Re: A2 Trade/Swap ... site ...

[Sandra Warnken <warnken@mother.com>]

Paul Schlyter wrote

> Of course -- and large-scale piracy of commercially valuable software
> will most likely land you in jail.
>  
> But do you REALLY think that "piracy" of obsolete software which lost
> its commercial value decades ago will land you in jail?  Possibly if
> the copyright owner is an individual who is very jealous about his
> software and perhaps even a little lunatic, so he does all he can
> (including paying expensive lawyers) to get you sentenced.  But
> hardly if the copyright holder is Apple Computer, who is fully busy
> making money on modern systems, and who would refuse to sell you a
> copy even if you asked.
>  
What happened to Mircrosoft's interest in ebay.  They estimated some large
percentage of software sold on that site was pirated.  I can't imagine the
cost of trying to track down every single seller that would go through
ebay and trying them in court.  The cost in lost revenues must be quite
large.

I don't think the issue is so much about violating copywrites of
softare for obsolete computers, but about violating the copywrites of live
software authors still producing for those computers.  

Where do you draw the line?  How do you know if someone doesn't care, if
you don't ask.  

I wrote a piece in the GSAUG newsletter about Turley donating a hard drive
to Ground.  That was edited from my article. The old timers in the club -
all now gone on to the Mac - informed me that Turley is a %$%&^$#@* son
of a gun for pirating GS software that was new on the market. They will
not allow any mention of him in our newsletter.  They feel that it's
tantamount to condoning what he did.  He's never been charged or gone to
trial, but he's been found guilty by the folks concerned most directly.
As I understand their belief he shortened the useful life of the
GS. I can understand all the brouhaha going on around him.  Jeff's concern
is justified if people here are so casual about violating copywrite.

Sandy     http://www.iscweb.com/gsaug/