The term abandonware has no legal meaning. It doesn’t matter what intrinsic value, or lack there of, that you think
these games have. The ESA has gone after many sites in the past.
ScummVM had its own legal battles with LA and they weren’t distributing
any of the LA games. Outside of games that have been released under other licenses like GNU, the only ones that can be freely distributed are ones that have been placed in the public domain or ones that have been made freeware. Both of these events are purposely done by the IP owner, not by time. With the so called Disney laws, copyright has been extended to ridiculous extremes. The owner of an IP can sit on it for decades with doing nothing, if he chooses. “Abandonware” exists only because either the owner no longer cares or the people distributing it have not been caught, yet.
these games have. The ESA has gone after many sites in the past.
ScummVM had its own legal battles with LA and they weren’t distributing
any of the LA games. Outside of games that have been released under other licenses like GNU, the only ones that can be freely distributed are ones that have been placed in the public domain or ones that have been made freeware. Both of these events are purposely done by the IP owner, not by time. With the so called Disney laws, copyright has been extended to ridiculous extremes. The owner of an IP can sit on it for decades with doing nothing, if he chooses. “Abandonware” exists only because either the owner no longer cares or the people distributing it have not been caught, yet.
If Activision will shut down a fan project like TSL, which only borrows the KQ theme and names, what do you think their army of lawyers would do to someone distributing their IP, especially when they are making money from the old Sierra IP via GOG and Steam?