Re: Building An Apple ][ Software Archive

["Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" <wbdesnoy@ucalgary.ca>]

The problem with an archive is that it has (a) been done before, and
has been shut down; (b) represents some form of piracy, no matter how
it is structured; and (c) has little historical significance.

A lot of these "memories" which you are talking about are not really
memories, it is indiscriminant piracy.  Asimov was not, for example, a
good site to find good memories because nothing was catalogued.  If
you wanted to find a game that you loved at Asimov, you guessed from
the filenames, and you prey that the image was not corrupt.  The "Apple
IIgs Gaming Memory Fairway" is a much better example as to how such
archives should be structured.

The problem is that indiscriminant piracy does not allow us to tackle
problems with copyright law.  C-42 (the Canadian Copyright Act), for
example, states that:

  6. The term for which copyright shall subsist shall, except as otherwise
  expressly provided by this Act, be the life of the author, the remainder of the
  calendar year in which the author dies, and a period of fifty years following
  the end of that calendar year.

This term is stupendously long for the software industry, where finding
software 10 years after the date of publication (new or used) is quite
difficult.  From the discussion of media longevity (diskettes, PROMs) in
this newsgroup, if the author died the day after the software was
published, the software nor intended platform would exist (in an operable)
form once the copyright expires.  This neglects the fact that there are
very few of us who have the time, finances, and interest to gather and
preserve the software in the first place.

Without the loosening of these laws, archives will be going up and down
like yo-yo's, or being hosted in foreign countries with slack laws or
law enforcement.  Even if archives like tarnover and asimov were permitted
to survive, then their lasting value would be negligible: with no
systematic cataloguing, software will be difficult to find.  There will
be no reference for the integrity of existing originals (eg. checksums),
and there will be no record of the significance of one piece of software
vs. another (even if it is from the biased perspective of those who still
exist), there will be no basis for those who want to argue against
copyright law based on dormant claims, and there will be few records
for people who want software released in to the public domain (by the
author) to work from.

Breaking the law over and over again is not the way to challenge copyright
law.  We will loose.  Even if the piracy is not indiscriminant, say we
limit ourself to software 15 years or older, the law (or, more probably,
the complainants) will not discriminate.  *If* industry ever views this
form of piracy as a threat, then our only hope is to change the law.  So
that is where we should begin.

Byron.

atanasmarkov@my-deja.com wrote:
> "Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill" <wbdesnoy@ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>> While not a software archive per say, creating a catalogue of known
>> Apple II software might be useful.

>> > I propose that we build a software archive.

> hey, the idea for the archive is great! if we make a catalog only we'll
> loose the only chanca to save what's remaining from the Apple ][
> software. there's lots of software lost forever and if we continue
> waiting for the rest of the software to become freeware it'll be too
> late. i know there are thousands of Apple programs and games(see
> Bitcopy or Apple history) and i have seen 5-10% of these things. I know
> some collectors that have let's say 30-40% of these, but you know that
> these lists aren't full. so should we wait till the software disappears?
> i suggest we make a really big archive of everything available now! we
> must save the memories for Apple II. and you know there are lot's of
> copyrighted things for the Apple II, but do you think anything can be
> sold? so why do companies still keep their copyrights? they all have to
> do what Apple did- make their software freeware.