Free Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga?

A

Admiral Thrawn

Guest
I was looking around for the Kilrathi Saga and I came across this site:

(URL removed)

They are offering it there for "free" (actually they require $3 for maintaining their web site). Is this legit? They made it sound like WC: Kilrathi Saga is now public domain and free to copy and download if you can find it. It was only like 25 meg, that seemed a little small to me. Is this for real? Thanks

Chris
 
No, it's not free - even without the $3, it's outright stealing. The game is so small because they've cut out all of Wing Commander 3 as well as all the music from the first two games.

Kilrathi Saga is owned by Origin - it is not in the public domain (nor will it be for close to one hundred years).
 
So warez sites now start charging for pirating software? Amazing...
Well at least it is easier to sue them now. *eg*
 
Ok, thanks for the help. So do you know of any good place I could buy WC Kilrathi Saga? Perferably someplace other than ebay where they are going for over $80? Thanks.
 
Eh, suck it up . . . 3-4 years ago I got a steal on it for $290 from Ebay. It was going for around $400 anywhere else ;).

C-ya
 
It might be free and legal soon... Something I got from www.gamasutra.com (on oct. 30th)

Copyright Access Exemption Granted for Obsolete Videogames
In response to a filing by Brewster Kahle of The Internet Archive, Lawrence Lessig of Creative Commons, and others, the Librarian of Congress granted access exemptions from copyright protection measures in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to obsolete videogames. The exemption applies to games that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, and it determines a format obsolete “if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.”

According to the original filing, the exemption was proposed in order to migrate degraded and obsolete works to modern storage systems, and enable “archiving, future scholarship, and commentary.”
 
Don't want to bust your bubble, but how does this apply to KS? It does not "require the original media or hardware as a condition of access". KS might or might not have some sort of copy protection. What was ment however is stuff like dongles or keydisks, which both KS isn't/hasn't.
Also "machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured" does not apply. I can buy a PC everywhere.

The exemption you mention is NOT the same as what is called abandonware by the warez community. It is much much more restrictive.
 
well

if i remember right KS requiers DOS and old soundcards right ? as the curent OS'es dont have any DOS or old sond card's except through emulation the paragraf may very likely apply to KS
 
Besides most soundcards got DOS emulation and nobody forces you to use the latest OS as you name it. You can still run DOS on your 3Ghz machine. If you don't choose to do so that doesn't mean it qualifies for abandoned!
 
But if you want to push it, you can't buy DOS or win95 anywhere besides second hand shops..which are iffy sometimes, and MS sure doesn't manufacture those anymore.
 
Oh, but you can download various free versions of DOS from the net. Nobody said it had to be MSDOS... <g>
 
300 bucks for 3 games!

At 100 dollars per game one can only wonder why there is the existence of warez....if the demand is so high why have they not released more copies...

I fully support warez on any program that cost more then 50 dollars...anything past that is gouging, and if a company no longer is capable of selling then the product SHOULD be considered abandonwarez since buying new copyrights is unattainable....

After hearing this i refuse to buy anymore origin products.....

A good example of way to treat your long time fans is sierra...(check out tierra)...
 
Unregistered said:
At 100 dollars per game one can only wonder why there is the existence of warez....if the demand is so high why have they not released more copies...
Click to expand...
Demand is not high. There are at the most a few dozen people willing to spend over $50. The Kilrathi Saga was released twice and it never sold all that well.

Unregistered said:
After hearing this i refuse to buy anymore origin products.....
Click to expand...
I'm sure someone at Origin is kicking themselves right now.
 
At 100 dollars per game one can only wonder why there is the existence of warez....if the demand is so high why have they not released more copies...

I fully support warez on any program that cost more then 50 dollars...anything past that is gouging,
Click to expand...

The MSRP on Kilrathi Saga is $44.95. If you'd bought it when it came out, you could have easily had it for $30. Any copy you see for sale today is on the *secondary market* - something which Origin does not control. (If people had bothered to pay the completely reasonable price for Kilrathi Saga when it came out, it wouldn't be $150 used today... but that's another story.)

That said, you're a huge freaking idiot. $50 is 'gouging'? You've clearly never budgeted... anything at all, ever. Maybe 5% of that 'horrible' $50 fee will make it into the hands of the people who developed the game. Half of the money will go straight to the vendor... and then *most* of the rest will go towards advertising, unit production, shelving costs, distribution and the myriad of other expenses involved in putting out a video game.


and if a company no longer is capable of selling then the product SHOULD be considered abandonwarez since buying new copyrights is unattainable....

After hearing this i refuse to buy anymore origin products.....
Click to expand...

'Buying new copyrights(sic)'? Do you even begin to know what that means? Well, of course you don't - because it's nonsense. EA would be *happy* to sell you one of Wing Commander's various copywrites - you'll just need the several million dollars that it's worth. :)

(And Origin is hardly incapable of selling even *Kilrathi Saga* - they licensed it to PC Gamer for distribution just two years ago... it's still making money.)

A good example of way to treat your long time fans is sierra...(check out tierra)...
Click to expand...

Tierra isn't related to Sierra - they're a fan run group which remakes classic Sierra games.

I'd have a lot more respect if these "I heart piracy" nitwits would just come out and say it: they're teenagers who can't afford video games. There's nothing *noble* about stealing - no matter what dumbass excuse you make up for yourself.
 
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