Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
Public domain games aren't abandoned at all, they are just released to the public - which is the eventual fate of all intellectual property. Copyrights are never eternal.
Abandonware itself, though? I suspect there is no such concept legally. Practically speaking, though, a game can get to the point where a game's owner (if you can even figure out who that is - see No One Lives Forever) is never going to care enough to even speak out against people stealing it from them, never mind prosecuting.
That was definitely an easy state to get to before digital distribution. Stores are not going to take up valuable shelf space to stock a game that didn't sell well 5 years earlier. Now, though, all you have to do is make sure the game can still run on modern systems - and Windows is actually pretty good at making old things run fine. Abandonware is going to start getting pretty rare.
People WILL use it to try and justify piracy, of course. People will use anything to do that. Hey, the CEO of Games4U drives a VW, not an American car! What a slap in the face to the American worker! I'm totally justified when I steal his games!
Abandonware itself, though? I suspect there is no such concept legally. Practically speaking, though, a game can get to the point where a game's owner (if you can even figure out who that is - see No One Lives Forever) is never going to care enough to even speak out against people stealing it from them, never mind prosecuting.
That was definitely an easy state to get to before digital distribution. Stores are not going to take up valuable shelf space to stock a game that didn't sell well 5 years earlier. Now, though, all you have to do is make sure the game can still run on modern systems - and Windows is actually pretty good at making old things run fine. Abandonware is going to start getting pretty rare.
People WILL use it to try and justify piracy, of course. People will use anything to do that. Hey, the CEO of Games4U drives a VW, not an American car! What a slap in the face to the American worker! I'm totally justified when I steal his games!