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[Ioncannon]

I like the idea, buy rights and monopolize (or if you are a goody goody spred it) the game. How much would rights to a game cost?

[wormpaul]

a few bucks

[Razor2]

I think it depends on what we want to buy.

I would look for games from 1995-2000, which are on CDs and not likely to be placed on the site even if they are abandon. These should cost a few 100 Euros.

A few older games would also be good, because some real gems are protected and will be forgotten in a few years. I think most of these could be aquired for a symbolic fee, because most companies are not even remembering that they published them.

[Omuletzu]

Do you realise what this means??
It isn't about making a few bucks, and it isn't about saving games from the mist of time.It's about keeping the games to yourself, it's about greediness, it's about making sure other sites in the branch don't offer the games we've paid money for for download.
Do we want this kind of hassle?
NO.
Is this what abandonware is about?
Certantly not.

No my friend, i fear that in our quest to save old games, we would stain the abandonware scene.

[JJXB]

it wouldn't stain the abandonware scene if we bought the rights and allowed the games to be downloaded on other sites as well as abandonia. i think its a good idea as if we buy the rights to the games we have the power to keep them preserved

[Razor2]

Without such an action the abandonware scene will be dead in a few years. Games after the mid 90s are mostly protected by their publishers, who don't want to make money from them, but owns the rights and will unleash the ESA on us if we try to host their games.

About getting money for it:

1. We need some money to buy rights, if you can get money from another source, please don't be shy telling it.

2. Some games are so large (several 100 Megs), we will either need a mammoth server or print them on CDs and ship them. Either way it costs money.
If we distribute them freely to other sites they will be in the same shoes and won't be able to host the games.

[Iron_Scarecrow]

Excellent. k:

Deffinently should be done, forget all the other abandonware communities, let them suffer. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

If we want to be the best this is the sort of thing that has to be done.

[Omuletzu]

I completely oppose! Even if we buy some games, it will never be enough to bring down the 2 abw giants(HotU and XTC).It would just mark us as a money hungry site.
In a sense the "peace" that dawns over the abandonware community is what differentiates us from the warez community.Proceeding with this would only lead to conficts, which takes us back to my starting argument, unnecessary hassle

[Teorias]

It's not an bad idea. The only problem is how to apply it in a fair way. I'm my opinion we could do something like this:
1-We create a company or something like that with a few thousand euros(we could ask the E.U. or an E.U. member country for a loan.They usually grant them to young businessman)
2- we buy a few games with a small size and wich will probably sell well
3-once the loan is payed and we have some capital we buy new games and release the previous one's for free download with the condition that they aren't resold.
4- after we have some more capital we buy some new games and do as before.
5- we keep repeating this forever,assuring that the costs are always fully suported(this is supossed to be a non-profitable company, not a suicide one issed: )
6- after we release the games for free, if another site wants to have them for download,
they only have to ask for our permission and assure us that they won't sell it .
This way, the games won't die and sooner we'll be available for everyone for free k:

[TheSmyth]

Sounds like a solution. But I can't see the distribution rights to the games going so cheaply. and even if it did, surely i would mean setting up a sales section of the site, and paying a company (i.e. PayPal) to host the transactions. You'd have to sell the games at more than people were probably willing to pay, just to cover the running costs each month.
If i'm talking complete rubbish, forgive me I'm British (i.e. ignorant of anything i can't work out in GB?)