Warnings:
1. For most of this comment, I will pretend we are all based in the US and those are the only laws that matter.
2. I am quoting people and then responding, please understand that I am not responding to you, but to the comment in general. To put it another way, I may over explain something, or mention something you already know, when I do that, the information should be considered for anyone who did know know this and not as a slight against your knowledge.
3. Please don't insert words like always, I have tried to avoid them. There are always exceptions.
First, I will address some comments from Boogooyagga, who covers most of the issues surrounding this hobby and it's software. I would like to also thank you for posting and I am glad that things got less tense as the thread progressed. I hope you will stay around.
1. There is no legal term known as "abandonware"
Correct. I also doubt there is a legal term known as breathing or "googling", but legality does give or take away somethings existence or meaning. Additionally, there is a term called "Public Domain". Everything under copyright eventually goes there. Copyright is considered legal based on Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution which says: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
What is my point? Copyright is a temporary monopoly granted and supported by the government. it limits the freedom of everyone else in order to promote creation. The owner is given a finite time to control his creation and everyone else is restricted in their right to make a copy. To put it another way, if I wanted to copy a book or painting (by hand or scan), I have this ability, copyright actually removes my freedom to do so, assuming I am not the original creator. This limitation of freedom is generally considered a net positive, since it should encourage people to create.
So, here are some (somewhat rhetorical) thoughts/questions. Are the 95 years currently allowed by copyright outside of the "limited term" purposed by the founding fathers? I would say so. Would most people creating software be deterred if they knew their copyright would expire in say 10 or 15 years? I seriously doubt it, most software does not make profits that long anyway. Everything goes into the Public Domain eventually, but, as we have seen, authors are not always the best stewards of their own software, nor should they have to be. Imagine forcing software authors to either give their software to public domain (upon cession of support) or making sure they can produce said software when the copyright is up. One says you must give it over "early" and the other, well, most companies don't last 95 years and their authors sure as hell won't last to see their work automatically go public.
Where does that leave us? Well, as I have said, copyright restricts freedom of the many for the few, and this is not always a bad thing. Its length means that by the time a more obscure work goes public, it will be long forgotten. The owners of a copyright may either not care, not even know if they own something (banks, etc), or have lost the binary, source or keygen. How can we save these bits of history then? By copying, cracking, keygening, etc. If the users don't, it may well be lost, sadly it often is anyway, especially the source.
So while there my not be a legal term, for the sake of history, freedom and the public domain, it may in some cases, be morally right.
2. The other term used for cracking software is "stealing".
Incorrect. A better term might be circumvention, if you like. Also, sending a copy (cracked or otherwise), is not stealing. The there is a legal term for unauthorized copying, it is called "infringement" and it is most certainly separate from stealing. Sadly, though it is, in my opinion, often a lesser crime, it has a much stronger lobby. So, people will get much larger fines (mostly) or sentences (sometimes) for infringing a song than breaking into my home and physically stealing a CD. That anyone should be put away longer for a copying over a mugging is mind boggling, but it happens. Point here is, cracking != stealing != infringement and mixing these terms is more shock and awe by large copyright holders than legal reality, but I am sure they are working to "fix" it. It is really just a way to make people think something that is morally grey (limiting one person's freedoms for another for the common good) vs one that is morally black (thievery, which has legal and religious ramifications, ie it does not say "you shall not infringe, share, copy, etc", in the 10 commandments ).
3. If the owner of software decides to stop marketing, selling, developing, supporting software which has been produced by them, no one will ever acquire the right to crack that software. It is simply illegal, a federal offence in the USA, and a criminal offence in most states and other countries including the one I live in.
Incorrect. As I mentioned above, everything ends up in the public domain. The only thing that makes "cracking" illegal is the DMCA, and honestly I find that law to be morally questionable ( motivations, effects on freedom/competition), but legally it seems to do everything and more (censorship, incompatibility, vendor lock, etc) than it was intended to do. You might say the the DMCA will make it illegal to ever crack anything, but there exceptions when it comes to libraries, archives, etc and when something is in the public domain, it belongs to everyone so you would only have to give yourself permission to circumvent the protection and all is well.
4. Software sales and support decisions are business decisions. Have a look at how Microsoft and others handle the issue. When software no longer has a market, it is unlikely that a vendor will continue marketing that software. After all, we are in business to make a profit.
Agreed, but some basic level of support would be implied in almost any sale. Sure, Microsoft stops supporting things, but they support things for a very long time, give good warning and generally have an alternative that is still for sale. I would not expect anyone to market something beyond their desire to sell it, but if something is broke and there is no replacement, it would be at the very least polite to fix it. Car makers often have to do recalls or fix things that are not in warranty for safety reasons, yet insecure software has no such requirement. This seems rather broken to me since you can easily replace car parts, but without the source code, fixing software issues can be tedious, at best. Also, software companies seem content to sell things with no intention of support (especially in this hobby), while it's nice to be able to get a copy, paying hundreds for zero support is rough.
