MoO on GOG!!!

Flop said:
Yeah, and Master of Magic on thursday. :)

I always ponder why there has been never a sequel of this game. *sigh* Well today they would make a shooter out of it anyway.
 
Ratty said:
Breaking news! Abandonware title now sold on GOG!

Abandonware is not a legal term. Downloading MoO2 is still piracy, even if the developer is defunct. I like that I can now download MoO2 from a safe and trusted source, complete with the soundtrack.
 
Downloading abandonware titles is piracy in the same way going through the contents of a public landfill is theft. If a digital product is unattainable legally and the company that created it no longer exists, then it is irrational to perceive any moral or legal wrongs in the act of downloading such a product. There is a good reason why abandoned titles are so widely available on the Internet, not just on P2P networks, but also on regular, legitimate websites like Abandonia.

As for Good Old Games being "safe and trusted"... lulz. Are you aware that GOG use scene cracks to remove copy protection from games they distribute [ref]? That's real professionalism, there. If anything, I would qualify GOG as abandonware trolls, who pick up abandoned titles, sell them at a low, but non-negligible price and then leave actual abandonware providers in a legal bind and often forced to remove games from their offering. So now abandonware games which were freely available for years can all of a sudden only be obtained from GOG at a cost. Why? Did GOG develop those games? No. Then how come they get to profit from them? Because of flawed and dysfunctional copyright laws, that's how.
 
Ratty said:
So now abandonware games which were freely available for years can all of a sudden only be obtained from GOG at a cost. Why? Did GOG develop those games? No. Then how come they get to profit from them? Because of flawed and dysfunctional copyright laws, that's how.

Actually, it's because GOG made a deal with Atari (in this particular case) to sell the game. I'm assuming Atari is getting paid.

I agree that current copyright laws are flawed and dysfunctional, though.
 
Ratty said:
Downloading abandonware titles is piracy in the same way going through the contents of a public landfill is theft. If a digital product is unattainable legally and the company that created it no longer exists, then it is irrational to perceive any moral or legal wrongs in the act of downloading such a product. There is a good reason why abandoned titles are so widely available on the Internet, not just on P2P networks, but also on regular, legitimate websites like Abandonia.

Not really. Just because the companies are long defunct, doesn't mean you are in any way entitled to pirating their game.

Plus, the argument is moot for MoO2, since the game's been available from Atari's website. So downloading it is theft.

As for Good Old Games being "safe and trusted"... lulz. Are you aware that GOG use scene cracks to remove copy protection from games they distribute [ref]? That's real professionalism, there.

The problem here is that cracks aren't legal to start with, as they modify the software provided in ways not permitted by the licence.

I see no problem with the owners taking and using modified versions of their own programs. It's still their executable, adding or removing from it doesn't change the ownership.

And no, crackers don't have the right to a refund. What they did is considered illegal by both EU and US law and illegal activites are not rewarded.

If anything, I would qualify GOG as abandonware trolls, who pick up abandoned titles, sell them at a low, but non-negligible price and then leave actual abandonware providers in a legal bind and often forced to remove games from their offering.

Not really. Abandonware "providers" were never actually permitted to host the titles in question, they just exploit the fact that no one has sent them a cease & desist yet.

So now abandonware games which were freely available for years can all of a sudden only be obtained from GOG at a cost. Why? Did GOG develop those games? No. Then how come they get to profit from them? Because of flawed and dysfunctional copyright laws, that's how.

They get to profit for them because they bought the license to release them from the IP owner. Simple as that.

Also, read the rest of that Codex thread. It's quite enlightening, Plus, my favourite line about "stealing" cracks:

It's a bit like a bad drug deal. You [crackers] can't call the police if someone steals your crack.
 
Tagaziel said:
So downloading it is theft.

Downloading is NOT and WILL NEVER be theft.
Downloading is copying information. It has nothing to do with the act of depriving someone of a physical object he owned.
Stop repeating what the majors and publishers hammer into your brain throughout all the media.

Also, fuck the RIAA.
 
Arr0nax said:
Tagaziel said:
So downloading it is theft.

Downloading is NOT and WILL NEVER be theft.
Downloading is copying information. It has nothing to do with the act of depriving someone of a physical object he owned.
Stop repeating what the majors and publishers hammer into your brain throughout all the media.

Also, fuck the RIAA.

You forgot the "MAAAAAAAAAAAAAN" at the end there.
 
I think you need to have another look at the definition of "theft", Arronax.

Intellectual property is hardly an idea "hammered into our brains through the media".
 
You may have heard that when violation of Intellectual Property is involved we have created other words (plagiarism, infringement), and this precisely to avoid doing such stupid confusions as assimiling *illegal* copy to theft.
Tip : Theft contains the notion of deprivation, whereas copying does not.
I'm not a lawyer, but I guess in law theft is not mentioned a single time to qualify copyright infringement.
The only place it has been used is in stupid RIAA financed anti-piracy commercials. ("Would you STEAL a CAR ????")
So yes, I maintain my words.

