For pc games (i don't know if for console games is the same) a 5 years old game is an abandonware game, unless you can find it on a store. But some companies have a contract with idsa and idsa says (not the companies) that games have copyright.
For pc games (i don't know if for console games is the same) a 5 years old game is an abandonware game, unless you can find it on a store. But some companies have a contract with idsa and idsa says (not the companies) that games have copyright.
"Abandonware" is a moral distinction, not a legal one. Copyright law generally says that the author automatically has copyright until either it expires (not likely in the U.S. since they manage to retroactively extend the term every 15-20 years or so) he/she/it explicitly puts the work into the public domain. If they wanted to, Sierra could just stop selling Tribes 2 right now, and it would still not lose copyright status for around 90 (maybe it was 95, I don't remember) years. The fact that a game is no longer sold or supported does absolutely nothing to its copyright status.
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