Can somebody tell me if games ona archive.org are legal?

Wikipedia says:
Since December 23, 2014, the Internet Archive presents via a browser based DOSBox emulation thousands of DOS/PC games for "scholarship and research purposes only"

Only how to prove that I have such a game for scholarship or research purposes only?



Example:

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games?and%5B%5D=prehistorik

https://www.gog.com/game/prehistorik_12

Maybe this helps
https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/2l9g89/whats_the_legality_of_the_emulators_that/

I've used archive.org a log. Downloaded books from early 1900's, and atari programs and files that would otherwise be lost.

I'd rather have Archive.org than not have it, because being able to use or search or find the old stuff that is retained for archiving, as well as trying to keep things working so you could backtrack and see how things used to be, what games or programs or books that otherwise aren't preserved.

Many companies don't care about retaining the games and history of our past, preferring you to rebuy on whatever hardware, OS or other system with little to no new benefit, and they don't want you to own your games or programs anymore either.

Besides.. is there that many people REALLY interested in playing the original SimCity, Masters of Orion, Albian, or the like? Not to mention getting the emulation and framework set up to get it working...

Well, they haven't been sued yet despite carrying stuff like a cracked version of Resident Evil 7. Not sure if they can use the "Mah Digital Library" card to get around that.

Games are going to be like any other medium. Once it's out there it's sorta out of your hands.

Also, for many mediums it's silly and pointless. After 3 years books/movies are no longer in production. Many games/movies/series are having a much longer tail of profit due to the digital medium and sales, and rental/services like NetFlix or the like.

In short, the time of major profit for all of this is long since over.

And here I delete the entire post since I just did a look up and discovered something I did not know.

State of California declared them a (state?) library in 2007. Therefore they have additional rights under the DMCA and the ability to offer materials to their "patrons" or guests.

I'm kind of iffy with them offering downloads but no one has gone after them on it.

http://www.post-gazette.com/technology/2007/06/22/The-Internet-gives-birth-to-an-official-online-library/stories/200706220236

Well, that is certainly interesting.
If that is true, abandonware may soon have at least one legitimate home.

In terms of the legality of that type of distribution...
As-is, if an IP rights holder is lost or unable to be found, many types of media sit in a legal "gray area" so to speak.
In terms of music, text, image, and video, there can certainly be cases made for that type of media being important to preserve, in a cultural sense, despite copyright laws that would otherwise prohibit their recreation, digitally or otherwise.
That said, software can be harder to classify than an obscure book or song.
Often, software rights are still held by major corporations, and even if the software is no longer being published or sold, reproduction is still usually against applicable copyright laws as a result of that company still holding the rights.
Now, if the IP is dead, and no longer being worked on, with no plans to revive it, those IP holding corporations really don't usually care about this type of distribution happening.
If the IP is still alive though, companies will fiercely protect their IP rights, as the way that US copyright laws work, doing anything less may mean that they will be unable to protect their IP rights in the future.
(This is why companies in the US, and US branches of international companies, tend to fight so hard against "fan" games. If they don't, they might not be able to protect their IP in the future.)

It should also be pointed out that, in the US, copyright laws are only considered as criminal offenses if intellectual property is used or reproduced for financial gain.
If no financial gain is sought or made, then it falls under civil law.
As such, even though non-profit distribution may technically be prohibited by law, it's not expressly criminal.
That is to say, while a company can come after someone in the US for doing it, and may be highly likely to win, the act itself is not criminal by definition.
It's kind of more like borrowing something from a library, and then returning it late.
It's not outright theft by the word of the law, but something was still done wrong.
(Yes, US copyright law is weird, and that isn't even the weirdest part of it, from what I understand.)
Of course, copyright law in many countries is indeed covered by criminal law.

In addition to software, I recommend checking out the commercial game strategy guides they have available on the site. I've wondered about the copyright implications myself. Personally I've downloaded from there without reservation.

i have checked out a ton of game guides to read from there , some of the game guides are pretty rare and a good read.

Hardly abandonware when many of those games are still being sold. On GOG for example.

There is however a difference. Gog provide working, patches games, with support, and in some cases multiplay and cross play along with achievements and cloud saves etc (none of which interest me, but some see it as a benefit), not to mention support for the product.

Personally, I would see Ip laws fully renovated into a simple short window after development for recompense then open to all, works that way in the pharma world now for instance. Just the US need for their precious mainly as they didn't actually invent anything in the first place, preferring tech acquisition from wars and cultural appropriation from all other countries.

They are legal if you have the license or its not possible anymore to acquire the license. This is a legacy preservation site.

You might be right but legally speaking this does not matter. Somebody is owning the rights and therefore using/broadcasting/copying them without permission is not allowed. At least the games in question are not offered as downloads - only streaming.

Perhaps.

Copyright originally lasted only 7 years, and has been expanded and extended to absurd levels that only make sense that corporations to own/exploit/sell/profit long after the creators are dead. This is total bullshit.

An the reason that the length was pushed and extended over and over again? Because you can't get a profit in the period of time that you owned/controlled the copyright.

So let's recap. Copyright is a contract where you own your works for a 'limited time' before going into the public domain. Copyright exists to encourage the creation of creative arts, works, technology, etc. During that duration you can make a profit and have exclusive rights on your work. What goes into the public domain ultimately enriches the country as a whole, and old works can be rehashed, remade, built on, etc.

So what good is copyright if nothing goes into the public domain? Before the MickyMouse Copyright extension act, Star Wars would have gone into public domain long ago; But NOOOO... instead of being 30 something years which hopefully you'd make a profit off your product (otherwise it's a shitty product) but now it's Lifetime+70 years, or for a company where it starts, it's like 120 years to start. If 90% of all profits of a game/movie release are made in the first couple months of release... Why the fuck does it need a 100+ year ownership tagged on the product? For most you consume said content, and then put it on the shelf and don't look at it again for years.

In short, the copyright system needs to be heavily retracted down to something reasonable (say 10 years, some authors after 4 years put their books out for free after it's out of print); Companies shouldn't be able to milk old games/movies/franchises forever with endless 'remakes' and 'remasters' and squash anyone for the potential of possibly using poor Mario & Luigi content and getting a bitchslap lawsuit threat from Nintendo, or making your own Fan-fiction or movie in star wars and having Disney/Lucas Arts come after you because they hoped to make a huge extended 20 movies/series/spinoffs from the series.

When Star Wars has been released there was not even such thing as VHS. They made profits with cinema AND merchandising. Then DVD came then Blu-ray, television releases - don't forget the books the games and the extreme amount of merchandising (again and again). This is all part of the ip rights and they made profit A LOT. George Lucas even made additional profit by reworking (wor the better or the worse) his films again and again. So no, I would not agree that Star Wars should have gone into PD a long time ago because there was no profit to gain anymore.