Re: Ancient wares and present values

["Frank Townsend" <ftownsen@iamdigex.net>]

Sure, one can draw that conclusion, but it is somewhat irrelevant to the
issue of property rights that I was addressing, and is not how copyright law
operates.

The initial post by Flaymerz premised the opinion that there is no financial
loss on the assertion that L&S Computerware is out of business.  But that
assertion clouds the fact that the assets of L&S (no doubt including any
intellectual property) are owned by another firm which is very much *in*
business.

Thus, finders keepers does not apply, any more than it would with any other
type of property that an owner possesses.

It is also misleading to maintain that lack of value defeats intellectual
property rights.  It only limits potential damages.

Finally, Nimbus' parent company is Technicolor (yes, *that* Technicolor).
Altogether, 15 minutes of netting around is all it took to discover the
likely legal owner of Crossword Magic 2.0.  A little more effort (drafting
and mailing a letter to Nimbus' corporate counsel) might be all it would
take to ascertain their wishes with regard to copyrighted software owned by
the company.

Why not ask?  Legalities aside, it would seem to be the polite way of
handling such a matter.

Nimbus Manufacturing, Inc.
623 Welsh Run Road, Ruckersville, VA  22968


Frank Townsend  (off to the pool in Baltimore, Maryland)


Rubywand wrote in message <39573D85.9A861C78@swbell.net>...
>Frank Townsend writes ...
>>
>> Flaymerz wrote in message <200006260345.XAA10159@anon.cotse.com>...
>>
>> >If I want to play with Crossword Magic 2.0 from 1981,
>> >I'm surely not going to wait for it to show up on eBay or
>> >post a wanted-to-buy ad here.  I'll download it.  L&S
>> >Computerware -- the entity being protected by copyright
>> >-- would not suffer any financial loss by my
>> >downloading it because they haven't been in business
>> >for YEARS.
>>
>> Interestingly enough L&S Computerware is, in a sense, still in business.
>>
>> L&S was a trade name of HLS Duplication, Inc.  In 1995,
>> HLS was acquired by, and made a subsidiary of,
>> Nimbus Manufacturing Inc.  The subsidiary was
>> known as Nimbus Software Services until 1997 when Nimbus Mfg. closed the
>> plant in Sunnyvale, Ca.
>>
>> Thus, unless the copyright was otherwise sold or transferred, the current
>> copyright holder of Crossword Magic 2.0 is Nimbus Manufacturing Inc.,
>> very much a going concern.
>>
>> Ironically, Nimbus has developed anti piracy tools, and apparently has a
>> deep interest in copyright issues..
>>
>> You can call the company's US offices at
>>
>> NIMBUS MANUFACTURING INC
>> Ruckersville, VA 22968
>>
>> 804 985 1100
>>
>
>     Speaking of interesting observations, you might consider how you came
to
>discover Nimbus (and post a Nimbus mini-commercial on the world's largest
>Apple II forum). It was through an interest in a 1981 Apple II product.
>
>     Obviously, the game itself has zero commercial value. At the price it
>could be sold, the costs of dealing with any orders or shareware fees would
>far exceed the revenues from sales.
>
>     Suppose the rights owner should request free access to end. The
standard
>practice of the archives would be to delist Crossword Magic 2.0.
>
>     Once the product were delisted it would, at last, be just about
totally
>worthless to the rights owner. Commercial value would still be zero and
there
>would be no opportunity for new users to download Crossword Magic 2.0 and
>wonder about "L&S Computerware" and discover Nimbus and think about buying
>Nimbus software.