Abandonware is software, typically computer or video games, that is no longer for sale (by conventional means) or supported by the creator. In many cases the abandoned software was distributed by websites, such as warez, for free. The use of the "abandonware" term is controversial, as distributing out of print software and games is still considered software piracy, and their copyright is not actually abandoned. Some publishers actively file Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns of abandonware and defend its copyright, while others do not. Meanwhile, some video game historians believe that this distribution is justified to preserve history given the lack of viable alternatives.
Implications If a software product reaches end-of-life and becomes abandonware, users are confronted with several potential problems: missing purchase availability (besides used software) and missing technical support, e.g. compatibility fixes for newer hardware and operating systems. These problems are exacerbated if software is bound to physical media with a limited life-expectancy (floppy disks, optical media etc.) and backups are impossible because of copy protection or copyright law. If a software is distributed only in a digital, DRM-locked form or as SaaS, the shutdown of the servers will lead to a public loss of the software. If the software product is without alternatives, the missing replacement availability becomes a challenge for continued software usage.
Once a software product becomes abandonware, there is a high risk that the source code becomes lost or irrecoverable even for its original developers, as multiple cases have shown.
One of many examples is the closure of Atari in Sunnyvale, California in 1996, when the original source codes of several milestones of video game history (such as Asteroids and Centipede) were thrown out as trash, some of which were later recovered. After the closure of Tapulous, Tap Tap Revenge became abandonware. There is also no way to retrieve the source code due to the app being sandboxed, thus making preserving it borderline impossible.
Unavailability of software and the associated source code can also be a hindrance for software archaeology and research.
Response to abandonware
Early abandonware websites As response to the missing availability of abandonware, people have distributed old software since shortly after the beginning of personal computing, but the activity remained low-key until the advent of the Internet. While trading old games has taken many names and forms, the term "abandonware" was coined by Peter Ringering in late 1996. Ringering found classic game websites similar to his own, contacted their webmasters, and formed the original Abandonware Ring in February 1997. This original webring was little more than a collection of sites linking to adventureclassicgaming.com. Another was a site indexing them all to provide a rudimentary search facility. In October 1997, the Interactive Digital Software Association sent cease and desist letters to all sites within the Abandonware Ring, which led to most shutting down. An unintended consequence was that it spurred others to create new abandonware sites and organizations that came to outnumber the original Ring members. Sites formed after the demise of the original Abandonware Ring include Abandonia, Bunny Abandonware and Home of the Underdogs. In later years abandonware websites actively acquired and received permissions from developers and copyright holders (e.g. Jeff Minter, Magnetic Fields or Gremlin Interactive) for legal redistribution of abandoned works;[ an example is World of Spectrum who acquired the permission from many developers and successfully retracted a DMCA case.ARCHIVE - COPYRIGHTS AND DISTRIBUTION PERMISSIONS on worldofspectrum.org "Cases filed against World of Spectrum: IDSA / DMCA #922932 (14/2/2003 - result: case retracted)"
Archives
Several websites archive abandonware for download, including old versions of applications that are difficult to find by any other means. Much of this software fits the definition of "software that is no longer current, but is still of interest", but the line separating the use and distribution of abandonware from copyright infringement is blurry, and the term abandonware could be used to distribute software without proper notification of the owner.
The Internet Archive has created an archive of what it describes as "vintage software", as a way to preserve them. The project advocated for an exemption from the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act to permit them to bypass copy protection, which was approved in 2003 for a period of three years. The exemption was renewed in 2006, and , has been indefinitely extended pending further rulemakings. The Archive does not offer this software for download, as the exemption is solely "for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive." Nevertheless, in 2013 the Internet Archive began to provide antique games as browser-playable emulation via MESS, for instance the Atari 2600 game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Since 23 December 2014 the Internet Archive presents via a browser based DOSBox emulation thousands of archived DOS/PC gamescollection:softwarelibrary_msdos in the Internet Archive (December 29, 2014) for "scholarship and research purposes only".
Starting around 2006, the Library of Congress began the long-time preservation of video games with the game canon list. In September 2012 the collection had nearly 3,000 games from many platforms and also around 1,500 strategy guides. For instance, the source code of the unreleased PlayStation Portable game Duke Nukem: Critical Mass was discovered in August 2014 to be preserved at the Library of Congress.
