Re: Mimic Spartan(s) for me!

[CUTjefbla@bconnex.net (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Fri, 18 May 2001 12:28:55 +0200, "Sheldon Simms"
<sheldon@semanticedge.com> wrote:

>In other words, you are a hypocrite, like I thought.

No, I'm not being a hypocrite.  This situation is entirely different
than the issues of software piracy and is definitley different than
the issue of whether buying a used copy of a program or pirating it is
better, which we've been discussing in another thread.

>What is happening here is that somebody made an illegal derivative of
>the Apple II ROM and sold it. You now possess a copy of this ROM, and
>you say it's ok to keep it because it was sold and somebody bought it.
>You didn't copy the ROM, you just happen to have a product with illegally
>copied software. As long as the product isn't recalled it's ok.

What is happening here is that somebody has implied that the Spartan
ROM is an illegally produced derivative of an Apple II ROM.  No one is
saying straight out that it is an illegally created ROM and in fact
the statement in question only mentioned the AppleSoft ROM, not the
entire Apple II ROM, and even then it was stated that the ROM is
different than the Apple II ROM.  In fact, it sounds to me like they
went to a lot of effort to ensure that they weren't creating an
illegal derivative of the Apple II ROM.  It is only good business
practice to do everything you can to protect yourself.

Now, downloading copies of copyrighted software off the internet is
definitely illegal because they are exact copies of the software (or
at least exact copies of the majority of the software in the case of
cracked copies) and that clearly breaks the copyright protection of
the software.

>Well it sounds to me, then, that if I download an sector-edited copy of
>Appleworks from some web page, then I haven't done anything wrong.
>Some other loser illegally made a derivative work of Appleworks, and I
>just happen to have acquired a copy of it. As long as the derivative work
>isn't recalled it's ok. Even if Apple sues the guy who made the hacked
>Appleworks and wins, it's ok for me to keep it. Right? Or do I have to
>actually pay the pirate scum for the hacked Appleworks in order to make
>it ok?

If someone went to all the work to reorder the code of a program like
AppleWorks so that any of the remaining code pieces were small enough
that they wouldn't be considered stolen from the original code and
they could somehow prove that they didn't create it directly from the
original code and you were willing to entrust your data to a program
that might have just had a bunch of really nasty bugs introduced into
it then you could probably use it legally.  However, the person to do
all this work would also be taking a big risk of being penalized if it
is found that they did create their version illegally.  This also
brings up moral issues but I won't go into that.

Personally, I'd rather buy a used copy or try to get the program
either reclassified or licensed for sale again.

--
 Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II Unversity on A2Central.com