Should computer software piracy become legal under these circumstances?

[America needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Poll questions got cut off; it should say: If either physical copies of the software in question were never produced or broadly resell only at prices higher than the price they were sold for originally (after adjusting for overall market value inflation perhaps), and the company has taken no steps to keep it available through other means?


Examples of types of media this would apply to are movies and video games.

[dead0man]

is there a problem with property owners coming after distributors of abandoned or dead digital art?  Oddly enough, I just downloaded The Simpsons:Hit and Run last night from an abandonware site.  It's alright, but games have advanced a lot in the last couple of decades.

[First1There]

is there a problem with property owners coming after distributors of abandoned or dead digital art?  Oddly enough, I just downloaded The Simpsons:Hit and Run last night from an abandonware site.  It's alright, but games have advanced a lot in the last couple of decades.

That's not the concern, I think. Here are two problems.

1. The companies have complete control over the distribution of content if the content can only be accessed digitally. So if the company decides to withhold a show, this causes the property to never have a chance to become popular. It's monopoly on availability not seen before. And nobody can really do anything about it.
2. Or worse, the show never becomes popular, then something like the 2008 Universal Studios fire happens, or the studio goes bankrupt, and the show becomes lost media. No backup.

These are the complaints I hear from the open source, free media, digital piracy, lost media, copyright reform, types.

(There are a lot more, but those I remember.)