaker 1: play it again. It's not really a lot of money
Speaker 1: for most people, and they might relish the opportunity to
Speaker 1: give it another shot. I think we have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to actually see that happen now because digital distribution is
Speaker 1: a reality the right. Like Chris and I can both
Speaker 1: remember a time where you would go to your local
Speaker 1: computer store or electronics store and there would always be
Speaker 1: that bin of the old games that that were four
Speaker 1: three or four generations behind the current stuff that's up
Speaker 1: on the shelves, and you would sort through that ben
Speaker 1: and just look to see if there were any hidden
Speaker 1: 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 disks 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 Attari cartridges
Speaker 1: for you know, a dollar, the same sort of thing
Speaker 1: where they were just unloading their inventory. But those days
Speaker 1: are are you know, pretty much disappearing because you get
Speaker 1: to digital distribution, you get to the era of the
Speaker 1: c D really started to decrease it, but then digital
Speaker 1: attribution 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 or
Speaker 1: for a smartphone. So let's say that you throw up Mule,
Speaker 1: the old Mule game, or ARCon ARCon Yeah, put those
Speaker 1: old populus, yes, um, put these old games up on
Speaker 1: or battle Chess, these old games up so that you
Speaker 1: can buy them for likes or whatever. And and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe package it with a free emulator if you need it,
Speaker 1: because some of these old games will not run 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,
Speaker 1: Well that's an option too. It would be really cool
Speaker 1: if they If these companies were released these games into
Speaker 1: the public domain, however, I think they might have more
Speaker 1: incentive if uh they charged a small price and then
Speaker 1: they would get something in return for it. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like the Chris Anderson's long tail and the the
Speaker 1: online stores versus the brick and mortar stores. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you put that up for digital distribution, it could
Speaker 1: stay there virtually forever. You're still going to be a
Speaker 1: handful of people that are willing to fork over a
Speaker 1: couple of bucks for it. Yeah. And and I think
Speaker 1: I think that solution really provides an elegant approach to
Speaker 1: this complicated issue because you've got, for one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it gives an incentive to these companies to share this
Speaker 1: old stuff that you can't otherwise get. Um And and
Speaker 1: people can relive like that moment from their childhood when
Speaker 1: they played this one game that they loved and now
Speaker 1: they can't they can't get it anymore. Um. It also
Speaker 1: gives the the you know, it gives the fans what
Speaker 1: they want. It's not prohibitively expensive if you go with
Speaker 1: this this micro hayment kind of app approach. Um. And
Speaker 1: also it tells companies what people are interested in. If
Speaker 1: you were to create an 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: Those that's still you're gonna you're still gonna have that
Speaker 1: problem where if there's a title where you're not really
Speaker 1: sure that the is the copyright holder of the guy
Speaker 1: who made it, is that this other company, is it
Speaker 1: a company that bought you know, bought a company, that
Speaker 1: a company that bought a company. That's where you start
Speaker 1: getting two issues where these games may be hopelessly mired
Speaker 1: in red tape. That's just it's until you figure out
Speaker 1: who is the owner of that copyright and who has
Speaker 1: the authority to do this. It will never happen, and
Speaker 1: that you know, the abandoned ware approach is pretty much
Speaker 1: the only way you're gonna get hold of those games. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's not a legitimate way. Yeah, yeah, now, okay,
Speaker 1: this is from from the perspective of the law. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I shouldn't say that, because sometimes I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, I love that game. I bought that game,
Speaker 1: I played that game. There's no way for me to
Speaker 1: get it, and my sense of entitlement is crying out. Well,
Speaker 1: this is where things get interesting. Um. Let's say you
Speaker 1: have um an old at and you bought a copy
Speaker 1: of Yards Revenge, and you have the machine, and you've
Speaker 1: got the the game. It's it's in your basement, it's
Speaker 1: in a box, but you got it. It's storage unfortunately
Speaker 1: doesn't work anymore, or you don't have an adapter, and
Speaker 1: and you really can't play because the machine is dead.
Speaker 1: But I know, hey, it's a museum piece, so you
Speaker 1: hold onto it, and then you find an emulator for
Speaker 1: your computer with yours Revenge where you can play the
Speaker 1: attor 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 the game. Otherwise you are
Speaker 1: That's why they haven't been shut down. Otherwise, you're only
Speaker 1: supposed to hold onto a ROM up to twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and then after that you're supposed to delete it. Yes
Speaker 1: on your on you Yeah, you as a person who
Speaker 1: downloaded the ROM from that site, not not the sites themselves.
Speaker 1: But if you own a legal copy of the ROM,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be able to play it, even if
Speaker 1: the machine that you had it on. Now I imagine
Speaker 1: that's there. There's some probably legal gray area where you
Speaker 1: know if if the uh, the copyright police they don't exist.
Speaker 1: But hey, like the copyright police come to your house,
Speaker 1: they wait a minute, You're is broken? You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to play it on your home computer. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: play it on this machine. You're in trouble, man. The
Speaker 1: 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, so so they're not gonna come after 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 and that's even more so
Speaker 1: for these companies and organizations that don't exist. And that's
Speaker 1: why that's the biggest case I've seen for making abandoned
Speaker 1: ware and legal basically saying, hey, company X doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: this is a great game. I want to play it.
