Re: Another Modest Proposal: Pirating vs Archiving

[nathan@parka.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4t0fgk$s5i@bmerhc5e.bnr.ca>,
Jeffrey Robertson <jeffr@bnr.ca> wrote:
>In article <4srk6u$b6e@blackice.winternet.com>,
>Nathan Mates <nathan@parka.winternet.com> wrote:
>>   Usefulness and rarity is _NOT_ an excuse for the general public to
>>be able to download pirated stuff. At best, it is a pathetic excuse to
>>salve up a conscience that knows that what it's doing is wrong, but
>>they have no self-control to do the right thing.

>Nathan, what's your opinion of the "don't ask; don't tell" argument
>presented for this kind of pirating?  (Or for gays in the US military,
>for that matter...)

   Well, I'd like this to remain a factually based argument as much as
possible.  As I hope I'll show below, the Asimov folks are worse than
the minimum conditions you tried to lay out, which I think is fairly
liberal. 

   The main argument against "but what about the copy protected
disk I have which might go bad sometime shortly" is that Asimov has
requires _zero_ proof of ownership before downloading. Sure, I might
want to go there to replace my protected Bard's Tale, but who's to
prevent you from downloading five other games which you never paid
for, and have no legal right to have a copy of in your hands?

   The thing that would turn Asimov from a pirate to a legit
replacement service is something like this: to get a disk image, you
must first demonstrate proof of ownership. If that means snailmailing
in your bad Bard's Tale disk before they let that disk image go your
way, great. If that means a photocopy of the original receipt, pretty
good. If that means sending in the ROM chip from your ][+ before you
can get the a ROM image for an emulator, fine. In other words,
something rather different from the "anyone can take anything"
mentality of asimov.

   That would allow Asimov to be a site on the good side of the law:
it replaces bad disks, but does not allow unauthorized pirating at
will.  [Yeah, the act of holding disk images for replacement might be
a fairly gray area, but if they can show they're not in use while
sitting on some storage medium, things would probably be ok.]


>Of course, I've never visited Asimov, so I don't know what they offer,
>but in my opinion, this kind of piracy is acceptable given these
>provisions:

   It's ftp.asimov.net, pub/apple_II for stuff. When I just checked,
there was a 730K listing of of dist contents dating back to October
1995. A real eyeopener of all the stuff that they had 9 months ago.


> 1. The program is no longer commercially available on this
>    platform.

   Joe Kohn/SSII still sells Atarisoft originals (shrinkwrapped, new),
incluing Pac-Man. Guess what. The index file said that there's a file
pub/apple_II/images/games/action/Pac_Man.dsk.gz, and that file existed
last time I checked.  No, I didn't bother downloading to verify it,
but are the odds pretty darn good that it's Pac-Man? You bet. Thus,
condition 1 fails your test.


> 2. Due diligance has been exercised in an attempt to reach
>    copyright holders.  (Yes, that's vague.  All "due diligance"
>    law is vague.)

   Sounds nice, even with the 'vague' clause. Ok, so where's the
evidence that the maintainers have done more than an iota of this?
I've yet to see a single post here saying "Who's got the rights to XYZ
now; we're stumped trying to track it down" from someone who lists
themselves as being connected with asimov. I pay pretty good attention
to c.s.a2, and can't recall any such posts. I'd think that due
diligence would include that.

   This has already happened to some extent, but not on the Apple II
side.  iD Software wanted to make Wolf 3D some years ago. So they
tracked down the holder of the rights and either bought them or made
Wolf3D legit. Have the asimove maintainers gotten in contact with iD
to see if Castle Wolfenstein can be posted, or who to talk to? No
evidence that I've seen.

> 3. If a copyright holder discovers the violation and objects,
>    the program is removed and an apology posted.

   I think they've followed the removal, but no public apologies
that I've noticed.


> 4. The operations operates at no charge.  Donations for hard
>    drives, WWW costs, etc. may be solicited, but only publicly.
>    Ie, after downloading a file, you shouldn't be sent email
>    begging for "donations".

   Been done from what I've seen, though I may be wrong.

> 5. Copyright notices are kept intact on the programs (ie, no
>    "cracked by FooBar") and in the distribution medium itself
>    (ie, the WWW page).  No one should be able to obtain the
>    software without knowing they're violating the letter of
>    the copyright law.

   Many others here have been saying recently that copyright notices
have been sector edited out of things posted to asimov recently.  I'd
love for some prople to post the names of these images so that the
entire world can verify this for themselves.


> 6. As part of the "due diligance" search for ownership, a
>    person should be identified (probably the author, or the
>    company if still in existance) to whom money could be
>    sent by downloaders.

   Well, they're not doing the basics, so getting to that stage would
be a real accomplishment. Maybe if we keep pushing them they might get
a clue.

   I outlined a service above (the replacement only) service that
would do a very darn good job of staying on the side of the law.
Probably too restrictive for most, but it could function darn well.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein