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Abandonware is computer software that is no longer current, but is still of historical, utilitarian, or recreational interest. While the term has largely referred to older games, other classes of software are sometimes described as such also.

The term has no legal meaning, and much abandonware is not in the public domain, so it cannot necessarily be legally copied or distributed without the permission of the owner.

Software companies (like companies in many other industries) change their names, go bankrupt, merge with other companies or cease to be for a variety of reasons. When this happens, the "owner" of the products they once produced is usually uncertain. Furthermore, the creator of the software often no longer sells or supports the software, and in some cases the creator may no longer exist.

The term abandonware is typically used in order to make copying software sound more legitimate. It is almost always a violation of copyright laws, however.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Continuing interest in older titles 2 Classes of abandonware 3 Reception 3.1 Enforcement of copyright 3.2 Arguments 4 Abandonware sites 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

People have distributed old software since the dawn of personal computing, but the activity remained low-key until the advent of the Internet. While trading old games has had many names and forms, the actual term "abandonware" was coined by Peter Ringering in late 1996. Ringering found a few classic game websites similar to his own, contacted their webmasters, and formed the original "Abandonware Ring" in February 1997.^[1] The original Ring was little more than links to each other's websites, with one site indexing them all to provide a rudimentary search facility.

In October of 1997, the Interactive Digital Software Association sent cease and desist letters to all sites on the Abandonware Ring, which resulted in almost all of them ceasing operation (the sole exception being XTC Abandonware which remains the oldest functioning abandonware site as of 2007). This had the unintended effect of spurring many others to create their own abandonware sites and organizations (many more than the original Ring, and even more outside of the legal jurisdiction of the Entertainment Software Association, of which the IDSA was the predecessor). Some of the early abandonware sites formed after the demise of the original ring include Classic Trash and Home of the Underdogs.

Video game console emulators and arcade game emulators such as MAME in the late 1990s also helped advance the abandonware movement.

Some publishers, including Nintendo and Activision, have released old games for newer platforms. Classic game compilations have become popular on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. Capcom and Midway have released compilation discs, and many other companies are doing the same. This is more notably seen on the Nintendo's Virtual Console service, which offers several classic titles from the NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx-16. On handheld systems like the Game Boy Advance (GBA), classic games are rereleased or remade for the system. Some games have seen a second life on mobile phones.

Also, many companies add older games as an unlockable level in newer titles, like the original Wolfenstein 3D in the Xbox version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Prince of Persia in Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame was also unlockable on the Xbox version). The original Metroid was also unlockable in Metroid Prime (GameCube) and Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA), as well as being released on the GBA as Nintendo's NES Classics series.

While some companies still actually offer their original, unmodified titles for sale, most companies update the game, adding new features, gameplay elements, higher quality graphics, and so on. Enthusiasts of classic games frequently desire a complete replica of the original game, not a updated version. They may consider the primitive quality of simplistic graphics and sound to be part of the value of the original version of the game. These people may pursue abandonware even if the same title has been re-released in a new format.

In addition to games, some applications, development tools, and systems software have also retained interest by hobbyists and historians. These programs are typically available for download on the web, sometimes with the blessing of the publisher who still owns the rights. Examples include VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet program and, arguably, the world's first "killer application"), early versions of Unix, and programming languages both esteemed and vilified, such as BASIC. Software developer David Winer has helped keep alive an entire class of application, outliners, which he worked on in the 1980s.^[2]

The term abandonware is broad, and encompasses many different types of old software.

• Commercial software abandoned but still owned by a viable company can be easy or hard for researchers to locate. The availability of the software depends on the company's attitude towards the old software (and in many cases, the company which owns the rights to the software may in fact not be the same company with which it originated and may even not remember they own it).
  • Some companies, like Borland, make some of their software available online,^[3] therefore turning it into a form of freeware.
  • Other companies do not make old versions available for free use and ignore requests to let people copying the games or other software they own the legal rights to.

• Commercial software abandoned by a company that is no longer in business can also be extremely difficult to locate, but does have the benefit that no entity is likely to defend the copyright if this software is put on abandonware web sites. (An example of this is Digital Research's original PL/I compiler for MS-DOS.) In such cases, however, the the rights to the software may have been bought by another company or have reverted to the original authors, who could bring copyright lawsuits against those copying the software without permission.

• Old shareware whose author still makes it available can be found online. Finding historical versions, however, can be difficult since most shareware archives delete old versions when new versions came out. Authors may or may not make older releases available. Often, historical research demands a particular version current at a certain time, and most often the most recent version of the shareware is all that is available.
  • Some websites attempt to collect and offer for download old versions of shareware, freeware, and (in some cases) commercial applications. In some cases these sites have been forced to take down older versions of software, particularly if the company producing that software is still maintaining it (new versions), or if the new software features Digital Rights Management that the previous version did not (in this case, having an old version of a program can be a way to defeat DRM.)

• Completely abandoned old shareware was once released, but the author is no longer maintaining or supporting it. Again, finding historical versions is possible in some cases, but very difficult.

