Software & hardware Morality Question (Discussion welcome)

[hmag@ozemail.com.au (Terry Allen)]

   Accidentally issued a kill command to my earlier post regarding Software
& Hardware manuals online being a copyright issue.
   As everyone reading this group probably knows, much of the Apple II
stuff these days is both out of print & unavailable except by so-called
piracy, espcecially for those of us outside the USA, where currency
confersion rates often equate to prices twice the amount of what may be
stated on a website or in a magazine.
   I don't condone piracy at all, but many pieces of software are no longer
available, because the manufacturer or publisher of the software is no
longer in business. Consequently, the only way to get any of it is to
search online archives for copies uploaded by those who have kindly put it
there at no charge (often put there by people who are paying serious
bandwidth bills to do so)
   Where something is readily available, such as Appleworks v5 etc...,
under no circumstances should anyone put a copy online as this clearly does
someone out of business & also deprives someone of income, but where
something is no longer available & no contact is possible with the former
distributor or publisher, then I see no problem.
   I welcome posts in this group to discuss this vexing question, which has
plagued the computr industry since it began.

-- 
Bye For Now, Terry Allen

hEARd - Non-profit Promotion For new music.
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