Re: Copyright

[sheercon@earthlink.net]

Penman wrote:

> Brian - as it happens, I have and do hold copyrights in the Apple II
> field.  My point was and is - there's efforts from people to go and get
> the approval of copyright holders to release Apple II software.  That's
> the proper way to do it.  To post, and then say the onus is on the
> copyright holder to discover this and then make a decision is, at a
> minimum, selfish and lazy.  All one has to do is look at the Lost Classics
> project of Delphi/Genie for example to see about current work at
> legitimately getting software reclassified.
>
> Obosolete or not, money generating or not, it's the callous attitude of
> the people involved in saying "Hey, if they don't like it, let them
> complain" that is the basis of this ongoing discussion.
>
> Let's take a look for example, at Tom Turley's recent discussion regarding
> Shrink II.  He says he can get the confirmation (email with headers) that
> will show that ShrinkII has been released as freeware.  If so, then this
> is legitimate effort, done with the knowledge of the copyright holder.
> This I can appreciate.  Rubywand's continuous diatribe however, is more an
> exercise in rationalization than service.  Since he's worked for
> organizations that have held copyrights, this attitude of his does amaze
> me (flame if you want, Ruby, but that's how I view it.  And  we're just
> going over old ground again.)
>
> Since I don't own or play video games, I couldn't comment on priacy events
> in those fields, but if it's a copyright infringement, then it's against
> the law, regardless of whether or not the holder knows about it.  Ascribe
> to a higher level of humanity and we might all reach it.  Sink to the "I
> don't care about the other guy's rights" level and it's a long climb up.
>
> Penman

My post was not meant to condone piracy or copyright infringement. I just
thought it relevent to point out that there are degree's of "piracy" which
should be considered. Of course the law is black and white on this issue but
in the real world nobody get's prosecuted for having a bootleg copy of a 1984
version of "Stickman" for the Apple II. With piracy of Nintendo 64 and sony
playstation games so prevalent the IDSA(www.idsa.com) is not going to bother
with sites that offer obsolete Apple games - or Commodore for that matter.
Having talked with more than a few Commodore 64 programmers and being an
amateur one myself I would venture to guess that the majority of these people
don't care that their games are distributed; in fact some of the people I have
talked to were flattered that people were still interested in their software
after all these years. Of course, it is just common courtesy to try and get
the authors permission before offering their software on your web site.

I guess the point of my original post was if your going to get mad about
piracy - get mad at all the contemporary software piracy which is ongoing and
causing actual financial loss. (I know someone will chime in saying they can't
sell their copy of Ultima now or something but I don't think anyone would
argue that it equals the billions of dollars Nintendo, Sony and other
companies lose every year)