. . . in the 1970s, when I was a teenager, we recorded our favourite songs from the radio, and from friends who had found the money to buy a record, onto cassette tapes: which was illegal.
I found out it was illegal in about 1990 quite by chance. Our teachers did it, Mum and Dad did it, the school chaplain did it (even played some tapes after the sermon at Evensong) . . .
Never heard about some teenager or their parents ending up in court because they'd recorded some songs by Freddie Mercury.
Nor, for that matter have I heard of someone who has an antiquated Mac at home (I have several) ending up in trouble because they have been merrily getting the software they need for, say, Mac OS 9, or 10.4 from Macintosh Garden (The funny thing is is that I know which software I need because many long years most of it came bundled on my Mac LC475, or the Performa 5200, or the G3 iMac, or the G4 Wind Tunnel, but went the way of all flesh when those machines bust because who backs up their software?)
In 1976 or 7 I was lusting after a hexagonal chess set in an expensive toyshop in Taunton: after the owner watching me glued to the window for 3 Saturdays running, the owner asked me what the problem was: I explained I could not afford to buy the hexagonal chess board + pieces: at which point the man remarked that, for some odd reason, there were 2 copies of the rules inside the box, gave me one of them and told me to go home and make my own set: which I promptly did. I am sure that what I did was "illegal" insofar as the company who had probably ripped off Glinski's Hex chess (he being dead, and Poland being a commie thing, would have patented and copyrighted and all the other things to "nail your head to the floor").
My conscience is 100% free, as it is re my home-made versions of Onitama, Giraffe chess, Kensington, and so on, which I use on a regular basis in my language school. Boardgamegeek doesn't seem to see anything wrong with homemade versions (presumably as long as you are not selling them).
If you do a Googly-Woogly, the only people who are asking questions re the legality of abandonware are U.S. citizens: which, considering their last President (Trump) seems to know the odd thing about 'illegal', and about half the population seem set to vote for him again, is hilarious.
I gave up trying to protect my Devawriter Pro when several people who had NOT paid for it emailed me with questions about its functionality: so I then Open Sourced the thing, and then, oddly enough, started getting a bit of money.
When I found that some people had been pirating my Devawriter I felt quite a warm fuzzy: someone needed the blasted thing.
