It is often very difficult or even impossible to locate who currently owns the rights to some intellectual property in order to re-release it legally.[0]
Yeah, that's part of the copyright mess. It's partly described by Lawrence Lessig in his book "Free Culture" [1].
It seems petty to me that copyright holders (or their legal proxies) aggressively sought to shut down abandonware sites without any plan to make the software available in any shape. I mean, these were marginal pieces of software, no longer money earners, and the abandonware sites served as digital museums.
Yeah, that's part of the copyright mess. It's partly described by Lawrence Lessig in his book "Free Culture" [1].
It seems petty to me that copyright holders (or their legal proxies) aggressively sought to shut down abandonware sites without any plan to make the software available in any shape. I mean, these were marginal pieces of software, no longer money earners, and the abandonware sites served as digital museums.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)