Contrary to popular belief, "Abandonware" is not Freeware

Quite true. But after a while sometimes(not all the time) a company will release it as freeware, after they figure out that they can't make money off of it anymore. A perfect example of this is OMF(one must fall).

It's obvious that the game is freeware if the company releases it as freeware.

Well, now the abbandonware is legalized!

No.

What?! They said it in the news, I read it in newspapers and magazines (non-tabloid) and the internet is full with info for this!

Maybe you should read the first post of this thread?

You might be referring to this decision. It was broadly misquoted (the reporting is often quite shoddy on copyright issues). Quote:

Originally Posted by Copyright.gov

Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

This is about old classic games for which the media/hardware required to play them is no longer manufactured or "reasonably available" on the marketplace. Jazz Jackrabbit 1 and 2, which plays on PCs, which are still very reasonably available on the marketplace, does not fall under this law. Nor does most popular abandonware, which is avaible on media/consoles which are still easy to get. In addition, it seems to be allowed for archival purposes only, not personal use. The ruling does not mention "Abandonware" since it's not a legal concept and does not exist in any official way. Hence, it can hardly be legalised. Relevant explanation.

In short, this ruling does not make it legal to distribute or attain Jazz Jackrabbit 1 or 2 without paying for it. The same will *always* count for Jazz Jackrabbit 3 which has never seen an official release.

In case you haven't, might be a good idea to point this out on the front page.

for software(including games) to become free it has to be 80 years old. 80 years ago there were no computers.

This is a scrap!
Holly Rabbit Mother, do Something!
EPIC hates the JJ series. Why they must be the series owners? Can't they just give us the owning rights (or whatever it's called!)!

What makes you think they hate the series?

They don't support them any more, but we're still waiting for patches and Jazz Jackrabbit 3, even if they are paid, and even if they are with high-price. What's wrong with this dudes?

You obviously do not have the slightest idea how the gaming business, or business in general, works.

Do you also hate id Software for not supporting Commander Keen anymore? Activision for not supporting Pitfall? Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is an old game. After a developer has finished a game, it will support it for a while, but generally after a while it will move on. There are simply no resources to keep committed to an only moderately-selling game for years afterwards while they could be working on new games. Would you not want to move on after working on a game full-time for over a year? Yes, you would.

As for "high-price patches", do you have any idea what it would cost to develop one? Salaries have to be paid too. With the current community, maybe 10 people or so would buy a patch (patches are in fact almost never sold, but freely distributed), which would simply not make it worth it to make one.

As for Jazz Jackrabbit 3, have you actually read anything about the developement process? Epic was pretty impressed with the product, but they could not find a publisher willing to publish the game. Well, that's the end of the product, as games have to be published to make profit on them, which is quite hard without a publisher.

As for the rights, those are divided between several people and companies, so releasing them in the public domain would first require (expensive) lawyers to arrange it all. If Epic would release the rights to the JJ2 characters or game in the public domain, no profitable sequel would ever be possible to create, so they obviously won't do that.

If you would've only spent a little effort to gather information about this all, you wouldn't have made yourself look like a fool by making these replies.

OK, you've beated me down :blush:

I got a question about this all,

I'm thinking of making an 'update' of the original levels, (better eyecandy, and solve some mistakes). then i would upload it on jazz2online.
would this be illegal? cause when you don't have the game, you can do nothing with the files.

It'd be fine. People upload 'updates' of other JJ2 files all the time. For example, Bob's version of Jazz2.exe.

*observes the belgian banner in the signature*

It's well and good to point out that it's not illegal, it's good to have it clarified with me.

But what I can't stand is people reinforce it it with the sniveling underlying moral tones that a small but prominent few of the replies in this thread have. Illegal != Should be Illegal, not be a long shot. So many people think according to the law, and society's values, without realising it, never reasoning for themselves.

I think Abandonware should be freeware.

Some people are, quite frankly, right wing idiots who have a vendetta against anyone getting anyone for free(probably because it means they can't use annoying little phrases like "There's no such thing as a free lunch" to construct their weak arguments). I'm someone who believes in sharing, I love the philosophy being Linux and it's community even if I'm not a very big part of it due to gaming.

Obviously, a company needs to profit from recent games, it can't just give people games for free or it couldn't and wouldn't exist. But if they're not making money anymore, then why not share it? The rate at which games change and expand, old games become outdated rather quickly. Some stand the test of time better than others, for example Shenmue on the Dreamcast still measures up to a lot of games today. But most don't.

