Is it legal to download games that aren't available for purchase?

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Old games like Diablo, or the old Bard's Tale games, for instance.

If it is, can anybody point me in the right direction? If it's not, please delete this thread mods.

 

There are some sites dedicated to Shareware, Freeware and Abandonware. Wiki has a few links in each relevant article plus googling can come up with some nice results. Usually a good idea to check out T&Cs and whether the game is still supported on the websites of the companies involved in production - generally if the game is still claimed by a company on their current portfolio of supported software - it's illegal to claim it for free.

 

Abandonia.com is a good site. All of the games featured there, thats available for download, are all legal. I do belive the Bard`s Tale games are legal, but not Diablo. Diablo I actually bought 2 weeks ago at a store, so its illegal to download.

 

Abandonware usually does not include software released in the public domain. So downloading them is still considered copyright infringement no matter how you try to twist your way around it. This includes Abandonia too.

A good place to get some older games is Good Old Games aka gog.com. I think you can even support SP if you create an account there using the link provided somewhere on this site.

 

I download tons of shareware and abandonware games. Love the old school stuff. As Rawgrim shows, Diablo is not shareware. Bard's Tale series is, as are many Ultima games, M&M games, SSI AD&D games, etc... Just start searching for Abandonware or free PC game downloads and you will get tons of hits. Abandonia is great as is for downloads and there are a ton of other sites as well. I also like http://www.replacementdocs.com/news.php for obtaining manuals.

 

Abandonware, by definition, is software where the copyright is no longer defended and the company no longer supports further sale of the product - it is considered abandoned and as such released from a lot of legal ownership protections - the original company can reclaim abandonware under a few options (such as another company attempting to sell it on) but cannot claim piracy if it's downloaded freely after being abandoned.

 

No longer actively defending a copyright does not mean that it is not under copyright anymore...

 

From your links there Tal It shows some of the AD&D SSI games are freeware. Specifically both Dark Sun games, Shattered Lands and Wake of the Ravager. Though the rest are not. Nice little education there about freeware/shareware/abandonware on those wiki links.

So here is a question for you then. If I download say, SSI game Champions of Krynn, is that technically illegal?

 

Blades, I wouldn't trust Wikipedia to be an official source of what was released as freeware. I am almost 100% sure that neither Dark Sun game was ever made freeware by SSI, or by whoever acquired SSI later on. Notice that the article claims the "freeware" version is available on the website of an unofficial remake of DS Online - not quite what I'd call an official source

To answer your question, yes, downloading any game that wasn't specifically released as freeware by the copyright holder is illegal. The entire concept of Abandonware is, on a purely technical scale, illegal. It's just that, for old games, most companies don't bother with it and when a game does end up on GOG most big abandonware sites seem to immediately take it off (I know at least Abandonia does), so it seems to work for the benefit of both parties (Abandonia get to keep Abandonware games alive and the CP holders get to have their share of the sales when the game is up on GOG).

 

Thanks, I'll check this out.

I wish somebody near me had Diablo for sale. I loves me some mindless Hackin' and slashin'

 

I'm sure Diablo II is still available for purchase (and sometimes you can buy the battle chest that has both Diablo I, II, and both expansions for like $40), and Diablo II is just as much hack and slash as the original. In fact, I'd say it's better. The original Diablo had a grid system set up for player and monster movement, which meant you couldn't travel diagonally in a straight line. If you attempted to attack a monster on the top right portion of the screen, you'd click on him, and your character would move a grid square, then right a grid square, and repeat that process until you reached the monster. The grid system also made targeting a monster with spells difficult, because you're spell would travel in a straight line directly at the monster, but if the monster was moving diagonally towards you, the spell would miss half the time, due to the over-up-over-up nature of the walk.

 

I have the battle chest, but i lost the DI disc.

 

Do you still have the CD key? If you do, I think you'd be well within your rights to burn yourself a backup. After all, the CD key, not the disc itself, proves that you have a legal copy as far as Blizzard is concerned.

 

blizzard has made a download option on their website for any games you have cd-keys to