I always knew it XD

I just read a german article about the "dark side of the web" and they gave a few links of warez sites. Among this was also "abandonia.com"

http://www.mysteryx.de/donandy/abandonia_warez.jpg

A short translation:
The Underground network
Software-Pirates and File-Sharer are working together in a enormous underground network. Central starting point are special search engines, portals and redirectors, who follow the always changing adresses. Only the shear number of the called websites, shows the incredible size of the underground. But these lists aren't complete by far, but represent only a small choice of well known scene names. *****.am isn't *****.ru, so for distinction we also show the TLD (dunno if it is TLD in english, too, don't even know what's TLD on german ;) )

I blurred the whole warez, cracks, and serial links, since I don't want to get banned for posting the biggest warez list ever on Abandonia.

But hey, we're representing the warez-scene, isn't that joyful? XD

Oh, and please don't bash me, if somebody already has posted this before, I tried the search, but couldn't find a thing.

Oh yeah, before i forget: It's from "PC Magazin" 9/05

Edit: Saw I forgot to blur some links, but corrected that right away.

I don't think that's bad repute for the site and there ain't nothing to cry about. :whistle:
Pff, like pirating is a bad thing...oh whoops I...uh...said too much... :D

I don't like this one bit.

Eh, some people find it hard to connect pirating with other forms of pirating.
Modern pirating = Very bad
Abandonware pirating = The games are so friggin' old that it doesn't hurt anybody or anything, thus in the matter making most people ignore it and many consider it perfectly legal.

That explains why the ESA hasn't been sending cease and desist letters to every single abandonware website out there.
Whereas the instant a warez site is found they're immediatly apprehended.

Well, we can't blame people for assuming that we support warez. What we do is illegal, there is no getting away from that fact.

But we attack people who trades with games that are still being sold. They destroy for us by making our work look bad. We try to give the old games their rightful place in history, while at the same time get people to support the gaming industry by buying all the new games that are made.

Nicely said.
I believe it depends largely on the site.
Not all of them are the same, so I wonder of all the links they could've put up there, they put one as well regulated and friendly as Abandonia.

It's just a case of bad journalism...

The author clearly got lost in the scene... on the other hand the article didn't probably mention things I didn't know allready...

What annoys me with articles like this is that they promote warez trade.

They list sites (with complete url) that hosts games for downloads. Games that are still being sold. Honestly, how many sites do people actually know of that hosts warez? I could list a few, but that is only because I am moderating this forum and those sites are mentioned from time to time by annoying little twerps who supports warez. The average gaming teenager don't know much about these sites, but thanks to articles like the one above they are offered a choice. Save up your allowance to buy a game you really want, or download it within an hour after reading the article?

This is how warez pirates are born. Little by little they excuse their actions saying "only one more game", "I'll buy the game as soon as I have the money.. I'm just going to try it a bit first" and the classic "everyone else does it... at least, that's what I'm gonna convince myself of".

Such articles should be thrown into the garbage at once. *shakes head*

That would be heaven, man. But it's not...

That would be heaven, man. But it's not... [/b][/quote]
Umm, it's possible with one disc games... but now we've talked enough warez-muck!

Back to the classic abandoned pearls...

<!--QuoteBegin-troop18546@ Aug 16 2005, 03:30 PM
I don't think that's bad repute for the site and there ain't nothing to cry about. :whistle_
Pff, like pirating is a bad thing...oh whoops I...uh...said too much... :D[/quote]


You keep this attitude up, man, and I will ban you for supporting warez :angry:

Well, actually half of the page ripped apart as I pulled it out of the scanner, somehow got caught up in there. Guess you and my scanner got the same opinion ;)

Hehe...

I still like the article as it mentions us. Hopefully some of the possible warez pirates that are easily tempted by fast downloads will arrive here. We might be able to convince people to save the old games, instead of destroying the new ones. ;)

Those guys are a heaping load of crap. Abandonware is stuff that no company wants to be responsible for. If it wasn't, it would be ESA protected, now wouldn't it.

