The problem here is that copyright owners own the content for life plus 75 years. If there is a NES/SNES/Genesis/etc. game out there that isn't available for sale in digital form and the IP owner just selfishly decides, "oh you can't download it because I might re-release/remake the content in the future but I'm going to selfishly cocktease you and not give you the content you want through legal channels anytime soon (and mostly likely never give you the content)" I say fuck off to the content owner. That's some bullshit. And considering a lot of those abandonware titles have been out of print for over 20 years, that's quite the case of blueballs. How much fucking effort does it take to sell a digital copy of your work in this day and age? If you're too lazy to put your shit on the market through legal channels so that you can profit off your own shit (whether it be putting up your stuff on Virtual Console or as ghetto as selling a ROM on your website) , then you have no right to bitch if people download your shit for free. Downloading roms instead of buying used copies (the IP owner sees nothing from that) is a victimless crime. Copyright law really needs to be revamped. It's a joke. It's going to take a shitload of time before the first videogame hits the life plus 75 years mark. Just because something is the law doesn't make it the morally righteous way. Not that long ago, interracial sex was illegal. The law doesn't mean shit. If the fucking game industry had their way, buying used games would be a crime too (and I don't see anything wrong with used games because the content owners already made their money off that copy. If they don't like it, they can go fuck off to Steam/Games on Demand/PSN and stop whining about GameStop).
Meanwhile I'm going to continue downloading Roms and old PC games and not get caught so I really don't give a shit what the industry does either way with abandonware (since I don't use torrents. People who use torrents these days are asking to get sued). All I'm saying is: if you don't want people downloading your abandonware for free, then stop bitching and sell that shit. Because I'm going to download that shit regardless and get away with it.
