Re: Rubywanker is a thief-kicker who should be all over usenet. Now.

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Steve Mentzer writes ...

 ....
> 
> I spoke with one of my lawyer buddies who happens to specialize in
> commercial civil litigation, and he basically told me the following:
> 
> (paraphrasing what he told me)
> 
> o If a copyright holder knowingly allows the widget to be distributed and/or
> sold without the holder's consent, then the holder assumes all *financial*
> hardship for the loss of potential sales and/or distribution. The illegal
> activity is still subject to criminal prosecution, but the copyright holder may
> be negating it's rights to retrieve compensatory loss.
>

 ....

     However, Asimov is a simple archive of old out of print software
for an ancient platform many confuse with the Mac.

     Why should big-time software makers even bother to look for such a
place? Does upper management know because some loony contacts a
receptionist raving about piracy of a 15 year-old game they no longer
sell or support? They have real money-making PC software to sell and
real pirates to battle.

     In short, many copyright holders have no obvious good reason to
actually _know_ about anything going on in Apple II land. Whoever is
stuck with defending the software thief in court will have a very rough
time proving otherwise.

     But, suppose the upper management of XYZ Software does know about
Asimov. So what? How is a software thief supposed to make anything on,
of all things, copies of old Apple II software? Like, for starters, the
poor smuck is competing with free downloads from Asimov!

     He/she might do a knock-off of the original Ultima; but, that
requires owning at least one original to begin with. Asimov maintains
only images of software, not the complete set of game materials. Once a
thief duplicates anything beyond the software-- including, even, the
label on a diskette, he/she is dead meat both for criminal _and_ civil
prosecution. 

     The bottom line is that old software copyrights are, if anything,
safer _because_ the wares are maintained on Asimov. For the copyright
owners it's a pure win/win situation.



Rubywand