Abandonware now made legal...sorta.
Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:24 pm
Interesting news post from Yahoo/Classicgaming:
In a striking move, the US Copyright Office (together with the approval of the Library of Congress) has decided to legalize abandonware. As Yahoo reports:
He (Billington) granted two exemptions dealing with computer obsolescence. For computer software and video games that require machines no longer available, copy-protection controls may be circumvented for archival purposes. Locks on computer programs also may be broken if they require dongles — small computer attachments — that are damaged and can't be replaced.
Before you get to excited though, there is a catch - you have to be a library or archive. As the actual Copyright Office statement presents:
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Now what is actually considered abandonware? Is CD-i abandonware?
In a striking move, the US Copyright Office (together with the approval of the Library of Congress) has decided to legalize abandonware. As Yahoo reports:
He (Billington) granted two exemptions dealing with computer obsolescence. For computer software and video games that require machines no longer available, copy-protection controls may be circumvented for archival purposes. Locks on computer programs also may be broken if they require dongles — small computer attachments — that are damaged and can't be replaced.
Before you get to excited though, there is a catch - you have to be a library or archive. As the actual Copyright Office statement presents:
2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Now what is actually considered abandonware? Is CD-i abandonware?