• Open source and freeware programs can be abandoned. In some cases, the source code is still available or was part of the release, which can be an interesting historical artifact. An interesting case of abandonware is PC-LISP, which can still be found online, which implements the Franz Lisp dialect. The MS-DOS based PC-LISP still runs well in emulators and on Windows.

Hosting and distributing abandonware is illegal, except in the few cases where the copyright holders have voluntarily released their software. Copyright holders, sometimes through the Entertainment Software Association, send out cease and desist letters, and some sites have shut down or removed offending games as a result. However, as Wired points out, most of the association's efforts are spent on new games, due to those games having the highest value.^[4]

Companies do sometimes voluntarily relinquish copyright on software, putting it into the public domain, or re-license it as free software or freeware (though freeware still keeps the copyright). id Software is notable as an early proponent of a similar practice, releasing the source code for the game engine (but not the actual game content, like levels or textures) of some older titles under a free software license. Other examples are Amstrad, who support emulation and free distribution of ZX Spectrum hardware ROMs and software, and Revolution Software, which released their game Beneath a Steel Sky as freeware and gave the engine's source code to the authors of ScummVM to add support for the game to it. Transfer of public domain or free software is perfectly legal, distinguishing it from abandonware. See list of commercial games released as freeware.

There are active groups that try to lobby companies to release their software as abandonware. Some of these efforts have proven quite successful, while others have been unsuccessful due to many reasons, including a company simply refusing to do so, a company being out of business, or a company not wishing to take the effort to do so.^{[citation needed]}

An example of the problems associated with this is the huge library of educational titles released by MECC. MECC was sold to Brøderbund, who was sold to The Learning Company (TLC); when TLC was contacted about releasing classic MECC titles as freeware, it was determined that the documentation proving that TLC owned the rights to these titles could not be located, and therefore the rights for these titles are "in limbo" and may never be able to be legally released.^[5]

Abandonware's copyright is frequently no longer defended. This can be due to intentional non-enforcement by its owners due to the software's age or obsolescence, but sometimes because the corporate copyright holder went out of business without transferring ownership, leaving no one to defend the copyright. (Copyrights on works created by an individual become the property of that person's estate after his/her death.) Nevertheless, some companies (such as LucasArts) vehemently defend their rights to old software from which they're no longer making profit.

Transfer of this software is still unlawful in most jurisdictions (except in cases of owner dissolution) as the copyright is still in effect. Abandonware changes hands based on the presumption that the time and money that a copyright holder would have to spend enforcing the copyright is greater than any money the holder would earn selling software licenses. Additionally, proponents will argue that distributing software for whom there is nobody to defend the copyright is acceptable. Companies who have gone out of business without transferring their copyrights are an example of this; many manufacturers and software companies who developed for older systems are long since out of business and precise documentation of the copyrights may not even be readily available.

Often the availability of abandonware on the Internet is related to the willingness of copyright holders to defend their copyrights. For example, games for Colecovision are markedly easier to find on the Internet than games for Mattel Intellivision in large part because there is still a company that makes money by selling Intellivision games while no such company exists for the Colecovision.

Proponents of abandonware argue that it is more ethical to make copies of such software than new software that still sells. Some who are ignorant of copyright law have incorrectly taken this to mean that abandonware is legal to distribute, although no software is old enough for its copyrights to have expired. Even in cases where the original company no longer exists, the rights usually still belong to someone else, though no one may actually know who actually owns the rights, including the owner themselves.

Abandonware advocates also frequently cite historical preservation as a reason for trading abandoned software. Some people argue that older computer media is fragile and very prone to rapid deterioration, and therefore it is necessary to copy these materials to a more modern and stable medium and generate as many copies as possible to ensure the software will not disappear. This is typically seen as a mererationalization for software piracy they were planning on doing in the first place.

Users of still-functional older computer systems argue that they need abandonware because even if a title is re-released by its copyright holder, the new version most likely will be for a modern PC computer, while their older system may be an old PC or not even a PC at all. Additionally, re-released software is most likely not available in the medium used by old computer systems (5.25" diskette, cartridge, cassette tape, etc.) and therefore there is no way to legally purchase compatible software for old computers.

Abandonware supporters often question the length of copyright in terms of computer software, as computer software can become obsolete much faster than other types of media, such as books or music.

Those who are against the practice argue that distributing this software, while not immediately obvious, can still rob its copyright holder of potential sales (in the form of re-released titles, official emulation systems, and so on). Also, it could be asserted that if people can acquire an old version of a program for free, they may be less likely to purchase a newer version for a price if the old version will meet their needs.

Several sites on the Internet archive abandonware for download, including old versions of applications which are difficult or impossible to find in any other way. Much of this software fits the definition of "software that is no longer current, but is still of interest", but the line between true abandonware and simple software piracy or warez is blurry (and calling a site abandonware typically is merely a cover for distributing warez). Many abandonware sites have warez available, intentionally or unknowingly.

• Freeware
• Glossary of legal terms in technology
• List of freeware games
• List of commercial games released as freeware
• Orphaned technology

• "Abandonwarez: the pros outweigh the cons", an opinion piece on the web site Adventure Classic Gaming.
• Flashbacks For Free: The Skinny On Abandonware, Marc Saltzman on GameSpot.com

Forms of software distribution
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