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| Classic-PC-Games.com > Disclaimer |
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Introduction
Copyright
The ESA
Other Developers & Publishers
Copyright Abuse
Downloaded Software
Download Budget System
Your Personal Data & Email
Third Party Sponsors
How to help
Contact me
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Introduction
First of all i want to point out that it is not an attorney that writes this disclaimer, it's a private person with a limited capability of expressing and valuating certain legal situations and copyright laws. I try to inform myself to the very best of my and other, supporting peoples knowledge about the legal status and situation of so called abandonware games, freeware and shareware software rights and the ideas and views of group of fans and webmasters that form the abandonware games online-scene. I consider myself as a new member to this scene, who’s view on the mentioned topics could be influenced by the existence and the ideas in articles on websites like Underdogs or Abandonia, which i consider raw models for an abandonware games website. I will describe why I think it's a truly good thing to offer downloads of copyrighted (yes, they ALL are), but forgotten games on a website like the one you are on now. Please judge yourself if you can personally agree with some the things I try to describe because I believe that my intention of this website is a good thing that hurts nobody and that the companies will agree with parts of my ideas that you find in the following passages.
Copyright
I want to express that I don't see this website as a target for commercial copyright law hunters because it's content is not what the copyright holding companies want to fight against. Their intention is to hunt down criminals that publish or sell new, popular media which was reproduced by them for potential customers of legal video game shops. This criminal market hurts the game publishing companies and even you as a normal player suffer from this since the development of new innovative games has a financial loss. This website has not been built to break copyrights of games that are involved in the pool of games that creates the companies profit. I would never publish a game on this website that is still being sold and creates even less than a percent of a company’s profits. To make a long thing short: If it's still for sale, I don't offer it for download. If its publisher or developer doesn’t allow the free distribution, I don't offer it. If it seems to me from my research that nobody would have a financial or other typed harm from offering the game for download, the game will be available for download.
The ESA
is a company who's members are game developers and publishers that hold a huge market share of all games sold worldwide. The goal of the ESA is to fight against professional copyright crime and help to decrease the private copyright crime rate as well. The members of the ESA invest billions each year into their companies to release new games and always improve the technology of the software. The income of these companies is being decreased dramatically by the existence of groups that reproduce popular media in large quantities which creates an illegal multi million dollar market. I say this is right, such groups and websites should be hunted down, so I will support the ESA and their members on this website.
Support to the game producing companies means for me that I offer a platform for games that my surfers can not download, but they see preview images and review texts that remind them of their good memories. The fact that that website strictly says that this game is old, but NOT available for free, should move the surfers point of view on protected software in a good direction. I want the surfer to end up on the website of the producers company and hopefully find the original games or new versions of the old classics that he can buy for his modern pc in the next game shop.
Many sources on the web say that the ESA should not be considered the bad cop that prevents you from playing your favourite games. This is not the case since the employees of the ESA just do the work that the game producers want them to do and this includes to keep the internet clean from free downloads of their games. All abandonware webmasters give a positive feedback about the people at ESA. They have been very direct and cooperative and that is a relationship that I wish for this website as well.
Other Developers & Publishers
Beside the ESA there is another huge group of people that i want to support in the best possible way. This group consists of the Developers, Designers, Artists and Producers that have built all the games on this website and they deserve all credits and applause and success for their current-days business.
All games on this website have officially been released to the public, are freeware or shareware or the owners don't disagree with the online distribution of their old games since they are not being sold anymore. That is my current information that I found out by checking game resource websites like MobyGames, Underdogs or Abandonia, the website of the publisher and producer and of course thousands of googled private websites that I studied. Since all these sources could be wrong in the worst case, the info on this website can also be wrong. Again, the data is entered only by the best of my knowledge but I can not guarantee for it's 100% accuracy. Based on what the info sources I have tell me about the copyrights and the status of the games, i decide if i offer them for download or not. I always build the game page, no matter if the game has a download or not because I believe that many game files will be lost in the future and we should save as much text and images of them as possible that survive the time.
Copyright Abuse
If you are owner of a copyright or publishing right of a game on this website, and you want the download or the complete game to be removed, please contact me over the contact form, I respect all of your rights on the game and will remove it as you wish. Maybe we can find an agreement that allows me to keep the game online. I am open for all suggestions or deals that make it possible to keep the games available for the public.
Downloaded Software
Since the games that you can download on this website are all together collected from third parties, mostly in the internet, I need to declare myself not liable for possible damages that the games or the emulators that you can download on my website might cause on your computer. The files are all virus-free and should not cause any damage in normal usage. Please check our help section for manuals on how to start the games. By downloading the games from this website you agree that you will not make me responsible if the files hurt your computer in any way, you run them on your own risk.
Download Budget System
Since this website creates a big amount of (hosting) costs (the more downloads = the more money i have to pay), i use a sponsor budget system. If you ever have problems with the downloads or you think that you did not receive enough download credits, please contact me and I will always replace your credits and usually give you some extra credits. The budget system is just there to keep a global balance between hosing costs and sponsor income so that I break even at the end of the month. It's not there to prevent you from downloading games, so please contact me and we will get your problem solved.
Your Personal Data & Email
The email and your personal data that gets collected in the signup process is not being sold or offered to third parties. I reserve the right to send you emails if I have special events or offers around the abandonware games scene. You can remove yourself from all mailings by deleting your account on this website. After the deletion of your account, you will not receive any emails from this website.
Third Party Sponsors
keep this website alive by paying us money for your participation in surveys or testing free products. This money is used to pay the costs of the website. I try to pick the most comfortable sponsors for you, but they sometimes are a bit tricky and maybe annoying. Please keep in mind that only they make it possible that you can download the games on my website and forgive them the annoying passages. If you have problems after signing up with them, please first look at their website if you can find information on how to unsubscribe or delete your account. This usually is much faster than asking me, since I need to check for this info myself as well.
How to help
You can help this website in many ways. Of course money is always short, so please visit my sponsors, it's that simple. Beside that i would like to encourage you to write me reviews and comments about the games and help me finding more accurate info about the games like publisher and developer names. And probably the best help is to spread the word. Tell your friends and family about this website and link to it to make it grow.
Contact me
Please always contact me via the contact form. Since there are a lot time consuming questions coming in about how to start certain games, my reply can take a few hours, days, sometimes more. All emails will be answered.
Thank you for your time,
CPG
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