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Thief 1 and other games on Internet Archive

freyk

By freyk
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freyk

freyk

Posted
Posted (edited)

I just want to point at the following thing:
Yesterday, Internet Archive published 2500 dosgames on its server.
(including full or shareware games like commander keen, quake 1, doom 1&2, etc)
Those games can be played in your webbrowser!
(search for a game, select the one with a floppy icon and hit the playbutton)
See:
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

They host also a nice collection of files for thief 1 and 2.
For more info see:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=thief dark project

And TDM:
https://archive.org/details/LP_Dark_Mod

Edited by freyk
  • Like 2

.

Kurshok

Kurshok

Posted
Posted

Ross from Accursed Farms, of Freeman's Mind fame, said during a pet's play of CarnEvil, that good old games whose makers are out of business should be able to become public domain so the story isn't lost forever. Same as books.

  • Like 1
chakkman

chakkman

Posted
Posted (edited)

Should would could. Fortunately, in the real world laws sort out these things. Imagine that the former Looking Glass Studios reunite again, re-purchase the IP of the Thief series, and make a remake of the original game. Or... re-distribute the original game in any way. Not cool.

I don't see anything lost here anyway. You can still buy Thief Gold on GOG, Steam... wherever you want to. Holds true for most of the other "freely distributed" games there as well.

I bought Thief Gold and Thief 2 on Steam some time ago. They don't have any DRM, so, you can freely copy them from their folders elsewhere, patch them all the way you like, and they run perfectly. For 2 or 3 € i paid for them, i think it's pretty much a no-brainer to not go into the legal void, and, especially, pay the owners what's right.

Edited by chakkman
  • Like 1
lowenz

lowenz

Posted
Posted (edited)

If someone (re)claims the IP in 10 years......

Edited by lowenz

Task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody see. - E.S.

Anderson

Anderson

Posted
Posted
On 10/17/2019 at 1:44 PM, chakkman said:

I can't see how that would be legal. Archive.org doesn't own the intellectual property of these games.

Why so dramatic?

They can / already have obtain / ed a permission from the copyright holders. You never know.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

chakkman

chakkman

Posted
Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Anderson said:

They can / already have obtain / ed a permission from the copyright holders. You never know.

Do you really believe that?

The Thief IP is in Square Enix ownership, for example. So, nope, definitely not.

It's really not about being dramatic. It's about what's right and wrong.

Edited by chakkman
Carnage

Carnage

Posted
Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, chakkman said:

Do you really believe that?

As the notorious Twilight CDs and DVDs can also be found on archive.org (link for those that don't know them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(CD-ROM) I also highly doubt they have the rights or for anything else that they post. Apart from the fact that SE has the rights for the Thief IP of course.

Edited by Carnage
Anderson

Anderson

Posted
Posted

Archive.org is a serious site that respects itself. They do not place advertisments so I would not expect problems akin to sharing things commercially like on The Pirate Bay with ads all over the place.

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

chakkman

chakkman

Posted
Posted

Ads don't make any difference when you distribute software freely that you don't own the IP of. And, yes, that actually puts them in the same place as The Pirate Bay, because, it's the same thing. 

stumpy

stumpy

Posted
Posted (edited)

there's a lot of eidos games on there, but they are ip owned by square enix, games like stolen and tomb raider.

 

Archive.org don't check that software/images/video/audio files uploaded onto the site have any copyright attached to the software uploaded by their users they expect that their users don't upload copyrighted warez. They only remove copyright infringement media when someone informs them like a cease and desist order from square enix that they are likely to get if square enix ever found out about all those edios files on there.

Edited by stumpy
  • Like 1
Carnage

Carnage

Posted
Posted (edited)
23 hours ago, Alberto Salvia Novella said:

Archive.org is backed by the USA government, and archiving software you are no longer capable to get by comercial means is a copyright exception.

They must be doing something wrong then, because just scrolling ten seconds through their classic pc games category shows dozens of games that are still sold. Maybe they are posting games with expired copyright. So although you can still buy them, the copyright isn't valid anymore?

Edit: There have also been several controversies and disputes, so I don't know how legal it really is.

Edited by Carnage
Anderson

Anderson

Posted
Posted
On 10/25/2019 at 11:18 PM, Carnage said:

They must be doing something wrong then, because just scrolling ten seconds through their classic pc games category shows dozens of games that are still sold. Maybe they are posting games with expired copyright. So although you can still buy them, the copyright isn't valid anymore?

Edit: There have also been several controversies and disputes, so I don't know how legal it really is.

It's legal as long as nobody complains. :D

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

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