The Zork Trilogy is NOT freeware. Activision made downloads of the games available as a promotion following the release of Zork Nemesis. The downloads contained the following license:
GRANT. Activision, Inc. ("Activision") hereby grants you a non-exclusive license to use the accompanying computer game, Zork: The Great Underground Empire, provided that you may not:
a. modify or create derivative works based on the Game;
b. copy the Game (except for back-up purposes);
c. rent, lease, transfer or otherwise transfer rights to the Game;
d. or remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Game.
I host a DOS games website that offers free downloads of shareware and freeware programs at
http://www.classicdosgames.com, so I need to be sure that all of my downloads are legal. Following an article in which C|Net claimed that the Zork Trilogy had been released as freeware, I phoned Activision's legal department to ask if the games were really free when the license clearly states that the game can't be copied. They replied:
Back when we released either Zork: Nemesis, Return To Zork or Zork: Grand Inquisitor (all of which were back in the mid 90's), Activision did a sort-of "promotion" to help boost interest in the "new Zork" title. They released for a very short time, the three (3) Zork titles for D/L off their website.
As the "new Zork" title fazed away, Activision removed the titles from their website. Hence, the user could no longer download the games.
Since then ALOT of people have READ INTO this as being that we've essentially given these particular titles away, and that we have no interest in them. (ie- "Hey! They're giving it away.")
This simply isn't the case.
You'll also note that MOST, if not ALL of the Infocom titles are considered to be Public Domain as well, which also isn't the case.
They also said that they "reserve all our rights to pursue any legal measures we deem appropriate against the offending site(s)." I contacted C|Net and they contacted Activision to confirm. They removed the link with the following explanation:
Editor's note: CNET has been advised by Activision that the company's release of the original Zork titles was a limited promotion, and that the company "has since removed them from that 'free' status." As such, we have removed the download link that was originally presented here.
Since the article demonstrated interest in legally obtaining and playing the game, I decided to create a petition to convince Activision to re-release the Zork Trilogy, either for sale or as freeware, at
http://www.petitiononline.com/Zork/. I hope any fans of the series will sign it. To see my petitions to revive other classic games, please see
http://www.classicdosgames.com/petitions.html