Re: Multitudes of Apple II games might now be public domain

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

rubywand@swbell.net posted this reply noted below in quotes::

"Except, ... there is no loophole. Copyright law is alive and well
and being enforced.

     The reason legally constituted authorities do not move against free
public archives which maintain old commercial software is that the sites
are perfectly legal so long as they do not maintain commercial
copyrighted software against the express wishes of a copyright holder.


     Regarding a law to end copyrights on out-of-distribution software
after just two years-- it would, certainly, 'encourage' anyone who cares
about retaining ownership to make a product available-- i.e. keep it in
distribution.

     Meanwhile, absolute piles of software would land in the public
domain where the products could be repackaged with support materials and
take on a commercial 'second life'. For example, Joe Kohn could print up
docs, slap labels on boxes and sell all sorts of old games. Sites like
Asimov could offer 'Best of' collections for sale on CD. Programmers
could re-work and improve old games to take advantage of IIgs features
and sell them.

     As a copyright holder, the 2-year 'time-out' idea still strikes me
as somewhat radical; but, it would probably do a lot of good."

To which I reply:  This is the exact reason I made the original post on this in
the first place.  To stimulate people to research the validity of the email
claim of this copyright law - so that if and when the validity of such a
copyright law is proven to be correct, Apple II people and ftp sites that wish
to legally update, improve and/or distribute such Apple II games (that would
fall into such a 2-year catagory of then being classed as public domain) could
feel safe and confident knowning that such activity is completely legal in all
respects.

Still waiting and hoping for somebody to present some valid proof concerning
that email claim I originally posted about.  Perhaps some Apple II user with a
good background in copyright law could give a reply on all of this to
conclusively settle the matter in question..

Cheers,
Tom