underground gamer is offline for good

[Hatta]

Terrible bummer. UG was a huge resource for the community, and had done a lot of great preservation work. Hopefully it rises from the ashes, or something worthwhile takes its place. The world needs to move away from centralized torrent sites on the public web and towards encrypted distributed darknets that can't be sacrificed on the altar of copyright maximalism.

Fortunately, I got in early and have downloaded pretty much everything I could want. My UG folder is over a TB. If other people wanted to set up a Retroshare network with me, I could make a lot of stuff available. Not that I have a lot of upstream bandwidth, but it's better than nothing. PM me if you're interested.

[BoneSnapDeez]

for those who don't know - what was this site?

[Hatta]

It's a private torrent site dedicated to retro gaming. Nothing more recent than 10 years old. And just about everything you could want. They were working on a complete (as possible) DOS set, hope that gets done.

[irixith]

You have deprived them of the tangible money that they reasonably expected to make from the product they created.

Except one thing: would you have purchased it if you couldn't download it? If so, then technically, you deprived them of nothing.

Whether or not you would or wouldn't have paid for it is immaterial.

Did you download and use/watch/play/otherwise enjoy the content? To have had that experience you were supposed to pay. Period. If you wouldn't have paid, that still makes a clear-cut case for theft!

[o.pwuaioc]

You have deprived them of the tangible money that they reasonably expected to make from the product they created.

Except one thing: would you have purchased it if you couldn't download it? If so, then technically, you deprived them of nothing.

Whether or not you would or wouldn't have paid for it is immaterial.

Did you download and use/watch/play/otherwise enjoy the content? To have had that experience you were supposed to pay. Period. If you wouldn't have paid, that still makes a clear-cut case for theft!

Sorry, but the law disagrees with you.

[AppleQueso]

theft or not, it's still pretty shady

lol piracy dee batez

[irixith]

Sorry, but the law disagrees with you.

The law says that I can download things on the internet for free that I should be paying to receive? My car took its last drive this week, and I could really use something shiny, sexy and sporty. (Seriously, it died, been a shitty week.) I'm all over downloading one, of two, or seven....

[EllertMichael]

[Menegrothx]

However, you have still taken it, without permission or legal right, without intending to return it. You get full enjoyment and benefits without the required exchange of currency. You have deprived them of the tangible money that they reasonably expected to make from the product they created.

The same logic applies to lending a game to a friend or buying one used. Basic consumer/property rights are in the way of this required exchange of currency.
So from copyright perspective no one should play old video games unless they bought a new copy from a store when the game was new or the game in question is available on a compliation disc that's being stold in stores or being sold through Steam/GOG/XBLA/PSN/Wii's Virtual console. Too bad those services cover only a small part of all the old games that were ever released.

[o.pwuaioc]

Sorry, but the law disagrees with you.

The law says that I can download things on the internet for free that I should be paying to receive? My car took its last drive this week, and I could really use something shiny, sexy and sporty. (Seriously, it died, been a shitty week.) I'm all over downloading one, of two, or seven....

Hey, why don't you twist my words some more. That would be really cool.