Warez my behind. Abandonia is the greatest site for oldies out there, running at top-notch speeds and hosting a clean forum. People that bash this site deserve to be :sniper: . Useless germans (no offense to any germans on the site).

Does it say which journalist wrote that article at the end?

Thanks

Yeah, so we can hunt him down and k... Interrogate him for his reasoning :whistle:

Abandonia's administrators/owner should contact him.

but how illegal is this what we do ?

Is the hosting of abandonware legally the same as hosting new games just with the difference that the developers don't care ?

The author of the article is "Christian Stephan" the representative editor, I don't know how to contact him directly, but the adress for the editorial office is "redaktion@pc-magazin.de".

Oh, and I also don't know if he's responsible for the links posted above, too. The actual article features a few pages, but I think he is.

but how illegal is this what we do ?

Is the hosting of abandonware legally the same as hosting new games just with the difference that the developers don't care ? [/b][/quote]
http://www.abandonia.com/main.php?nav=faq

The first post :)

It's exactly the same (legally). :ok:

Ok, now we have a name :evil:

Either they made that article out of ignorance, or envy. Possibly both.

Well legally it is the same, but this does not seem to be a legal document. Its an article, and its just unfair to place us between warez site. If we were a warez site I wouldn't see any point in our oldwarez search engine, or the existance of abandonware community... and we're even making efforts to be one of the more "legal" abandonware sites out there, which makes it even more unfair

Heh. We might be an "illegal site" and will always be... But do we support Warez? Never! We condemn it!

That's why we close threads talking or linking to warez on sight.

Personnaly, I beleive those writers are just plainly ignorant of the situation of what they are writing about. Nothing new under the sun anyways... :rolleyes:

I say we loudly and vividly complain LOL

Problem is, will it work?

For anyone that cares, TLD is "top-level domain," - e. g., .com, .net, .ru, etc.

with .ru having a reputation for being the less legal type of site...

Whats really stupid is that abandonia.com is listed 7th in the "warez-network". There are millions of dirtyer sites than this. It doesn't harm anything or anyone (being abandonware and sticking to the rules example: 8 years, permission and stuff like that there.).
P.S. Blast
Killing the author wouldnt solve anything, but get you busted 4 life. :)

Hey, I didn't say I would kill him, maybe just whack him in the face :evil:

You know how many Warez sites are in german? I've seen so many of those things it's sick.

:w00t: 7th ?! Wow. How did we get there ? :not_ok:
As for those who wrote that article it seems that they weren't at all well-informed, but if we are placed between those warez sites maybe more people will visit our site, see that we are not a warez site, but still remain here... or maybe not :angry:

They GAVE links to the "warez" sites? What kind of magazine is that??

Mailbomb? (fingers twitching)

don't even think about it.

Kosta and Tom will deal with this is gentleman's way.
Not some script kiddy way. (No offense)

I've sent them a polite email, iforming them of their little slipup there. We'll see if they respond or not. I'll keep you posted

Can we see the copy of email?

Wopee, I'll surely will look out for the next issue, maybe they print an apologize in there ^_^

I think the journalist saw the oldwarez on the site, and he automatically thought it's warez without investigating further, sadly that's what many journalists especially, if they're not very informed about the topic(which the writer obviously isn't)...

Actually, hes just a stupid moron with no sense of ethics or anything else who should have his rear end kicked out a third story window into a bay with cement blocks on his shoes. Have fun sleeping with the fishys you moron journalist! :evil:

Oh, but I am... actually, thinking about is all I can do in this matter. ^_^ Fortunately for some people.

I think that expecting an apology from him would only cause him to make further articles of this sort - that's the way homo sapiens journalistus acts by instinct.

Speaking of the links, that's exactly what I believed 'old warez' is.

We should rename that link.

Don't bet your life there, dude. :whistle: