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abandonware



Abandonware is a term used to describe software that is no longer actively sold, supported or marketed
by the company that created it.  The story below does a pretty good job of describing some of the
issues related to abandonware.  Though the debate tends to focus on access to old games, it's one that
can have major implications for archivists.  Without the ability to access, copy, distribute and
manipulate old applications, much of our digital cultural heritage will be at risk.

Flashbacks for Free: The Skinny on Abandonware
Gamespot
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/abandonware/
By Marc Saltzman

"This exclusive GameSpot feature discusses this growing trend of seeking out abandoned games, who's
providing the games and why, what developers and publishers think about abandonware distribution, and
what's being done to curb it."

For what it's worth, my own view is that abandonware advocates are often morally in the right but
legally in the wrong.  In order for abandonware preservation to take on anything more than an
underground status, there must be changes to copyright law and/or the licensing agreements attached to
software that gets sold.  Other interesting options could be some variant on the idea of copyright
conservancies
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/october01/kahle/10kahle.html
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december00/bearman/12bearman.html
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/
or other pooled arrangements in which those with an interest in the preservation of a class of
applications compensate software companies somehow (e.g. attribution, advertising, direct payment,
in-kind services such as preserving other applications for which the company still wishes to retain
exclusive rights) for handing over the rights to those applications which are not yet in the public
domain but are no longer yielding (or likely to yield) a profit.

Does anyone else have ideas about how to address the abandonware issue?

=========================================================
 Cal Lee
 University of Michigan
 School of Information
 Phone: 734-647-0505
 http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~calz/
 "The boundary is the best place for acquiring knowledge."
                                      - Paul Tillich, 1930

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