I don't disagree that it's morally fine -- after all, the abandonware community wouldn't make the downloads available otherwise -- but it's still not legal.
Home of the Underdogs used to get tons of aggressive cease and desist emails from ESA (then named IDSA), the group representing game publishers legally, and who supposedly are on the "side" of games. So aggressive in fact they sometimes got it wrong (like sending a C&D for a game which was public domain). And who was willing to take a stance and chance it?
Back then the abandonware community was one of two things, I think: people who just wanted to download games (Warez or abandonware was the same to them) and proper members of the community, who'd rather see these games either commercially supported or made public domain. Both HOTU and Abandonia replaced download links whenever someone found a legal way to buy the games.
Home of the Underdogs used to get tons of aggressive cease and desist emails from ESA (then named IDSA), the group representing game publishers legally, and who supposedly are on the "side" of games. So aggressive in fact they sometimes got it wrong (like sending a C&D for a game which was public domain). And who was willing to take a stance and chance it?
Back then the abandonware community was one of two things, I think: people who just wanted to download games (Warez or abandonware was the same to them) and proper members of the community, who'd rather see these games either commercially supported or made public domain. Both HOTU and Abandonia replaced download links whenever someone found a legal way to buy the games.