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Internet 'Grey Areas'
by: Daniel Punch
The Internet has opened up whole new avenues of freedom for people: freedom of information, thoughts and the ability to achieve anonymity while still being active in a community. This freedom has been latched onto by a large proportion of the Internet user base and has fuelled a desire for even more liberties. This in turn has given rise to the 'Internet Grey Areas', those little things that 'everyone' does but which aren't quite legally correct. A few examples are Abandonware, MP3 downloads, warez and their kind.

Abandonware is the label applied to games that have been 'abandoned' by their original developers. The standard rule has become that if the games are more than four years old and no longer freely available for purchase, or if the developer has closed and hence the game is no longer supported, then it can be called Abandonware and distributed freely. Some developers willingly release their older software titles into the public domain making them legally Abandonware but a large number of titles labelled as such are not technically free for public access. The licences are still owned by someone and the distribution of their software titles could be harming their licence validity.

Abandonware justifies itself by preserving gaming history in a 'living' way. It allows people to play the games they used to love long after they're available to purchase. In many cases the only hope for finding older games is to trawl second hand shops and online stores such as Ebay in the slim hopes of coming across a particular title. Sometimes when you finally get hold of the old software it simply won't run on your PC leaving you with a pretty box but no closer to actually playing the game. Several times I've purchased an old game and then downloaded a copy off the Internet so that I can actually play it due to the fact that old disks are either damaged or the wrong type (I don't have a 5 1/4" floppy drive on my PC any more...).

MP3 downloads have a less honourable ideology. Simply put, people want free music so they download it. It is said that the activities harm no one and that the downloading process doesn't adversely affect artists' profits. Who can say for sure? At the time of writing this article the RIAA's site is down and I'm not able to find any accurate figures that estimate the amount of revenue lost due to music piracy. I believe that it was estimated at around $5 billion in 1997 and that's sure to have increased with the advent of broadband. However, these figures are said to be highly inaccurate. A standard argument against them is "I wasn't planning on buying the CD anyway so they haven't lost any money out of me downloading it", an argument that is ridiculous at best. The Movie downloading scene is almost identical. I'm not going to swing one way or another here, but I will say that I can think of several films that didn't receive the box office takings from a number of associates of mine after they had gotten to experience the film before its release date. The quality of the films almost justifies the stealing, but that's a whole different issue!

The Internet community gets riled up over companies asserting their rights on the Internet (which is odd... companies asserting their legal rights being seen as evil while individuals illegally attempting to assert what they believe should be their rights are forces for good...) but the simple fact is that it is damaging for a company to allow the theft of their licences to go unnoticed. In the case of Abandonware, if it can be proven that a company knew their products were being illegally distributed but did nothing about it then the copyright over that particular licence can be lost. The revenues lost due to piracy in its many forms are surprisingly enough, damaging to companies.

I think that it's unfortunate that the freedom provided by the Internet has lead to such abuse but I can see the validity of both sides of the arguments. Companies want and deserve their revenue for the services they provide. Abandonware infringes on a company's copyright and can lead to them losing their licences if they don't hunt down offenders. The consumers on the other hand have to pay increasingly steeper and steeper prices for the products, something that is often blamed on the increasing rate of piracy, which is blamed on the continuous increase in prices and the whole thing becomes a vicious cycle. CDs are very expensive if you only want one or two songs off the CD, which is where online music stores can come into play. There you can purchase the licence to a song relatively cheaply without having to pay a lot for an entire CD you that don't particularly want (and they have the added upside of having more of the money make it back to the artists who created the music as opposed to the corporations that distribute it).

I guess in the end everyone has to make their own decision about where they stand between the concepts of 'Morally Correct' and 'Legally Correct'. Me personally, I like to stand a little closer to 'Legally Correct' than most. It's been my experience that 'morals' tend to change and warp a lot sooner than the law does, and not always for the better. If we restrain ourselves on the Internet then maybe authorities won't see the need to attempt to restrain us. The freedom that is relished so much on the Internet may in fact be increased with just a little self-control.

About the author:
Daniel Punch
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net


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 ‘Online Games' - Most Relaxing Experience Want to Unwind – Play Online Games Increasing Audience for Online Gaming
 by: Allen Brown

Recently, many new online gaming services have been introduced. The world is having a visible affect on the online gaming industry, as more and more people turned towards playing and enjoying online games.

Games on net were once an imaginary phrase, but since the introduction of thousands of user friendly and easy operating games on the Internet, people are finding that fiction has become reality.

But, now you can read about what you want to learn and play free online games at paying no money. This is the ultimate playing way for anyone frightened by the complex layout of games. To play online games, read introduction to the games and play along.

Another main reason people want to play free online games is to get refreshed from the monotonous and hectic routine. With games on net, all of that excitement can be put into action. The people may choose to play free online games for recreation. Many people just want to chill out at the end of a day, and playing with a pool or slot machine etc. doesn't provide sufficient amusement.

According to a leading company’s survey on online gamers, women around or above age 40 are the informal gaming hardcore, playing games at an average of nearly nine hours a week. As far as men of all age group are concerned, they spend nearly six hours gaming while women of all ages average to around seven hours per week. This show increasing urges to play online games in all age groups and both genders.

The report also unveils an interesting point, 54 percent of adults said that they play games to wipe-off stress and the 20 percent of teens who play for just relaxation.

With free online games one can experience the excitement of playing, without the fear of losing any single cent. Many sites on the Internet also let you to post messages in forum and even facilitate to chat with friends while you play.

This is excellent news for gaming authors and websites, as the more-n-more people are moving towards playing online games on net, the more excitement around the globe will be.

All in all, it can be pretty relaxing experience and certainly it is becoming very popular time-pass.


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