None of the games in currently the archive were orphaned when people originally shared them around either, but for the vast majority of them they wouldn't exist anymore nowadays if it wasn't for that original sharing.

Even GOG had to hunt around abandonware sites for officially lost materials.

> they wouldn't exist anymore nowadays if it wasn't for that original sharing

Exactly, more often than not the people who own the rights to things can't be trusted to maintain them.

See the same thing happen with movies, the version available in stores from the rights owner is a bad transfer, likely with a crop with hardcoded subtitles. Yet the version online, compiled by a passionate individual because they care for the material has a rip from a laserdisc for best uncropped picture, sound from another cut and softcoded subtitles.