[Rant] LeHah's Abandonware Emporium

To take this argument perhaps in a little different direction, what I see in our society today tells me that the general populace doesn't concern itself with concepts such as "abandonware," and simply downloads what it can, even if the title was only released hours earlier or is in fact a pre-release version that hasn't even hit the shelves yet. Enthusiasts that frequent forums such as this one are more nuanced than that, as evidenced by this thread for example, but are far fewer in numbers.

The recent writer's strike illustrates how important getting compensated for Internet downloads is to content creators. I wonder at times if the iPod generation has a strong concept of what IP actually is, or if they are blind to such issues? I remember we used to record cassette tape mixes of our favorite songs off the radio. Is this the same thing as downloading songs for free off the Internet? I'm not sure. When we recorded songs to cassette, we were listening to the live radio feed, which included advertisements. So, the songs were generating ad revenue. However, since we didn't tape the ads the ad revenue was not being generated upon repeated listening.

On a similar note, does it make a difference if I borrow a friend's copy of a song, movie, or game, if that copy was purchased at retail or copied for free off the Internet? Either way, it is not generating revenue since I'm only borrowing it. But in this case if the first step of the process is illegitimate, is anything derived from it de facto illegitimate also?

If I'm downloading new games, I'm not paying for them. If I'm downloading old games, I'm not buying as many new games as I otherwise would and therefore not funding the development of new games or the industry in general. So, does downloading games of whatever state of "abandonment" one wishes to define, hurt or help the industry? Industry sales are up overall in 2008, even with this crazy economy, yet many smaller development houses are folding for various reasons. Similar to the movie industry, we are seeing a collapse of the "middle," with only giant titles (GTA IV, Halo, etc.) or freeware being released, with less and less in between.

One could argue, I suppose, that freeware is similarly problematic. By downloading games that were never offered for sale, one is also not providing development capital to the game industry. I think where this argument fails, however, is that I have not yet seen freeware of the quality of titles like Half-Life 2. Various alternative models have been tried before, such as ad-supported titles, but these haven't been proven as viable alternatives to the tried & true retail model (whether B&M or Steam-type models) thus far.

I wonder, given the current state of the economy, if there will be a drastic uptick in "questionable" downloads vs. retail purchases?

I'm trying not to paint any strokes too broadly here, as this is a complex topic. This is a good thread for discussion, and I hope we never see the day where such topics are not discussed...

Jam it back in, in the dark.