I'm looking for this game "Virgin Interactive's Speed Rally Australia". It's a seriously old game. I have the disc sitting right next to me but it's cracked in half. The reason I want it is actually because of the really good electronic tracks on it. The game is about 8 years old now? I can barely find anything about it on the internet. I don't think Virgin Interactive even exist anymore. So i'm wondering if it would be classified as "abandonware" or whatever it is and free to download. Or is it ok to download since I'm making a copy anyway? Anyways just wondering if anyone knew a good website which had this game on it for download. Cheers! P.S. this is the game http://www.cdaccess.com/html/pc/speedral.htm
Abandonware is NOT free to download. Abandonware is still illegal, though that doesn't mean you won't be able to find it. Abandonware is a commonly misunderstood issue, so let me explain. Imagine a painting in a big house. It's a nice painting and you want it. The owners of the house offer to sell it to you. You buy it or you don't. A few years later you find the same house with another painting inside that you want. This house has been abandoned however because there is a war on and the people have fled. There's nobody there and nobody could ever sue you or arrest you, so you COULD take the painting - but it would still be stealing (or looting, whatever) because the people out there still own it - though they've had to abandon their painting as a result of circumstance. That is pretty much what Abandonware is. For more information and a list of popular Abandonware and where you can get it legally, try Home of The Underdogs.
Legally? You can't do anything except go on eBay. That's the annoying thing. That's why the Abandonware circuit exists.
Firstly thank you for educating me properly on Abandon ware. Secondly, what you're saying Cardjoe is that even though I bought the game and have a copy sitting here right in front of me I'm not allowed to download it from the internet?!?! Since we're on the topic I might aswell ask another question. Let's say you own another old game and it just so happens that by now the company that makes the game has gone bankrupt. Is it still illegal to obtain a copy without paying? (I'm not trying to be a cheaparse and find loopholes but I never knew the legal stance on that).
Point 1: No of course not. If you buy a car, which then breaks, do you have the right to steal another one because you bought the first? Don't be daft, you bought one copy of the game, and if you then break that copy of the game, you must buy another. Buying a game doesn't give you the right to own infinite copies of that game, that'd just be stupid. Point 2: Yes, because even when a company goes bankrupt, the licenses and rights to anything they previously held get passed on to the creditors/bank/whoever. Lisences don't just dissapear because a company runs out of money, they just get moved around. It takes a company to specifically state they are releasing their lisences to the public for it to happen, it can't just take place because of legal or monetary situations.
Exactly. You never own a game, even if you buy it. All that happens is you are licensing the right to use the game on a PC as outlined by the EULA. They normally state that you can't have it on more than one PC, agree not to reproduce or lend it etc. Nobody cars usually, but technically that is what is happening. Legally, you shouldn't download abandonware even if you own it. In reality though I don't think that matters too much. Still illegal, but nobody will be around to sue you most likely. Take Looking Glass Studios for example - they made System Shock and Thief. The company went bankrupt and the licenses changed hands. Thief went to ION Storm, who then went bankrupt. System Shock went to EA a couple of years later. The result is like the analogy mentioned above. It's technically illegal to download it still, but the reality is a bit different. There are exceptions though. Some games are around long enough that they have ended up getting released as freeware or the publishers/owners release them after a time. id Software do this with the source code to previous games. System Shock 1 is now available to download freely IIRC.
I *think* that analogy is incorrect. When buying software of any type, you are purchasing an agreement to run the software on a computer. You, in theory, could have an endless supply of the media, as long as you only ran it on one computer at a time.
Well, I just searched on google for torrents and I can't find any s your stuck anyway. Can't you just selotape the disk back together? lol
Don't make the mistake of thinking this means id's old games are now free, they're not, just the engine. All the sounds, sprites, textures, levels and everything else that makes the game the game are still owned by id.
