Retro Dos gaming at its finest?

[vxicepickxv]

For those of you who aren't aware, Archive.org added a nice new set of toys for everyone that can run DOS based games.

MS-DOS games library

Come for The Oregon Trail

Stay for Doom.

[TStodden]

For those of you who aren't aware, Archive.org added a nice new set of toys for everyone that can run DOS based games.

MS-DOS games library

Come for The Oregon Trail

Stay for Doom.

TRANSLATION:

Come for the Cholera, Stay for Hell on Mars!

Seriously, it's pretty cool as you can enjoy the classics without having to deal with downloading stuff & get DOSbox working properly.

[Robo4900]

Actually, Archive.org didn't ask for permission to use these games(Which, by the way, they are using the full versions of).

I heard about this on a site based around the game Jazz Jackrabbit(DOS run and gun platformer, 1994, made by Epic, not very easy to find nowadays), where there was a newspost about it, which was then deleted and replaced with the following message:

There was a newspost here earlier about being able to play a commercial release of Jazz Jackrabbit in your browser on a certain archiving website. I have deleted that newspost. I don’t have specifics available for you yet, but based on my private communication with an Epic Games spokesperson, it seems Epic was not made aware of the archiving website’s intentions and is now in consultation with its legal department. (3D Realms, another publisher with games playable on that website, is already aware of the issue but last I checked hasn’t yet taken specific actions against it.)

It’s certainly possible that Epic Games will decide that they’re okay with this, but at the moment they have very much not done so, and in the meantime this should be viewed as analogous to any other warez/abandonware site. Links will not be appreciated. (Or if you’d like a more flattering comparison, consider how many full movies and TV shows are hosted on YouTube until the rights holders complain to Google about them.)

In the meantime, if you really want to play JJ1 online, Classic Dos Games has had the shareware version (with HH94 included) available for years…

So, playing these games is essentially piracy.
If you want to play DOS games in-browser, try Classic DOS Games.

[AdmiralMemo]

While true, probably 90% of these companies are long dead, so piracy of them isn't really an issue.

That said, for the ones that are still in business, yeah... That's a sticky wicket.

[Lord Hosk]

Part of the trouble with the US legal system is that doesn't matter. Someone owns all that material, a bank, a holding company, a content creator or their heir.

The inability to easily trace who owns the rights doesn't make those rights available, it just makes it easier for companies who don't have any claim to sue you for violating "their" copywrites and trademarks. IE: the Happy Birthday Song.

[Robo4900]

The problem with what the guys at the Internet Archive are doing is that they're making it look like these games are freeware, which is just not true.

Also, this doesn't make a lot of sense. The guys at Internet Archive usually archive public domain stuff(Graham and Paul even used some clips from them for a couple of early videos), with the Wayback Machine being the most legally questionable thing they've done before this, so theoretically, they should have at least a basic understanding of copyright law.