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MrFlibble

Are the free releases of legacy C&C titles still legit?

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The three classic titles that had been released as freeware now being part of the Ultimate Collection, are they still legit to distribute as freeware? AFAIK EA took down all the official download pages for those over the recent years. I cannot find the original C&C95 freeware announcement but the Red Alert download page clearly states that mirroring the disc images by third parties is not permitted (a request that was apparently disregarded), and the release is presented as such that it could be construed a temporary promotional action to celebrate the 13th anniversary of C&C. The official game pages from 2011 (C&C, RA1) offer to buy The First Decade and mention no free downloads.

Edited by MrFlibble

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It is assumed that they are, as there was no explicit notice that they weren't. The fact that there have been no download links on the official site since February 2011 means little because... well... whoever was in charge of the website didn't find downloads important, as there were only downloads of C&C3 stuff and links to Nyer's site (which held and still holds a link to the full C&C95) and the TFD unofficial patch. All else was scattered around the net through loose links (RIP na.llnet.cnc3tv.ea.com and na.llnet.cdn.ea.com 2007-2013).

The RA1 discs have always been mirrored, from FilePlanet to FileFront.

It was not a temporary promotion, as when the site was redesigned for C&C4, the links to C&C95 and RA1 were put alongside the newly-free TS/FS on 12 February 2010 - the exact same ISOs as before.

Considering EA's legal team and their "authorized" lackeys are rather trigger-happy, and nobody was sanctioned for mirroring these files since C&C95's "liberation" in August 2007 (!), there is no reason to fear.

The same goes for the MekTek release of MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries, AFAIK.

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If a game is legally made freeware, that status cannot be removed, no matter how much the company wants to do so. If it wasn't a legal change, but out of the "kindness" of their hearts, they can revoke it at any time.

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On 14.10.2017 at 8:22 PM, Nmenth said:

If a game is legally made freeware, that status cannot be removed, no matter how much the company wants to do so.

That's a good point, although I think that there might be legal ways to revoke a freeware license. But have the titles in question been released with the appropriate license files to confirm this status?

In the past there have been several temporary freeware releases of very popular commercial games, including Sierra's Red Baron and Caesar (some of them listed here). In many cases these were in connection of a new game in the series being released, and at the time they were not marked as temporary promotional actions. In fact, IIRC the download of Caesar included a readme which stated something along the lines of "no technical support is provided for this game but don't complain - it's free after all", which is a rather typical statement for freeware releases that occurred back in the day (when some companies thought they could not make any more profit with legacy DOS titles), yet the licenses for these games only extended to the downloads that were temporarily available from Sierra's website and were since revoked. 

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43 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

I think that there might be legal ways to revoke a freeware license.

I am not a lawyer, but I at least somewhat confident that I understand this subject, as I have done some research into copyright laws just to make myself more familiar on the topic for the frequent occasions it comes up (like now).

Copyright licenses (which software licenses are a form of) can only go in one direction; more free. Once they move down a rung on the copyright ladder, they can never go back up for any reason ever.

If freeware has ever been revoked, either it was never got the freeware license, or the company is lying and it is still legally freeware (not that the average consumer would be willing to go to court over it).

Since a company cannot revoke a freeware license, if they don't want it to be distributed anymore, they will just remove all evidence of its existence. Just because it is free doesn't mean they are obligated to actually make it available.

 

43 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

But have the titles in question been released with the appropriate license files to confirm this status?

I do not know.

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43 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

But have the titles in question been released with the appropriate license files to confirm this status?

TD had nothing except the ISO and installation instructions, IIRC.

RA1 and TS got such a copypasted EULA that it refers to package returns.

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