keaxtu
abandonware should be public domain, force companies to actively support and provide products if they don’t want to lose the rights to them.
omikronsoul
Game companies hate emulation, but none of them seem to understand that a lot of us would just buy ROMs from them directly if we could. I don’t want a fifth remake of Final Fantasy IV, I want to pay five bucks for 3MB file you already made bank with thirty years ago.Nobody who wants to play something fo the purpose of retrogaming is going to consider a $40 remake as the alternative option, and we’re certainly not going to let the original disappear. They’re crying about opportunity cost for a product they are not even selling.
justlemeremember
op i know you’re probably talking about like, video games, etc. but this is also critical for research science - my lab has so much abandonware, either because the company’s out of business, or the company decided not to maintain it, and it’s a fucking nightmare, we have two Windows 95 computers that are CRITICAL for performing experiments/data analysis because the software needed is abandonware, one of the main roles for a guy in my lab is to maintain these little dinosaurs because if they go out, we lose access to ~20 years of raw data for research, part of why is that these companies also make their own file types, and make difficult-to-impossible to convert those files types without their specif software, by habit, i convert all research files to more generic versions (txt, pdf, tif, etc) so i minimize risk of losing my shit, but some stuff can’t be converted.
for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refuses to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, butt they made a lot of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollar to replace this microscope, this perfectly good microscope.
so like, i know a lot of people look at the original post and go ‘well, op just wants old video games to play’ (which is valid! games companies should not be able to push shit to abandonware and close it off) but also this is critical for like, biomedical research, if y’all had any idea how much basic infrastructure built on science relies on shit that is technically abandonware, you would probably be horrified.
Nah, this needs legal reform. Intellectual Property laws have been set up to benefit rights holders, not general citizens. They have been extended and reinforced again and again thanks to intense lobbying from rights holders to make bank under the current system.
The defense is always thrown out that it protects the livelihoods of smaller IP holders. However a system that enshrines IP rights for things for 70 years after someone has died for example is patently not there to protect the author; is is there to enrich those who buy or inherit rights yet had nothing to do with their creation.
IP laws need drastic reform. Abandonware is just one of many examples where citizens have to break the law to bypass the shitty status quo.
What are the first steps to make that happen? Do we need a petition or something? This also effects medical equipment that keeps people alive.
The first step is to organize. Find other people who also want reform. Get doctors and nurses who use those programs, get patients that depend on it. If they won’t join, at least get them to sign a petition.
Once you’ve got a bunch of like minded people, start lobbying the goverment. Show representatives and officials how many lives are being held up by old abandoned software that could go out at any moment. Show them your collection of incomprehensible doctor signatures saying that this is important.
Find or train a spokesman to talk to the press or goverment officials. Don’t repeat the AntiWork debacle with letting unprepared people represent your cause to hostile interviewers.
If you’re in the US, maybe start with California, the state isn’t deadlocked politically and has the power to affect both Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
If you’re in the EU, they seem to like passing consumer protection laws, so talk to your… representative? I don’t know how that goverment works.
Lastly: Stay on mission. We all hate climate change, we all want police reform, we all want to abolish capitalism (at least most of us). They’re all important goals to work to as well, but you’re trying to fix abandonware, right?
Thank you. I think I will. If not me, then who?
Yep, I have been saying this since 2008 when I wrote a paper for college on the DMCA, every single person I have ever talked to about this doesn’t care or thinks its boring.
Every concern I posited as a hypothetical has now happened, at a scale far beyond what I expected.
DMCA takedowns all over YouTube for bullshit reasons that presume guilt instead of innocence that massively hampers channel growth for those critiquing basically anyone, and has now just removed entire previously viable types of videos.
Entire economies rocked and largely shaped by companies forgoing actually benefitting consumers /and/ workers by throwing all their money at acquiring other companies for their IPs or Patents, depending on the industry.
Then there’s just the huge amount of technological progress /prevented and thwarted/ by useful software or sections of code being black boxed and not shared, having to be tediously revers engineered by FOSS advocates.
Oh well. Boring, no one cares, and now our political system is so beyond fucked it will probably never get addressed.