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GOG.com

Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
3,821
I hate rodents. Who gives a shit about Mickey Mouse? But I see your point besides the rat filthy vermin lord of Disney.
Disney do. They have nothing else. Disney has a history of being very preoccupied to bend and break the laws about copyright in their favor. They've lobbied hard. Ironically Disney's success is owed to them adapting stories they stole from other countries.
 

KafkaBot

Scholar
Joined
May 4, 2016
Messages
397
chad-marauder.png
Lol, do you really think telling people to patch a Dreamcast ISO is being an apologist?
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,713
The only way emulation can be legal in the strictest sense, is if a full reform of the copyright system is esablished. A bill was proposed last year, to reduce copyright terms back to 28 years in the U.S. With a 28 year extension applicable with a fee. When patents on technology and medications expire after 20 years, there is no reason why the copyright on Mickey fucking Mouse had to last nearly a full century.
Emulation is only illegal if you use something copyrighted. That's why DOSbox is with a million games on GOG and Steam but WinUAE isn't. The former uses no DOS code, but you need BIOS files for the latter. Microsoft isn't being asked for permission for each game with DOSbox, hell, they don't even need to ask DOSbox for permission. You're doing nothing illegal by buying a game that comes with DOSbox. You're doing nothing illegal by downloading DOSbox and then downloading shareware/freeware games and playing it, or a physical game you own.
 

Maxie

Wholesome Chungus
Patron
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 13, 2021
Messages
8,258
Location
Warszawa, PL
Beware of Colonel Sanders news: (prolly applies to gog too)


17.3 It seems very unlikely, but if we have to stop providing access to GOG services and GOG content permanently (not because of any breach by you), we will try to give you at least sixty (60) days advance notice by posting a note on www.GOG.COM and sending an email to every registered user – during that time you should be able to download any GOG content you purchased.

https://af.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog&as=1649904300
 

JC'sBarber

Educated
Joined
Sep 14, 2024
Messages
144
I hope this dispels the myth that people have regarding Steam, Valve, and the bizarre "teddy bear" image they have of Gabe Newell. I say that because the discourse surrounding the man was always one of abject positivity and wholesomeness, like he could do no wrong and was on the side of gamers from the beginning.

He is a business man, who used to work at Microsoft no less. He's not your friend or your ally, and likely doesn't care about video games the way a gamer would. He's probably a technology and programming guy, which is why Half-Life was a rather standard first-person shooter, that innovated with it's narrative elements and not it's gameplay. Half-Life 2 even moreso. Their most innovative titles didn't even come from within Valve, but external developers they partnered with and ultimately bought or hired on to the company after the fact. Like Left 4 Dead and Portal. He even runs Valve like some hippie commune, where people can just do whatever they want when they want. And surprise, surprise, Valve hadn't released a damn game in nearly a decade.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,713
Return of the Phantom is currently free, direct link for your convenience:
https://af.gog.com/en/#giveaway?as=1649904300

Game page:
https://af.gog.com/en/game/return_of_the_phantom?as=1649904300
The story of this was was kind of interesting, and they did a pretty good job setting up the environment of the place, but the puzzles range from so easy your grandma is complaining to a nightmare that never ends.
There's a maze near the end of the game that you have to map out, because at the very end there's this area where you enter a room with four doors, and you have to find your way out through a maze of the exact same room. IDK if I'm explaining it right, but it was awful.
 

SilentMRG

Educated
Joined
Nov 27, 2023
Messages
110
Location
South America
I would say that it is not "piracy", as "piracy" it is illegal trade. The correct term would be "fair use" or "abandonware". In fact, I was already kicked off the GOG forums once when I posted a link to download fully functional GTA 1, which was freeware a few years ago.

Users in general were completely hostile towards the publication of the link, which could be called false moralism. Anyway, it's good to see that users here react in a friendly way to these things. :)
The dudes on Gog are a bunch of pansy asses.
Why did they get so hostile because you posted a fucking freeware version of GTA 1?
It's certainly nothing felonious.
As I said in my other post, GTA 1 was freeware many years ago (I can't tell you when exactly), but at some point it stopped being freeware, at least that's what can be deduced, as Rockstar no longer offers it for download for free, however, it is also not for sale, in other words, it's a mystery whether it is or not is freeware in 2024.

