Abandoned Software

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LeonardoArruda

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I made a topic about piracy/stealing, but i got another question that wont fit on that post.
(there is a post called “Abandonware Question” already but that’s not what i want to discuss)

What if i cannot pay for the software at all? there is one website that gives you (for free) softwares that cannot be bougth anymore, i love when i buy something and that money goes to the creator but some cases where the company/creator is dead and i dont even have the option to seek the product on a webstore.

Would THAT be stealing? i mean piracy is stealing (therefore is wrong) but what if there is no way for me to buy the thing?
Piracy is wrong becuse the creators dont get the money for their work, rigth?
 
LeonardoArruda said:
What if i cannot pay for the software at all? there is one website that gives you (for free) softwares that cannot be bougth anymore, i love when i buy something and that money goes to the creator but some cases where the company/creator is dead and i dont even have the option to seek the product on a webstore.
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If it’s abandoned, the owner has constructively given up his or her expectations of payment. It’s not stealing.
 
I like to think about this as:
An ice-cream truck stops by my house, i can buy the ice-cream (wich is good) or i can steal it (wich is bad), but what if the ice-cream truck just fell of a cliff and the ice-cream man is dead? the icecream is rigth in front of me and even if i put my money on his pocket it wont matter.
 
LeonardoArruda said:
even if i put my money on his pocket it wont matter.
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Well, in that scenario he presumably has family who should inherit his money. Robbing a corpse isn’t a great move.

I’d think of it more like this. I know you’re not in the US, but here people sometimes want to get rid of something that’s still usable, so they’ll put it on the sidewalk in front of their house with a sign marked “free.” In that scenario, the owner has signaled that they’re giving up their rights in the thing and it’s free to anyone who wants it.

In this scenario, if it’s a piece of old software that the company (or its successor) has signaled it has no interest in anymore, it’s not stealing.
 
I sometimes play Dos games on archives.org, a lot of those games were shareware to begin with, i.e., they’ve always been free.
 
Not sold anywhere, i would love to buy it but no one is selling it becuse the company/studio went bankrupt, yet the archive is available for free in a certain website that offers software like that.
 
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