We shouldn't look for cold hard reasons to have things for free, that's silly. If there is no reason for something NOT to be free, it should be. You should only need very good reasons to hurt and limit freedoms, not reasons to provide things that make people happy if it comes as simply as allow them to be copied.

I hate people who get a kick out of saying "It's STILL Illegal", because unless you're just laying down rules for the forum so there's no legal trouble, we really don't need to hear it.

Yeah uhh

No one here's going to stop you if you pirate abandonware. Go ahead and do it.

There's tons of abandonware titles out there that people could give two (-)s if you pirate or not. The only people here who care whether or not you have the Jazz 3D Alpha are people who would go nuts if they caught you jaywalking.

Is it illegal? Technically, yes. Is it morally wrong to "steal" something whose owners have given up on? That's debatable.

Abandonware is basically the crime of stealing a TV from the city dump, except it's blown out of proportion by people who can't wrap their head around the concept that laws aren't necessarily set in stone.

One law broken leads to another, and another, and at sometime you break a whole slew of them.

I agree on your abandonware point of view, but I just can't stab my conscience in the heart. Trust me, I wish I could.

Originally Posted by Kittie Rose

I think Abandonware should be freeware.

Some people are, quite frankly, right wing idiots who have a vendetta against anyone getting anyone for free(probably because it means they can't use annoying little phrases like "There's no such thing as a free lunch" to construct their weak arguments). I'm someone who believes in sharing, I love the philosophy being Linux and it's community even if I'm not a very big part of it due to gaming.

Obviously, a company needs to profit from recent games, it can't just give people games for free or it couldn't and wouldn't exist. But if they're not making money anymore, then why not share it? The rate at which games change and expand, old games become outdated rather quickly. Some stand the test of time better than others, for example Shenmue on the Dreamcast still measures up to a lot of games today. But most don't.

One might consider that just because something isn't currently supported that it doesn't mean that it won't be supported in the future, perhaps through a re-release on an alternate system. How should this change the company's ability to still make a profit off their IP?

Originally Posted by ShadeJackrabbit

One law broken leads to another, and another, and at sometime you break a whole slew of them.

I agree on your abandonware point of view, but I just can't stab my conscience in the heart. Trust me, I wish I could.

This isn't smoking pot. This is taking a TV from the city dump.

But it LEADS to pot.

Look, it's the only way I can stop myself for banging up the inside of my head for being stupid. I already said I wish I didn't think this way, but I do.

I saw one abandonware website that had jj2 on it. It was version 1.00g. This wasn't shareware and I know for a fact it's neither abandon ware or freeware.

What do I do?

Originally Posted by Drmoo

I saw one abandonware website that had jj2 on it. It was version 1.00g. This wasn't shareware and I know for a fact it's neither abandon ware or freeware.

What do I do?

Take it. One more version of JJ2 to add to your collection!

Seriously though, if you want to report it, go talk to Epic Games.

I already have that version lol and I don't wanna get them in serious lawsuit type trouble I just want the site shut down. What do I do?

Tell their host. Webhosts (except for the very good ones) tend to shoot first, and then not bother asking questions.

hey i used to play jj2 alot. I want to come back and play but i no longer have a copy of the game. can anyone help me out?

Which do you want: A legal, or illegal version?

Illegally, we can't help.

Legally, I'd reccomend checking Amazon.(com/ca/de/co.uk/jp/etc.) Unless you live in Canada, in which case you'd be best checking ebay. Actually, if the version you want isn't there, check ebay.

I think there's one or two things that might be worth clearing up. First off, copyright on a particular item doesn't last for 70 years, it lasts for "the life of the author, plus 70 years." That's a common misconception about copyright. So basically as long as the people who worked on JJ2 are still alive, the 70 years for copyright hasn't even started yet. (the law states that if multiple people work on a project, the 70 years starts after the last surviving member dies)

For "works for hire" (which I suspect JJ2 might fall under), copyright is for 95 years from the date of publish, or 120 years from the date of creation.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hlc

It's a government site so it must be true! Anyway, a lot of people seem to think that an exception needs to be made for computer related software, since a computer creation that lasts for 70+ years is a bit absurd. But so long as they don't change it, that's still the law!

