Here's a post I made on the most recent renewal of the DMCA exemption for abandonware - but as Andrew notes, this only applies to libraries/archival institutions:<br><br><a href="http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php">http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php</a><br>
<br>This abandonware question seems to go round and round on the SIG from time to time, and the answer, I think, is simple. Leave the abandonware work to the crazily committed grey market orgs such as TOSEC:<br><br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC</a><br>
<br>For those who haven't seen, it's basically the best index of games with associated ROMs ever created - here's a recent .DAT file:<br><br><a href="http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip">http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip</a><br>
<br>Needless to say, you can find the complete sets on various torrent sites, and I don't really believe they are in danger of being lost. It would be nice for official archives to keep copies of them, but that would mean the archive would have to have physical copies of each of the games, of course.<br>
<br>The problem with abandonware is that many people are willing and happy to stretch the concept of abandonware to any out of print game, no matter if it has commercial value or not.<br><br>So maybe the SIG should cover and even archive the DATs from TOSEC, abstractly. Since that's just metadata. Just no linking to Home Of The Underdogs pages, etc.<br>
<br>s!<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <<a href="mailto:andrew@aarmstrong.org">andrew@aarmstrong.org</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten to put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not more so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up right now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like those :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people contributing there.<br>
<br>
Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)<br>
<br>
And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.<br>
<font color="#888888">
<br>
Andrew</font><div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
<br>
Jim Leonard wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Andrew Armstrong wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames feature articles in the future. I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied. Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.<br>
</blockquote></div><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
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