Also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft
 
Kind of surprised to see myself agreeing with Arr0nax and disagreeing with so many NMAers, but here goes... it baffles me that downloading an admittedly illegal (though Abandonware is only barely illegal and only because of our incredibly flawed copyright laws) copy of a program is called "theft." How is it theft? Only in the sense that they are losing money that would have been paid for that particular copy by you -- and even, that's assuming you would have bought it if you hadn't downloaded. Unlikely, for the most part.

Not that I'm endorsing piracy, btw -- it's bad and hurts the gaming industry as a whole. Abandonware, however, should be legal. If a company's not selling it (or supporting it), why should it cease to exist?

Also, because I remember seeing it somewhere but can't remember where, it should be criminal for a company to try to sell games released before Windows 95 and not updated since (and, by extension, no longer compatible with a reasonably modern operating system or even computer without serious know-how and effort) at all, let alone for over $10. I want to say it was id with old Doom games, but I'm not sure -- it was someone, lol.

Oh yeah: I have to agree, fuck the RIAA. + You're so clever, Professor. "Omg gd hipys!"
Edit: Also, high-five, Ratty.
 
Tagaziel said:
Not really. Just because the companies are long defunct, doesn't mean you are in any way entitled to pirating their game.
Oh, yeah? Who will stop me? The ghost of the defunct company? I could climb on top of the Eiffel tower and shout about all the abandonware games I "pirated", and other than a potential public disturbance charge, not a damn thing would happen to me, legally speaking. Why? Because nobody cares. Because there is nobody around to enforce that copyright. Because there is nobody around to profit from that copyright. Because if I hadn't downloaded those games from abandonware sites, I wouldn't have been able to obtain them at all.

Plus, the argument is moot for MoO2, since the game's been available from Atari's website. So downloading it is theft.
Fair enough, though technically that means MoO2 is not abandonware at all. By definition, abandonware titles are not available legally, or their availability is very limited.

The problem here is that cracks aren't legal to start with, as they modify the software provided in ways not permitted by the licence.

I see no problem with the owners taking and using modified versions of their own programs. It's still their executable, adding or removing from it doesn't change the ownership.

And no, crackers don't have the right to a refund. What they did is considered illegal by both EU and US law and illegal activites are not rewarded.
You missed my point by a parsec. My point is that the "safe and trusted" GOG is peddling scene releases. That presumably means that Razor 1911, DEViANCE, Fairlight and RELOADED should also be counted among safe and trusted sources, not to mention various abandonware sites like Abandonia and HotU, which are certainly a notch or two above the aforementioned groups in terms of legitimacy. Which begs the question - why consider GOG safer or more trustworthy than other abandonware providers?

Not really. Abandonware "providers" were never actually permitted to host the titles in question, they just exploit the fact that no one has sent them a cease & desist yet.
In most cases there is nobody around to give the permission. In the remainder, the parties which technically own the copyright refrain from sending cease & desist letters because they have no intention, perhaps even no ability, to exploit the digital product in question. If anything, the fiasco with GOG distributing scene releases indicates that these companies have no one on hand who would be able to recompile the executables without copy protection or for new system architectures, and may not even possess the original source code at all. It is therefore dubious if any of these games would ever be played by anyone again if it weren't for the efforts of the abandonware scene.

They get to profit for them because they bought the license to release them from the IP owner. Simple as that.
Like I said. Flawed. Dysfunctional.
 
Ratty said:
Oh, yeah? Who will stop me? The ghost of the defunct company? I could climb on top of the Eiffel tower and shout about all the abandonware games I "pirated", and other than a potential public disturbance charge, not a damn thing would happen to me, legally speaking. Why? Because nobody cares. Because there is nobody around to enforce that copyright. Because there is nobody around to profit from that copyright. Because if I hadn't downloaded those games from abandonware sites, I wouldn't have been able to obtain them at all.

It's about standards. You're either a decent person and admit you're illegally downloading software copies (whether or not you can procure them legally is irrelevant) or you're an ass and continue to consider yourself entitled to games.

Remember, games aren't a necessity.

Fair enough, though technically that means MoO2 is not abandonware at all. By definition, abandonware titles are not available legally, or their availability is very limited.

Which invalidates your entire rant in the first place, rodent. ;P


You missed my point by a parsec. My point is that the "safe and trusted" GOG is peddling scene releases. That presumably means that Razor 1911, DEViANCE, Fairlight and RELOADED should also be counted among safe and trusted sources, not to mention various abandonware sites like Abandonia and HotU, which are certainly a notch or two above the aforementioned groups in terms of legitimacy. Which begs the question - why consider GOG safer or more trustworthy than other abandonware providers?

