Deus Ex! Free! Gratis! No charge!

[Jonas]

Ah alright. Thought it might be something like the original GTA games, which are available as freeware.

[AEmer]

As already mentioned in this thread, something is abandonware when the copyright is no longer enforced; it's enforcement has been abandoned.

That is because it is, and always has been, up to any party holding copyright to chase down in court those who commit copyright infringement to get restitution.

This creates a distinct problem: How fast is the copyright holder supposed to react?

Suppose a business starts selling pirated cd for cheap for 5 years time or so, completely ruining any and all business for legit competition, who are then forced to either switch to piracy or close. If the RIAA were allowed to wait it out and simply spent their time documenting the behavrour, they'd eventually be able to reap the huge profits from restitution that would emerge through the likely far greater number of CD's sold by the businesses which had been forced to be illegit.

So the answer then becomes, your forfeit your copyright at the point where your inaction has caused the marketplace to change.

It would depend upon wether you live in an area with retarded copyright law or not, and in some places you could perhaps expect some form or another of restitution from some of the infringing parties if you were late to the game with your civil lawsuit.

But generally speaking, once someone abandons enforcement, at least in the US, it is impossible to resume enforcement.

[Jonas]

Necropost! However, very good point, I like the marketplace changing rule.

[James T]

As already mentioned in this thread, something is abandonware when the copyright is no longer enforced; it's enforcement has been abandoned.

That is because it is, and always has been, up to any party holding copyright to chase down in court those who commit copyright infringement to get restitution.

This creates a distinct problem: How fast is the copyright holder supposed to react?

Suppose a business starts selling pirated cd for cheap for 5 years time or so, completely ruining any and all business for legit competition, who are then forced to either switch to piracy or close. If the RIAA were allowed to wait it out and simply spent their time documenting the behavrour, they'd eventually be able to reap the huge profits from restitution that would emerge through the likely far greater number of CD's sold by the businesses which had been forced to be illegit.

So the answer then becomes, your forfeit your copyright at the point where your inaction has caused the marketplace to change.

It would depend upon wether you live in an area with retarded copyright law or not, and in some places you could perhaps expect some form or another of restitution from some of the infringing parties if you were late to the game with your civil lawsuit.

But generally speaking, once someone abandons enforcement, at least in the US, it is impossible to resume enforcement.

Someone being neglectful of enforcing their copyright probably won't be doing their prospective future lawsuit any favours, but I should note that owners of a copyright aren't legally obligated to enforce it -- trademarks, on the other hand...

[AEmer]

@ Jonas: Yeeah but I had to find some manner or another to do a few interesting replies now that I'm going to hang around for a bit....

@ James: Ah, well that's probably correct...I'm no lawyer. I know that Danish and German Ophavsret can never be lost either (not even sold), but there is regulation that means authors lose distributive control of their work at a certain point.

But ya, I was just arguing the economics of it, and why any copyright will necessarily have limits if it's not enforced so as not to gimp the marketplace

[justanotherfan]

Very interesting point. When a pirate group has no assets, closing them down or suing them is at most a PR stunt and an attempt to realize potential sales. When the pirate group is left to prosper for a time, suddenly there's a profitable entity to sue. The copyright holders can allow the piracy and collect later, without significantly affecting the market price for official sanctioned genuine legal moral supported widgets.

Abandonware tends to get around that, since it's more freely available, and no group is really profiting on it. Same with most copyrighted material on the internet. I'm not sure if it could be argued in the states that if the copyright holder can't stop the unsanctioned distribution, then they're effectively not enforcing it. I know that's the case with trademarks as JamesT said, with companies like Xerox and products like Kleenex (proctor-gamble?) having their trademarks in a gray area they try to defend. I think that when any given thing can be digitized, and distributed for minimal cost, that using copyright laws against an individual is nearly impossible.

Abandonware is legal as long as the copyright owner doesn't care, or the copyright expires. With expiry, in a couple decades we'll be able to legally play blackjack and do trajectory calculations using punchcards. My position on abandonware is that it's a great thing, as long as you don't leave a verifiable record of yourself violating copyright in case the owner one day begins enforcement with crazy future laws. Eg., I paid for a real Deus Ex CD (came bundled with hardware), but even if I didn't have one, I'd say I did on the internet. Disney may some day want copyright infringers shot on site, and whoever will own Eidos' IP then may be crazy.