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[mentalbastille]

It looks like the law has changed to allow the circumvention of technical measures controlling access to the media - so this seems to make DOSBox, etc. legal, as well as the breaking of copy protection on games that require media as a condition of access (e.g., requiring the CD to be in the drive). However, it doesn't seem to mention anything about distribution. So, while it may be legal to break the copy protection on a game that requires technology that's no longer easily accessible to run, nothing seems to have changed along the lines of how those games may be distributed.

[lwc]

Funny, this is the first forum where people actually think that the US legalized abandonware. Originally I thought so myself until the DOSBox forum almost lynched me for thinking that.

Anyway, the full quote is:

The Librarian of Congress, on the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, has announced the classes of works subject to the exemption from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years.

2. Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.[/b]

I was told this just means one very specific thing - librarians could copy abandonware from floppies to digital media. So even for ilbrarians, playing games which they don't own in DOSBox would still be illegal! Just the copying process and the breaking of any copy protections that stand in its way (copy protection is not the codes you're manually asked to supply inside a game, but the automated floppy disk's protection some games used to have - that first prevented the "diskcopy" function and then disallowed playing without the actual floppy (and the original floppy could not be duplicated because "diskcopy" was disabled by the copy protection) - for example, Karateka used to have that until I supplied a crack.
I do wonder if abandonware sites' owners could call their sites "archives" though.

[Playbahnosh]

whatever...abandonwarez...whatever[/b]

That little word caught my attention. This is not an "abandonwarez" site at all. You know what warez means do you? It means the distribution of illegaly obtained and/or cracked software. Abandonia hosts only abandonware (not warez) games, that have been released to the public/not longer sold and supported/ was freeware. There are however abandonwarez (with the z) sites, that hosts old/classic games that are either ESA protected/cracked or otherwise illegal to distribute. So please next time clarify what kind of games are you talking about, because that little 'z' can be the source of nasty misunderstandings. k:

[lwc]

Not sure you're right, but I changed it anyway so as to not distract us from the main issue.

[Lulu_Jane]

Originally posted by Iwc
I do wonder if abandonware sites' owners could call their sites "archives" though.

Yes, but it's the distibution from these particular archive sites that will still annoy the big companies, and it still provides no real protection for the site, or people like the good folk at DOSbox.

(By the way, I agree about the "Z" thing - but also because it's just terrible spelling )

[Japo]

As far as I know emulators such as DOSBox have no legality problems --unless they're illegalized but that would be a government abuse and no country has done that as far as I know. Whether one uses them to run legally owned software or not, that's another issue altogether, but the crime would be pirating the software which is run through DOSBox, not using DOSBox. Besides there are people who own legal copies of DOS games.

Well so it seems that USA hasn't legalized anything that concerns us, right?

[lwc]

You're right. I meant that even librarians still can't use DOSBox for games they don't own. All they can do is copy those games to digital media and crack everything that stands in the copying process' way.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I have pondered this fact a bit, and came to conclusion that it seems to legalize NES/SNES ROMs, since neither console is commercially available anymore.

[A. J. Raffles]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_fifth_horseman @ Dec 13 2006, 03:11 PM) [snapback]271517[/snapback]</div>

I have pondered this fact a bit, and came to conclusion that it seems to legalize NES/SNES ROMs, since neither console is commercially available anymore.
[/b]

Only for people who own the original games and then somehow turn them into ROMs, though.

[Japo]

Yes the point is that what is legalized --in some cases-- is archiving some software, not running it, if I haven't taken it wrong in the end.