Anyway, the fagots at GOG got angry because they claim that GTA 1 is not freeware, and they got even more angry because what I posted was not the freeware version, but rather a package containing GTA 1 and the expansions with fan patches and 100% functional on modern PCs. The claim from those crazy bimbos was that I was spreading "obscure malware", so they started shouting at the administration that the package should be removed because it "brought risk to the site and blah blah blah..."
Fun fact: The guy who made this package posted it on the GTA forums, and no one complained about anything there, they just thanked him.

By the way, if you're interested, look for Grand Theft Auto - Ready2Play. :-D
 

SilentMRG

Educated
Joined
Nov 27, 2023
Messages
110
Location
South America
I would say that it is not "piracy", as "piracy" it is illegal trade. The correct term would be "fair use" or "abandonware". In fact, I was already kicked off the GOG forums once when I posted a link to download fully functional GTA 1, which was freeware a few years ago.

Users in general were completely hostile towards the publication of the link, which could be called false moralism. Anyway, it's good to see that users here react in a friendly way to these things. :)
Abandonware is not a real legal term but an excuse for people to pirate stuff without guilt. On the other hand free use is a legal term, but it has to be established beforehand. Companies don't know how to handle copyright though. This happens because everything's owned by a third party made up of moneybags kinda people. Your publishers.
For the record, the guy on the website I mentioned usually takes down links when games are released/re-released on GOG, Steam or any other digital store. So what he does there is "fair use" of a handful of intellectual properties that are not generating revenue for anyone.
 
Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
3,821
I would say that it is not "piracy", as "piracy" it is illegal trade. The correct term would be "fair use" or "abandonware". In fact, I was already kicked off the GOG forums once when I posted a link to download fully functional GTA 1, which was freeware a few years ago.

Users in general were completely hostile towards the publication of the link, which could be called false moralism. Anyway, it's good to see that users here react in a friendly way to these things. :)
Abandonware is not a real legal term but an excuse for people to pirate stuff without guilt. On the other hand free use is a legal term, but it has to be established beforehand. Companies don't know how to handle copyright though. This happens because everything's owned by a third party made up of moneybags kinda people. Your publishers.
For the record, the guy on the website I mentioned usually takes down links when games are released/re-released on GOG, Steam or any other digital store. So what he does there is "fair use" of a handful of intellectual properties that are not generating revenue for anyone.
That guy is obligated to do so due to legal teams chasing their asses if they don't do it. It's more about them being tolerated, but if a game gets released they have no way out of this.
 

Lucumo

Educated
Joined
May 9, 2021
Messages
920
As I said in my other post, GTA 1 was freeware many years ago (I can't tell you when exactly), but at some point it stopped being freeware, at least that's what can be deduced, as Rockstar no longer offers it for download for free, however, it is also not for sale, in other words, it's a mystery whether it is or not is freeware in 2024.
It's available on major general computer websites here, so it's very likely still freeware.
 

JC'sBarber

Educated
Joined
Sep 14, 2024
Messages
144
There really should be a law that ratifies "abandonware" as a legal term. If a game is no longer available for official sale anywhere, and is no longer maintained by the original developer, it should be free for public consumption.
 

Melcar

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
36,743
Location
Merida, again
Sometimes they use middleware with licensing issues or use copywritten assets, so even if the original developer wanted to make the game available for free it's not always up to them. In such cases usually you get the source code made available, but you still need the actual game. Sometimes however, it's just companies being dicks (specially if they think they can still make money from it).
 

NecroLord

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Sep 6, 2022
Messages
15,526
There really should be a law that ratifies "abandonware" as a legal term. If a game is no longer available for official sale anywhere, and is no longer maintained by the original developer, it should be free for public consumption.
It already kinda is, just not "officially".
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,713
There really should be a law that ratifies "abandonware" as a legal term. If a game is no longer available for official sale anywhere, and is no longer maintained by the original developer, it should be free for public consumption.
Maybe in the EU. I can't see that happening in the USA. That said, it doesn't really matter in most cases, if it isn't for sale, they're probably not going after people for distributing it. Yeah, you could say that games where a superior Amiga port exists where only a DOS version is available for sale should fall into that category, but that's a weird edge case. There's also the odd case like Cookie's Bustle, but I'm really stretching the amount of things that go against it.
 

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