After replying to another Freddy's thread about old games I began to wonder about the legality of offering 'old games' for free download off my site. I have a large collection of old games which would be perfect for this and with broadband now this could be a damn good addition to my site. Where should I go to find out more? Each individual game homepage? I just teamed up with a big Arcade Games site and now show them on my site too. Content content content.
Old Games for Download.
- Thread starter MKJ
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Found out more about this. The name of legal to download older games is 'Abandonware'. The makers have released any control over them. Will be constructing an additional part for my site now to cover the downloading of loads of old classic games. I happen to know quite a lot about setting up computers to run old dos games so I can offer plenty of support. Quite a neat idea this 
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WPKenny
Resident Freddy
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Shovel
Can't get enough of FH
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MKJ said:
That's not true. The term refers to games which you physically cannot obtain through legitimate channels, and thus are abandonned by the publisher. That is not the same as relinquishing copyright control over the game contents.
In the case of internet distribution, the publishers simply appear to have 'chosen not to' pursue these cases of copyright infringement. Only a small subset of Abandonware (if any) is technically legal.
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Going to start work on this tomorrow. Any favourite old games you can think of? I played some great ones. Going to setup another home server to host the game downloads. Paid hosting is a bit particular about what you can host so will make a server of my own. That way I will have unlimited space available too. Bought an amazing base unit off Ebuyer for £199 - 3 ghz processor and an 80 gig 7200 sata hard drive. Incredible. The unit is for my sister and I will take her own 1800 and turn it into my home server. Anyone wants to know how to do this I can let them know. Very easy to do.
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Got my first Abandonware game on my site now - Eye of the Beholder 1. Played this game all the way through and it lasted ages too. Just kicked it off using Dosbox and hell the game is just as good as I remember. Still as addictive. All that entertainment in a game taking up about 1 mb. Going to be putting loads of these games now for free download. I should be able to help out with regard to getting them to run using dosbox as I had a heck of a lot to do with dos some years back and especially with regard to setting up memory etc. Dosbox though does away with all that. Will try VDMsound next. Might even play Eye of the beholder again myself .
Developing Site
.Developing Site
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Oh dear. Gone and done it again. Dunno wot it is about me but I sure get people annoyed.
Downloaded sum games off this Abandonware site and 1 review that he had carried out - guy that runs the site. Stuck maybe 6 links back to his site in various places and all being crawled by google. My site is growing in popularity all the time. Thought to send him an email as it could have been good to communicate over a shared interest. Told him I had put a game on and used his review - very small one. More or less told me off. So I replied that I had the damn game anyways and would write my own bloody reviews and all links to his site are going to be removed el pronto . My fault probably but shit if someone took stuff off my site and put all sorts of links back I would be really happy not pissed off. Anyways I backed my database up and files incase of any nonsense. Yu never knows :touch: .
Downloaded sum games off this Abandonware site and 1 review that he had carried out - guy that runs the site. Stuck maybe 6 links back to his site in various places and all being crawled by google. My site is growing in popularity all the time. Thought to send him an email as it could have been good to communicate over a shared interest. Told him I had put a game on and used his review - very small one. More or less told me off. So I replied that I had the damn game anyways and would write my own bloody reviews and all links to his site are going to be removed el pronto
. My fault probably but shit if someone took stuff off my site and put all sorts of links back I would be really happy not pissed off. Anyways I backed my database up and files incase of any nonsense. Yu never knows :touch: .
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Well you could put it that way but you could think of it another way too. I could have linked directly to his downloads and robbed him of bandwidth. Also sending him an email to show him where the game review was was more or less asking whether it was ok to do so. I mean there wasn't any need to send an email at all. All he had to do was politely say that the reviews were not to be used on other sites and off it would have come no problem and all links to his site would have remained. Couldn't find anywhere where it said his reviews couldn't be used. Didn't look that hard admittedly. I honestly wouldn't mind if someone used any of my reviews (will be doing loads) and games as long as they link back. Guy was far too touchy in my opinion. Instead of probably anything like a hundred links back from my site to his he now gets zero.
Anyone want some reviews and games? You can have them if you place tons of links back .
Anyone want some reviews and games? You can have them if you place tons of links back
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TdC
Trem's hunky sex love muffin
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SheepCow said:Personally, if anyone took any content from my site without asking first I'd come after them. If anyone linked directly to download on my site I'd block them
My thoughts exactly. Especially if the person taking hadn't asked nicely in advance.
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You are all too touchy in my opinion :touch: . Web is supposed to be a place for a bit of fun and to communicate. Everyone seems to be paranoid - cept me . After all was only a few lines about a game that anyone can get hold of from loads of sites. Must have taken him about 5 minutes to write it. If it was an elaborate review off a professional site then no-way would I have used it but this is a free games site. Seen another site of a similar ilk joyous about being linked to and spreading the availability of these older 'classic' games.
Anyways I am in the wrong and will admit it - kinda. Have I learned a lesson? Well yes I should have asked for permission first for sure and will do in the future if the need arises again. See I am reasonable and easy to pacify as long as people are polite. If they are rude to me then obviously I am rude back to them.
. After all was only a few lines about a game that anyone can get hold of from loads of sites. Must have taken him about 5 minutes to write it. If it was an elaborate review off a professional site then no-way would I have used it but this is a free games site. Seen another site of a similar ilk joyous about being linked to and spreading the availability of these older 'classic' games. Anyways I am in the wrong and will admit it - kinda. Have I learned a lesson? Well yes I should have asked for permission first for sure and will do in the future if the need arises again. See I am reasonable and easy to pacify as long as people are polite. If they are rude to me then obviously I am rude back to them.
Panda On Smack
Can't get enough of FH
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Clown you wanker!
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