Over 2,000 Dos Games Free To Play (Legally, I assume!)

[Tawmis]

EDIT: URL removed because of questionable legality issues.

Didn't want to delete the thread since there's a discussion happening.

[Collector]

There is some discussion on their boards that mixed in with all of the legal stuff like demos and shareware that someone has been creating fake accounts to upload the stuff that they do not have the rights to distribute. I have a hard time believing that Activision and Codemasters are OK with it as they are making money on their titles by selling through the likes of GOG, DotEmu and Steam. Even Sarien.net needs permission to do the AGI games.

[BBP]

Sorry, saw this topic too late...
Had some fun looking through the game list, but playing the games is a bit of a deception. Sound is not working. Plus every time I press Alt, the options at the top open. Just try to play Aladdin without Alt.

[Tawmis]

There is some discussion on their boards that mixed in with all of the legal stuff like demos and shareware that someone has been creating fake accounts to upload the stuff that they do not have the rights to distribute. I have a hard time believing that Activision and Codemasters are OK with it as they are making money on their titles by selling through the likes of GOG, DotEmu and Steam. Even Sarien.net needs permission to do the AGI games.

Well most of the Sierra related ones tie to Steam. So I don't know if they're making money themselves? Or perhaps a partnership with Steam where they make % of the sales directed to Steam?

[adeyke]

Valve takes a 30% (AFAIK) cut from games sold via Steam, but the rest goes to the publisher/developer.

[Expack3]

There is some discussion on their boards that mixed in with all of the legal stuff like demos and shareware that someone has been creating fake accounts to upload the stuff that they do not have the rights to distribute. I have a hard time believing that Activision and Codemasters are OK with it as they are making money on their titles by selling through the likes of GOG, DotEmu and Steam. Even Sarien.net needs permission to do the AGI games.

Links? I'd be interested in reading the discussions on the Internet Archive.

[Expack3]

There is some discussion on their boards that mixed in with all of the legal stuff like demos and shareware that someone has been creating fake accounts to upload the stuff that they do not have the rights to distribute. I have a hard time believing that Activision and Codemasters are OK with it as they are making money on their titles by selling through the likes of GOG, DotEmu and Steam. Even Sarien.net needs permission to do the AGI games.

It would seem the maintainer of the collection, Jason Scott, is partially aware of the potential issue and has pulled part of the collection. However, based on my interpretation on Mr. Jason's writings, I'm not sure he fully believes the issue to be an actual issue.

[Collector]

I didn't save any links from what I had come across, but the Twitter you found was one of them. As to not an issue probably comes from the way that Abondonia keeps from being closed down. That is they rely on IP owner's ignorance of copyright violation and apathy towards pursuing legal options for such old IPs. Then when the site is slapped with a C&D, they immediately remove the title in question. Also, I believe that archive.org has something akin to library status to confuse the issue.

Anyway, I consider the browser play a bit of a moot point as the Javascript port of DOSBox is near useless. jDOSBox (Java) is much better. However, there are downloads on archive.org of lots of adulterated warez versions of old games. I have looked at some of them an they are just as bad as what you would find on Abondonia, ripped, hacked, cracked and tampered in ways that introduce bugs and other issues. I have found quite a few that were setup using my installers. While they are not designed for abandonware, they probably will work in some cases or can manually be fixed after the fact. My main concern is for archive.org itself. It is such a valuable resource for other things. The Wayback Machine first and foremost.

[Expack3]

Anyway, I consider the browser play a bit of a moot point as the Javascript port of DOSBox is near useless. jDOSBox (Java) is much better.

Good luck convincing the maintainer of that.

[Collector]

Like all ideologues, he holds what he want to believe over reality. I am no fan of Java, either, but while jDOSBox leaves a lot to be desired, it works pretty well for all but the most demanding games. Em-DOSBox is simply not ready for prime time. I don't know if it will ever be usable. As it is, Em-DOSBox is nearly useless. The Sound doesn't even work. Sarien.net is Javascript based, but not as an emulator. It is a rewrite of the games in Javascript, not that I expect them to rewrite all of the games they are offering. Even so, there would still be copyright issues. Archive.org needs to lose this fool.