well... abandonware are communly old games that their authors didn't care about it anymore but it copyrights had never been changed,.... but the authors communly dont care if you distribute them, its illegal but there is no money involved, so no one care.or they are still charging for "Alley Cat" or "Prince" ??
well, thats sometimes what happend to old arcare ROMs for MAME for example. Its illegal to distruite them, but they authors do not fight back because its a product so old that can not be sold again.
Martin