(Note: This parenthesized portion was written after writing what follows it, and I'd just like to make the comment that you'll find that Veldor's thought and mine somewhat converge, however, as he pointed out, he doesn't seem to be into the personal responsibility angle I've promoted to some extent) Yes, I know, but I'm emphasizing the part the seems to be ignored largely, whereas you feel I ignore the other. No, in fact I believe my view is the predominant one, for bad or good, and with weighing it a bit in a broader scope, which I have done to some extent, I think if the law is interpreted for the benefit of the FREE, to the detriment of the ownership, the suffering will be greater. There's also some question as to what the court would like to call 'free'. If underdogs is making money in some way not directly attributable to the downloads, but wouldn't be making any without them, then certainly some money is being made, or as I would say isn't entirely free, but given how the courts may see things differently A. and B. underdogs specifically is in Singapore, they can do what they please. While I have argued against the idea of taking advantage of their offer on something of the broader legal scope, partially because they are foreign, I also emphasize the wrongness of doing it personally. I understand that there's a difference between something the author is no longer allegedly collecting money for, and something which is currently on the market, however, in both bases as it applies to underdogs, they have no permission whatsoever for the vast majority of what's offered, just like the warez stuff. I have tons of stuff which anyone could lift from me and I'd not otherwise expect to get any money out of it (even vcr tapes of recorded material) but I might be at a loss all the same. I just don't see it consistent with laws against burglary and I think it opens a Pandora's Box in that direction, besides the other points I've already made.However, the term "Fair Use" is used in a much broader way than in the example you have used:
Depends on what the meaning of recently is. I'd say aboput 6-12 months ago, but what's been presented in this thread hasn't been something I haven't heard them say before.have you even visited the underdogs recently?
You keep saying it's been 'abandoned', but apparently if I the author don't want it to be distributed for free it's not abandoned. As well, for the most part it's only being offered for free because the authors haven't even attempted to be contacted and those who have no right to said ownership are dishing it out. You keep assuming, though the court may agree with you later, that none of this has any value becuase it's offered for free and there's not a higher bid marketwise, but that's not very clear thinking. Though the value may be somehwat miniscule, there is still value somewhere, and if the author can't sell it for whatever price he'd want, due to market constraints and what not, therefore from the general public's viewpoint it's not worth what it once was, he can still make something off of it.Number 3 means that 100% of the computer game is being offered. However, in fair use cases the most important factor taken into consideration is number 4. Since the game has been abandoned; since it is being offered free; and since it is not competing with any other similar product; it follows that 3rR has had no impact on the commercial market.
Another example to illustrate: Suppose the author is selling has stuff on EBay, and if not now, could at any time in the future, and as we know with almost all goods, the value can get really good once it becomes rarer. So, can this author make much higher bucks to sentimentalists on EBay, or any value at all, when against his will it's being offered for nothing on every website whatsoever? I mean just because somebody lifts your material and charges nothing for it, and you're not currently making any money off it, doesn't mean you can't. And if the counter-argument goes something like, "Even so, the software is practically worthless now", but that doesn't mean it always will be, but if the item is being given to everyone it'll never be worth anything as long as it's out there like that. If it truly had no value, would people be offering them as downloads? If people are willing to take them for free, they might be willing to give some little something for them anyway, and if they weren't, and the item sat for ages, to be suddenly offered on EBay in some form, the mere non-circulation of the item may bring higher than expected returns.
BTW, I realize that underdogs claims they will take an item off the list if they find out it is being sold somewhere, which though not totally low-life, is pretty bad. Man with those ethics you could put every bit of new software available and if nobody tells you it's on the market, you can get away with it, ya-hoo. Getting back to my EBay scenrio earlier. Do you think underdogs will yank the title if somebody says they saw it on EBay, let's say by the author, for some amount and am getting bids for it? And one day when the author does sell it on EBay, how does underdogs and others compensate him for the money he lost due to their en masse release without permission? And what does underdogs give the guy who bought a bunch of 3R's, but overtime isn't going to get squat for them, or much less in any case, if people can pull this underdogs garbage all the time? There's a lot of things to think about.
As for Matrix doing a remake of a game I didn't like, I say they shouldn't. The only remake I might agree with would be SP, but they've already done that upteen times and rather old stuff that I like, such as WIR, I don't even want them redoing that. I want them to focus on NEW WIR's, NEW PW's, NEW 3R's (if you must), NEW USAAF's. It would help too if the releases took their dear sweet time about coming out too. I'm rather tired of the contest that goes on, like the one that is going on now with my HOI. I see lots of real killer bugs, and so the thing sits. If the thing is too buggy to play, or having not been played, it just sits so long waiting for the golden patch, the anticipation will likely turn to hatred. It could be sort of like when you were fixing to tell somebody something really key, some brilliant moment out of the blue, and then they say to hold the thought and they'll call you back in five minutes. Five minutes becomes five hours, and there delinquent callback finds the idea totally gone, and what's more, anger because they not only cut you off, but also didn't do anything even close to what they promised.
BTW, as far as highjacking the thread goes, this one considered it highjacking to mention where one could free copies without approval of the author (though there must be some that are). As I said before, and I doubt that is the case with this forum, other forums will delete even naming websites that do what underdogs does, including underdogs, and in some cases even result in banning said poster from the board. I know of two forums which are this way, and doubtless there are more. I did noy "highjack" in order to lodge a complaint common to the aforementioned forums, nor do I know if I care for those forums doing that, but know that since this sort of thing is common at other places, when you mention so-called abandonware, much less warez, you're likely to meet opposition, and it's not highjacking to state in some form or another to material that started by the author of this thread himself, your opposition, and hopefully edification of same author.
What would be highjacking, would be if somebody started discussing watching I Love Lucy with no link whatsoever to something anyone said prior and throwing in lots of I.L.L. links and good offers on tee-shirts and such. It was no more highjacking to oppose the idea of this sort of downloading, as it would be for someone to make a thread on porn and then somebody to step in and try to persuade them not to use porn. I understand that allegedly the main thrust wasn't the promoting of underdogs, but when part of your post gets into encouraging that activity, even just to state that you did it yourself, it's not accurate to then label any opposition to it as highjacking. What's more, Von Rom is using screenshots of this so-called abandoned software that he downloaded, as he admitted to it (not expecting opposition probably) to definitely promote something I would say he shouldn't have (legally or otherwise), so the issue of opposing it, as being highjacking, is even less credible.
If you still don't follow my thoughts, consider if I started an anti-underdogs thread right now, which I won't do. Would you consider it "highjacking" to then tell me how it isn't bad or whatever your thoughts running counter to it would be? Neither should anyone consider it highjacking for anyone to say they oppose remakes either. In Von Rom's defense, I will say he clearly didn't expect any opposition, at least not to the underdog matter, but when you touch on such controversial subjects, be that allegedly accidental/coincidental or not, you ought to expect opposition.