Speaker 1: I would give them twenty dollars if they were still around,
Speaker 1: but there's nobody to pay. Please, you know, but technically,
Speaker 1: technically it's illegal. Yeah, but and the law, by the
Speaker 1: letter of the law, it's illegal. And again, if if
Speaker 1: the copyright holder doesn't pursue any action against you, then
Speaker 1: you're in the clear. And in almost every single case
Speaker 1: that's gonna be. That's gonna be what happens if you
Speaker 1: if you run an abandoned ware site, you might occasionally
Speaker 1: get a takedown notice from a copyright holder, and then
Speaker 1: of course you should very much. And here that if
Speaker 1: you don't want to encounter legal difficulties, it's nice to
Speaker 1: have pants. And if you have them, suit off of you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, it gets drafty. Here's here's a pop quiz.
Speaker 1: Hot shot, so hot shot. Yeah. The guy who the
Speaker 1: guy who made Yards Revenge, he made another very famous
Speaker 1: Atari game. Do you know what it was? Who was it?
Speaker 1: They made Yards Avenge? It was Howard Scott Warsaw, the
Speaker 1: actual game designer who know e t the extraterrestrial. I
Speaker 1: don't blame him. He was paid a truck something very quickly. Yes,
Speaker 1: but yes, one of the Yards Revenge was one of
Speaker 1: the games that was considered to be a big hit,
Speaker 1: with a twenty six hundred, followed by a game that
Speaker 1: that often people credit as killing not just the autent,
Speaker 1: but the video game industry, the home video game industry
Speaker 1: as a whole. In nine three, he was just following orders.
Speaker 1: That was just some trivia for all of you guys.
Speaker 1: So lest you think we are telling you to run
Speaker 1: out and download all the abandoned where you want and
Speaker 1: play it, we're not telling you to do that because
Speaker 1: that would be illegal. What we're telling you is there's
Speaker 1: some awesome games that are out there, and some of
Speaker 1: them are hosted on abandoned ware sites, and man, those
Speaker 1: games are neat and you know what, I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: the copyright holders wouldn't come after you, But don't do it.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna go back and redo that you if
Speaker 1: you do that, it would be technically illegal. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is technically illegal, whether or not a shame. Whether or
Speaker 1: not it's unethical is another question. Unethical and illegal are
Speaker 1: two different things, And unethical that's a weird question too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because again, if there's if there's no one to pay,
Speaker 1: then those games essentially are forgotten. They're gone. You might
Speaker 1: as well do the same thing. Like this book came
Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty, we're locking it away in this
Speaker 1: library and you have no access to the library. In fact,
Speaker 1: no one has any access to the library, and it's
Speaker 1: it's gonna stay there in the library. So you could
Speaker 1: have access to it if we opened up the door,
Speaker 1: but we're not gonna see That's that's an issue, right
Speaker 1: because then you're like, well, what's the point of it
Speaker 1: even existing if no one can use it? So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there is an the ethical and the ethical standpoints
Speaker 1: differ from the legality standpoint. This is definitely a technology
Speaker 1: issue too, because if you really want to read Bao Wolf,
Speaker 1: there's a copy in print somewhere. Probably it's a local bookstore,
Speaker 1: possibly in a used bookstore. It's not even get into that.
Speaker 1: But it's also the thing is you can find a
Speaker 1: copy of it. You can download it for free on
Speaker 1: the internet because it's out of copyright. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's in the public domain, I would think. But the
Speaker 1: thing about it is for the technology behind these games,
Speaker 1: you 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. Yeah, 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 you know, word
Speaker 1: perfect legacy issue, in which case that could be able.
Speaker 1: In some cases, that's that's an issue too, But I
Speaker 1: think I think it's used more. Abandoned war is more
Speaker 1: 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 I used
Speaker 1: to love to play that. I would I would really
Speaker 1: enjoy seeing an updated version of that game, or or
Speaker 1: having the ability to play the old one again like
Speaker 1: um Tie Fighter. Yeah, and now that one has a
Speaker 1: double whammy against it, right because it's a licensed game,
Speaker 1: not just a not just not just the fact that
Speaker 1: you've got the software and everything, but you've got the
Speaker 1: actual content. It's all. Yeah, that's a much more complex situation.
Speaker 1: Well it was LucasArts. It was LucasArts, so great game,
Speaker 1: fantastic game. Wish that they would come out with a
Speaker 1: new one. And then there's hint, Well you've seen you've
Speaker 1: seen the success of the Monkey Island franchisees it's renewed
Speaker 1: and and Oregon Trail as it has popped up on
Speaker 1: Facebook and and on. Yeah. But I mean that's the
Speaker 1: funny thing about some of this stuff. Um can be
Speaker 1: updated and refreshed and people and added dimension things that
Speaker 1: you couldn't do thirty years ago. Um, there's you know,
Speaker 1: there's some such good reason to update and keep these
Speaker 1: things around. Right And and again, like I said, if
Speaker 1: they took my approach where they host that abandoned where
Speaker 1: they reclaim the abandoned ware and host it for super cheap.
Speaker 1: They might be able to find out what trends people
Speaker 1: are really gravitating toward, and that could help them design
Speaker 1: their next game. It's all part of Jonathan's plot to
Speaker 1: take over the world. Look, there's certain games I want
Speaker 1: to play, and I'm desperately trying to get them to
Speaker 1: back my plan so that I can. I can shut shut.
Speaker 1: I'll hand over the money. I am more than happy
Speaker 1: to purchase this game, the same thing we do every night,
Speaker 1: try to take over our con alright, guys, we're gonna
Speaker 1: wrap up this discussion about abandoned where I hope you
Speaker 1: guys didn't feel abandoned through the process of this podcast.
Speaker 1: If you did send this little note ask us to
Speaker 1: very nicely, you know, to cover whatever topic is that
Speaker 1: you would like to hear us chat about at nauseum.
Speaker 1: And you can do that too by sending it to
Speaker 1: our email address, which is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com, or you can drop us a line
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Facebook to handle There is tech Stuff
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