Since around 2009 the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG) has taken a five-pronged approach to video game preservation: original software and hardware, marketing materials and publications, production records, play capture, and finally the source code. In December 2013 the ICHEG received a donation of several SSI video games, for instance Computer Bismarck, including the source code for preservation. In 2014 a collection of Broderbund games and a "virtually complete" Atari arcade machine source code and asset collection was added.A Museum Just Acquired 22 Pallets of Atari History on giantbomb.com by Patrick Klepek (April 30, 2014)
Community support In response to the missing software support, sometimes the software's user community begins to provide support (bug fixes, compatibility adaptions etc.) even without available source code, internal software documentation and original developer tools. Methods are debugging, reverse engineering of file and data formats, and hacking the binary executables. Often the results are distributed as unofficial patches. Notable examples are Fallout 2, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines or even Windows 98. Windows XP would also get a community support via unofficial service pack, with POSReady registry hack, as well as Windows 2000 receiving a fanmade extended kernel For instance, in 2012, when the multiplayer game Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance became unsupported abandonware as the official multiplayer server and support was shut down, the game community itself took over with a self-developed multiplayer server and client.
Re-releases by digital distribution With the new possibility of digital distribution arising in mid-2000, the commercial distribution for many old titles became feasible again as deployment and storage costs dropped significantly. A digital distributor specialized in bringing old games out of abandonware is GOG.com (formerly called Good Old Games) who started in 2008 to search for copyright holders of classic games to release them legally and DRM-free again. For instance, on December 9, 2013, the real-time strategy video game Conquest: Frontier Wars was, after ten years of non-availability, re-released by gog.com, also including the source code.
Arguments for distribution From proponents Proponents of abandonware preservation argue that it is more ethical to make copies of such software than new software that still sells. Some have incorrectly taken this to mean that abandonware is legal to distribute, although no software written since 1964 is old enough for copyright to have expired in the US. Even in cases where the original company no longer exists, the rights usually belong to someone else, though no one may be able to trace actual ownership, including the owners themselves.
Abandonware advocates also frequently cite historical preservation as a reason for trading abandoned software. Older computer media are fragile and prone to rapid deterioration, necessitating transfer of these materials to more modern, stable media and generation of many copies to ensure the software will not simply disappear. Users of still-functional older computer systems argue for the need of abandonware because re-release of software by copyright holders will most likely target modern systems or incompatible media instead, preventing legal purchase of compatible software.
From game developers with sympathy with abandonware Some game developers showed sympathy for abandonware websites as they preserve their classical game titles.
Law In most cases, software classed as abandonware is not in the public domain, as it has never had its original copyright officially revoked and some company or individual may still own rights. While sharing of such software is usually considered copyright infringement, in practice copyright holders rarely enforce their abandonware copyrights for a number of reasons – chiefly among which the software is technologically obsolete and therefore has no commercial value, therefore rendering copyright enforcement a pointless enterprise. By default, this may allow the product to de facto lapse into the public domain to such an extent that enforcement becomes impractical.
Rarely has any abandonware case gone to court, but it is still unlawful to distribute copies of old copyrighted software and games, with or without compensation, in any Berne Convention signatory country.
Enforcement of copyright Old copyrights are usually left undefended. This can be due to intentional non-enforcement by owners due to software age or obsolescence, but sometimes results from a corporate copyright holder going out of business without explicitly transferring ownership, leaving no one aware of the right to defend the copyright.
Even if the copyright is not defended, copying of such software is still unlawful in most jurisdictions when a copyright is still in effect. Abandonware changes hands on the assumption that the resources required to enforce copyrights outweigh benefits a copyright holder might realize from selling software licenses. Additionally, abandonware proponents argue that distributing software for which there is no one to defend the copyright is morally acceptable, even where unsupported by current law. Companies that have gone out of business without transferring their copyrights are an example of this; many hardware and software companies that developed older systems are long since out of business and precise documentation of the copyrights may not be readily available.
Often the availability of abandonware on the Internet is related to the willingness of copyright holders to defend their copyrights. For example, unencumbered games for Colecovision are markedly easier to find on the Internet than unencumbered games for Mattel Intellivision in large part because there is still a company that sells Intellivision games while no such company exists for the Colecovision.
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