Now about abandonware. I feel that JJ2 is abandonware. It's still not legal to download (without official word that Epic is making it freeware), but it is abandonware in my mind. I always figured that abandonware was after the publisher/creator stopped supporting and selling it. Epic's website doesn't have any information on JJ2 anymore, and only a link to a site called Epic Classics, which supposedly still sells it. But Epic says that they aren't affiliated with Epic Classics, take no responsibility for what that company does, and do not support those games anymore. That strikes me as a company that has "abandoned" their game, thus it's "abandonware."

Take 3d Realms on the other hand. They still provide downloads for their games from their website (for games as far back as Commander Keen for example). Not to mention that you can still buy these games directly from the 3d Realms site. Those games strike me as not being abandoned, even if they aren't still updated.

Now it would be nice if Epic would retain the copyright for JJ2 and its characters, but release it as freeware, since they can't be making money off of it anymore. Epic did that with Castle of the Winds. I had one of the CotW developers email me CotW Part 2 for free, because Epic released it as freeware. I still have it to this day. :-) It would be nice if Epic did that with JJ2, but honestly I don't think that they even want to spend their time to just say it's freeware. Unreal has always been their cash cow, and I doubt that will ever change.

Out of curosity, has anyone ever ordered from Epic Classics? http://www.epicclassics.com/orderform.html I'm curious if it still works or not, given their site looks like it hasn't been updated in years (according to the Wayback Machine.

Epic Classics doesn't sell Jazz Jackrabbit 2, only JJ1. So that makes it even more abandonware: it's only available on ebay and amazon, most of the copies there being OEM versions, which you can't sell legally.

Let's not advertise here, Jerry. -Bob

the JJ2 community should sue JJ3D makers for including a tavern

Lets say you purchased a copy of 1.23. Assuming you still have full ownership of all parts of that CD you COULD TECHNICALLY legally download it depending on the national laws.

Thinking about it IF j2o REALLY WANTED TO, they COULD put Jazz Jackrabbit 2 for download. Depending on the coutry, of course. I believe it's hosted in US but I could be wrong. I'm not sure of the US laws but if memory serves me right this is what they could do.

First, they upload it to rapidshare or megaupload or mooload or any of those free file hosting services. Now what they could do is put the download link. Then post a disclaimer similar to the following:

Disclaimer



We do NOT encourage piracy. These links are intended for backup purpose only. Do NOT download any hosted files if you do NOT own the original CD.

All parts of the jazz2online's website are for private use only. No files are hosted on our server, they are only indexed much like how Google works. This site merely indexes of other sites’ contents. The hosting server or the administrator cannot be held responsible for the contents of any linked sites or any link contained in a linked site, or changes / updates to such sites. All materials on this website is for Educational Purposes ONLY. If you’re member of any anti-piracy, government, corporation or related group or organization (including, but not limited to, Microsoft, Template Monster, IPB/Invision Power/vBulletin/Jelsoft, FBI, Epic Mega Games, Orange Studios, etc.) you cannot enter this site and view any of site contents. If you are unsure, email : (insert admin's email here) asking for access before entering. If you enter this site and do not agree with current terms you can not provide any treatment of our hosting ISPs, organization or any persons storing this site information because your actions will be estimated as violation code no. 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act from 1995.

I believe that YES you very well COULD upload jj2. That would never happen though and I don't really think it should since all the pirates would be downloading from here in a heartbeat. It wouldn't be right to do that since people would be downloading instead of paying epic it might even be thought of as stealing from Epic. I just wanted to make it clear that jj2 CAN be put up for download it's just immoral and I wouldn't dare do it out of moral values. But I think it could be done. :/

*waits for FQuist to tell us he dun it*

...lol...

LOL! like that'll ever happen.

Do NOT download any hosted files if you do NOT own the original CD.

I'm sure everyone will heed that message.

Disclaimers and License agreements are there to remain unread. Have you ever read the EULA of any program you wanted to install?

no...LOL!

I copied and pasted one once for a product of mine lol. I didn't even read it. I just did a search for their product's name and replaced it with that of my own and changed the first couple of sentences to make it say that it's freeware. But never actually read past the intro ROFL!

Zinster says

CENSORED , we don't hold responsibility over them tho the only one who does is the downloader them self the iso's are strictly for backup copy's only , so don't go reporting , because chances are very high that there all found the web

lol a guy from my website put this

I think this is the best excuse ever XD

ROFL zinster is THE MAN!

He holds a good point too.