a public domain for games

[Wintermoot]

I have been thinking and I thought it was a good idea to make games that have been out of print (and legit download) for 10+ years should become available for free my argument is that publisher wouldn't care about these games anyway (or they should have released them anyway)
what are the escapists thought about this?

 

[ddq5]

1) Grammar. Capitalization and punctuation are your friend.
2) 10 years is almost certainly way too short, I've bought games older than that and the publishers still got the money.
3) The actual legal meaning of "public domain" is fairly well-defined, I believe. Works enter the public domain X years after certain things such as the author's death, initial publication, etc. I'm no lawyer and do not know the details, but there is a legal definition for things such as this, though I don't know if it actually applies to video games.

 

[Wintermoot]

1) Grammar. Capitalization and punctuation are your friend.
2) 10 years is almost certainly way too short, I've bought games older than that and the publishers still got the money.
3) The actual legal meaning of "public domain" is fairly well-defined, I believe. Works enter the public domain X years after certain things such as the author's death, initial publication, etc. I'm no lawyer and do not know the details, but there is a legal definition for things such as this, though I don't know if it actually applies to video games.

as far as I know there aren't any laws about stuff like this with video games if you where to pirate let,s say Pong for the Atari 2600 (which was released in the 70,s) it still count,s as illegal.
I thought it was a good idea to use last moment of publication as a starting point.

 

[Caffeine Rage]

The term you're looking for is abadonware. Abandonware are old games which has been either abandoned by their developer or their developer has long since gone out of business.

Of course, since rights for games can change hands without public knowledge when a company goes under, the legality of such sites are often in question.

 

[Caffeine Rage]

Sorry, my connection freaked out and made a double post.

 

[Wintermoot]

The term you're looking for is abadonware. Abandonware are old games which has been either abandoned by their developer or their developer has long since gone out of business.

Of course, since rights for games can change hands without public knowledge when a company goes under, the legality of such sites are often in question.

wouldn't it make sense to release it to the public it would be a shame if nobody could ever see the hard work.