[Puke]

it doesn't. he was mistaken. clasic games are often discontinued between printings, to build up a demand before releasing them on some collection or other. the simple fact that something is discontinued does not make it abandoned.

it is when the copyright holder decides that it is not worth their bother to defend their copyright, that it is fair game. there is no notice that this is occuring, you just have to be on top of it. and if you're wrong, they either ask you to stop or sue you. its a very grey area.

generally, if its a truely old game and not Last years release, they probably wont sue you unless you dont respond to their requests to cease and desist. if you were distribuing Last months game, i dont think they would bother asking before sending out the hounds.

Anyone remember Starglider 2? now there was a space sim that had it all. how many other space games, ever, let you fly in space, enter atmospheres, fly into underground bunkers, collect cargo and trade goods, upgrade your gear... It was like a fast paced, action packed, easy to play, dumbed down, highly polished, Elite - with planetary and underground missions. Sort of Elite meets Descent 3.

Or how about an RPG called Phantasy? I only played Phantasy III, but man it was good. higly detailed sprain, break, and severing of limbs and body sections. It was always hard for me to keep a party together until the healer got high enough level to restore missing limbs. I was usually hanging on by bits and pieces until I had access to that spell, but it was all downhill after that. It had another cool feature: if your whole party died, but certain or all party members behaved in a badass enough fashion, there was a chance that a demon of the abyss would judge them worth of reincarnation, and send them back as a spectral asskicker. They come back as high level, but dont advance further. So you can use them to train up a powerfull party, and then switch them out with regular guys that can keep advancing, once they catch up.