[Bow and Arrow - In Search of the Greatest Archer] Unabridged Version 1.03

[Shina69]

Finally, someone found it, boys!
The unabridged version of the 1992 John Di Troia's Bow and Arrow - In Search of the Greatest Archer.
Hidden in the depths of Disk 1 of 1996 Sierra School House Science, one of the holy grail's of abandonware has seen the light of day.
All props to the reddit user Jaktji:
https://www.reddit.com/r/abandonware/co ... indows_31/

I took the liberty to zip it to save you guys some time.
It can be played in any windows 3.1 virtual machine, it works like a charm.

[MrFlibble]

Alright, thanks for sharing the info, but the game's legal status looks to be deep in the gray area, no? The Reddit post suggests that the author unfortunately passed away, but did send out personal copies to anyone who requested them. Pity he did not make the full game properly freeware. I'm afraid that in this state the full version cannot be added to the site as it is, because the supplied license clearly states that it is not eligible for redistribution (emphasis added):

LICENSE to USE Bow and Arrow version 1

1. GRANT OF LICENSE. you have the right
to use and to make an unlimited number of
copies of Bow and Arrow version 1
("Software") provided that such copies are
for personal use only. Licensed copies may
not be distributed for any reason including
purposes of resale.

If you can find some kind of proof that the author did give away free copies at some point, that would be a good start. Still doesn't mean that he would've approved free widespread distribution, but who knows. No way to tell now. Of course, I'm assuming that he did not intend for his game to be lost forever, so it's kind of reasonable to preserve it anyway, regardless of what the license says. But it will likely be a barrier to adding the full version to RGB Classic Games in the foreseeable future.

[Malvineous]

I suppose the question is, if you did distribute it, who would come along and complain? Only the copyright holder has the right to do that.

I guess upon his passing the copyright went to his estate, which was likely inherited by any children or other family he might have. So you'd have to do a bit of sleuthing to find who they are and ask them to declare it freeware.

Otherwise I think you could argue in good faith that redistribution is currently permitted. Should this not be the case, the first step is for the copyright holder to ask for it to be removed from the site, and if you comply with that, then it's unlikely there would be any further issues. To take the matter further, the copyright holder would have to prove that you have caused them financial loss, and if the game is currently not for sale and won't work as-is on modern computers anyway, that's going to be a difficult one to prove.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but this seems to be how it has worked in other situations.