5. The source code for software usually consists of several "engines" which are proprietary and used throughout the vendor's entire range of products. In Soft Arts' case for instance, the most valuable asset in the WG portfolio was/stil is a library of C routines which was purchased at the time several modules were acquired. Providing the source code for any module will often require providing at least a part of the source code for the libraries. Not everything of course because of DLLs and the like, but even the provision of compiled binaries requires the disclosure of an API which is valuable to the vendor. In our case, that library became the foundation for other products which are still being sold and supported. It should not be too difficult to understand then why vendors may not wish to provide the source code for programs/modules which are no longer sold.
Agreed, there are many reasons to not open source. The API disclosure comment is weird, I think all APIs need to be pretty open for competition / compatibility reasons and a judge recently ruled (in Oracle vs Google) that an API was not copyrightable. Of course, even releasing part of the source for people to do their own fixes is good, that's even what Galacticomm did with MBBS/Worldgroup and it allowed them to hang onto things they found to be "important" or "core" like the GSBL.
6. The simple fact is also that a vendor who stops selling software is under no obligation to provide the software to the world at large as a sort of consolation. The production or acquisition of software rights is an expensive proposition. Even where a loss is made on a product, companies and businesses may wish to retain the rights to the product because it can be of value as a notional asset in the compilation of a balance sheet, which may have implications for the business' ability to source financing, etc.
Nope, they are not under any obligation, but like I said everything goes into the public domain sometime, it's sometimes just a question of if someone will care enough to preserve it until it does. Of course, releasing source or giving out software does not mean a loss of rights, or even commercial viability. Look at ID Software or the countless companies that dual license their software for free/open and commercial use.
I would argue this is a problem with current copyright not a benefit.
Sorry, this has gone way to long. As for the non-numbered "pro-copy" comments:
People like Rick have put a lot of time/money into preserving this software. The fact that they are still here trying to get this stuff out to the community should be enough to want to support them. I understand that tossing money to someone like Metropolis that seems to have zero intention to support / update you would be lame, but the law is in their favor and it could cause one some trouble. It's probably better to rewrite than toss money at them or try to pry it from their death grip (Gameport types, not Rick types).
Overall:
If something is totally useless (or lost) by the time it hits copyright limits, then the length is too long. If people can't even support each other (patches, even "cracks", etc) when the software company has ceased to support them, we have an issue. The way I see it, companies either need to be compelled, as a requirement of getting a copyright, to support their users or copyright / DMCA needs to be updated to make sure users can support themselves and preserve things for historical purposes. If everyone obeyed these insane laws to the T, not only we would have to keep re-buying the same products over and over at the copyright holder's whim (format changes, auth server removal, etc), but we could look back and find a gap in our media history (music, video games, etc would not be playable anymore if they did not have an "offline mode"). I am grateful for developers that open source their software (mmurdock), people who dig up the rights/source out of passion (rhadsall) and the people who preserve our history in spite of legal complications (MBBS4EVER). All of these things are required to keep these bits of alive. Not everyone can handle unlocking software and if we wait too long, it may be difficult to find someone with the talent or interest.
The laws in their current state encourage hoarding, as was said, for things like "notional asset in the compilation of a balance sheet", patent/copyright trolling or just trying to maintain the status quo. They should encourage innovation, but that is not done by scaring (blackmailing) people with lawsuits, or keeping something proprietary so long that is is obsolete by the time someone else can duplicate it. Closed APIs (possibly patentable), codecs, so forth that stop interoperability don't help and to say we just would not have things like compression, the web, guis, movies, music, book, etc without patents or 95 year copyright is absurd. This should be fixed, until then, creators should treat their customers with respect, and customers should give their hard earned dollars to the respectful companies. If you want something and the creator is not living up to your standard, then find and buy an alternative, if that is impossible, go without or copy. In my opinion, supporting those who support you should be first and foremost, followed by not supporting bad people, and finally at least preserving what has been made.
I'm not recommending what anyone should or shouldn't do, but this is a hobby and people just can't pay the old prices anymore (looking at the Gameports here). Even the companies/people that are left are inconsistent in their support at best (note this website's wiki/mainpage is quite dead atm, only thing slower than Gameport's webpage is their email response, etc). Sure, it can be argued that some of this has to do with the lack of willingness to pay these people, but that is exacerbated by the lack of support, updates, response, solid legal standing, access to code, etc. If someone purchased something today, they could not even be reasonably sure of an email response the next day. Even Rick has sent checks to people to complete a contract / acquisition only to have them drop off the map in that final stage of negotiation.
Some software makers will even be glad to be remembered and others will be glad to find a copy of their software since they lost it in a move, merge, crash, etc.
Thank you to everyone who creates good software.
Thank you to everyone who works to keep the software alive
Thank you to the pirates who will preserve their heritage even if no one else will.
Thank you for all that stuck with me through this post.
I personally believe that it's a niche market that is kind-of protected from the "I want-it-now" volatile generation... About the non-pvp: Losing weeks of playing-time when you're a teenager is no big deal, but this is another story when you have family/job/responsibilities... that position perfectly make sense to me.. And the f2p model apply because players can pay on their own (unlike teens who had to pressurize parents!
), movies, travel, and all those other enjoyable hobbies, I spent on my computers and BBS(s). To exchange information and learn something would be great.