Let's see: because they have the IP owner's permission and get the files for release from them? Because they check their releases for any malware? Not to mention that the only thing that was used was the modified .exe. All there is to it.

Really, you must have a lot of bad faith to assume that just because GOG used a crack to defeat the Securom on Arcanum's executable (to which they are entitled, by the way), that means the entire release comes from a torrent.

Besides, GOG is funded by the biggest publisher in Poland. It's not a stretch to assume that they have, y'know, anti-virus and anti-malware scanners to make sure nothing bad gets released.







In most cases there is nobody around to give the permission. In the remainder, the parties which technically own the copyright refrain from sending cease & desist letters because they have no intention, perhaps even no ability, to exploit the digital product in question. If anything, the fiasco with GOG distributing scene releases indicates that these companies have no one on hand who would be able to recompile the executables without copy protection or for new system architectures, and may not even possess the original source code at all. It is therefore dubious if any of these games would ever be played by anyone again if it weren't for the efforts of the abandonware scene.

Nice hyperbole. There's no fiasco. The mechanism for defeating DRM is now known. Is it a big deal? No. The companies in question already have the right to publish modified .exes from their games, as software reverse engineering is illegal and any modified copies automatically become the property of the IP owner (or rather, don't stop belonging to him).

Also, you're overestimating the abandonware scene. Really, if writing a crack for a game was that hard, there wouldn't be half the number of cracks floating around on the Internet.

Like I said. Flawed. Dysfunctional.

But it works.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to enjoy my dirt cheap, one-click-to-play GOGames.
 
My first copy of MoO2 was some horribly disfigured scene rip that made the game nearly unplayable due to it crashing every 15 minutes. It had no movies, no music and some animations were cut out. Good times, good times.

Hell, i think i even have that CD tucked away somewhere (it also has SWOS 95/96, Tunnel B1, Dune 2, Baldies, and something i can't quite remember on it). I'm tempted to sift through all my shit just so i could hug it affectionately, for bringing joy to my dark, malicious, thieving, criminal heart. :V
 
Tagaziel said:
It's about standards. You're either a decent person and admit you're illegally downloading software copies (whether or not you can procure them legally is irrelevant) or you're an ass and continue to consider yourself entitled to games.
Stop right there. You are equating legality with morality. Ask yourself this - if people started downloading abandonware games en masse, what negative consequences would that have? I can't think of any. On the other hand, I can think of considerable beneficial effects, as continuing interest might encourage revival of the franchise with sequels and remakes. For example, I have no doubt that abandonware community greatly contributed to enduring popularity of the X-Com series, so thanks to them Irrational is now working on ano- ...

Oh, wait. Fuck.

I concede this point to you.

Which invalidates your entire rant in the first place, rodent. ;P
There are plenty other valid examples on GOG, feline.

Let's see: because they have the IP owner's permission and get the files for release from them? Because they check their releases for any malware? Not to mention that the only thing that was used was the modified .exe. All there is to it.

Really, you must have a lot of bad faith to assume that just because GOG used a crack to defeat the Securom on Arcanum's executable (to which they are entitled, by the way), that means the entire release comes from a torrent.

Besides, GOG is funded by the biggest publisher in Poland. It's not a stretch to assume that they have, y'know, anti-virus and anti-malware scanners to make sure nothing bad gets released.
I too doubt GOG would let any malware slip into their releases. That would take some epic ineptitude, and GOG are anything but epic. But still, the fact that they have to rely on scene cracks to make those games playable casts some doubt on professionalism of their operation. Who's to say that GOG aren't two guys sitting on a pile of pirated games in their basement?

Also, you're overestimating the abandonware scene. Really, if writing a crack for a game was that hard, there wouldn't be half the number of cracks floating around on the Internet.
Don't let the volume of cracks fool you - it is a result of the fact that many games use a similar or identical copy protection scheme, so once you've cracked one, you can easily crack them all. That doesn't change the fact that cracking is pretty fucking hard, as it involves assembler programming and modifying binary executables. You can be sure that crackers are all very bright individuals. One might say they are wasting their considerable skills and intellect on developing cracks for the benefit on self-serving, ungrateful slobs like us.

Well, like me.

Minor nitpick: warez scene isn't the same as abandonware scene. The latter isn't very well known for cracking feats.
 
Arr0nax said:
Tagaziel said:
So downloading it is theft.

Downloading is NOT and WILL NEVER be theft.
Downloading is copying information. It has nothing to do with the act of depriving someone of a physical object he owned.
Stop repeating what the majors and publishers hammer into your brain throughout all the media.

Also, fuck the RIAA.
You cant be serious right.

Why dont you think for a minute how selling products works. Even software if not in physical form present can be stolen.
 
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