What you're describing is abandonware: software that has stopped being supported and is generally ignored by its publisher or the publisher's succeeding entity. Abandonware is a gray area. The publisher may still hold the copyrights and trademarks for the game, and even if they're ignoring it today, they may start enforcing those copyrights tomorrow. That's why most abandonware sites are full of '90s publishers like Sierra or NovaLogic rather than late '90s EA or UbiSoft titles, for example.
I'm putting my own personal views on abandonware down here just in case the mods think this treads too close to piracy. Remove this part, guys.
My theory on abandonware is as follows: if the game is no longer supported by the publisher and is not being sold by the publisher anywhere, online or even in stores as part of a shareware pack, and it hasn't had a patch issued in at least five years, then it's fair game. "Publisher" can also mean the successor, i.e., old vintage-1990s Sim games that were sold by Maxis originally, now being offered by EA. Steam has kind of changed the playing field given how easy and inexpensive it is for a publisher to leave '90s games up for sale indefinitely. If there's no other realistic way to get the game that compensates the publisher or successor for their work in creating it, then I have no issues downloading it.
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