Pirating videogames I already own

[BornInMarch]

I only have this attitude insofar as the authority isn’t asking one to sin.

What if a law isn’t asking you to sin but is asking you to give up a natural right? To use a more extreme example than videogames, suppose the law said people of your skin color could not sit at the front of the bus when people of a different skin color wanted to: would you move to the back on the basis that you didn’t need a front seat?

To be clear, I am not comparing IP laws to segregation. I’m merely trying to make a point about how a law that’s practically easy to follow can still rightfully be disobeyed when it’s a matter of principal.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Abandonware game are 99.9% still copyrighted. " Those ignorant of copyright law have incorrectly taken this to mean that abandonware is legal to distribute, although no software written since 1964 is old enough for copyright to have expired in the US.[82] Even in cases where the original company no longer exists, the rights usually belong to someone else, though no one may be able to trace actual ownership, including the owners themselves. "

It is just people have decided to pirate them. It isn’t really different from pirating a new game, people have just decided a game seems old enough and abandoned to them, so it fine to take.

I have to question this, at least as a practical matter. Now please do not interpret this as saying “you don’t have common sense”, that is not what I am saying, but I think a little common sense comes into play here. If somebody just absolutely abandons something, and it’s clear that they don’t want it, they don’t want to assert ownership of it, unless it is something that has a chain of title (such as a car or real property), then I think we’re on solid ground just to keep it, if it comes into our possession, and if a lost-and-found search could be foreseen either to be futile or more trouble than the thing is worth to anybody. There might be a problem if it were a 50-pound gold nugget, but if it were a trifle, I don’t see a problem.

Example: it’s a small matter, but a few weeks ago, I was driving along the highway and I saw a paint bucket lying by the side of the road. A couple of days passed and I kept seeing it. I needed a bucket like that for my gardening. So I finally pulled my car over and took it. It had dried paint in it, but for my purposes, it was ideal. Possibly it fell off a contractor’s truck and they had no idea they’d lost it, until they got to their destination, and rather than drive miles and miles back over every stretch of road they’d been on that day, they just said “forget it”. I saved probably $4-$5 on what a new bucket would have cost me.

I think games from back in the Stone Age of computing fall more into the category of the old paint bucket. Yes, technically speaking, there is a chain of ownership, a copyright, but where would be the market for such software? Whose while would it ever be worth to assert ownership? It’s called “abandonware” for a reason. I think much of this ancient software would fall into the category of “a trifle”.

Just my two centesimos’ worth.

 

[Inquiry]

I agree, with one significant correction. Take out the ‘where would be the market?’ argument. It’s not about if it would be reasonable for them to press their claim, it is about if they want to. I know it sounds like a quibble, but I really have seen people realize that a game really isn’t abandoned then turn around and justify their theft because “it should be.”

Which is why I skip the abandonware question and get a legit copy before I look into electronic versions.

 

[Mrchatsworth]

Why?
If you have a moral issue with it or can’t figure out if you do then just don’t do it.
Simple as that. Play the games you own on the consoles they go with…