Re: My Website Has Been Taken Down

[bazyar@gmail.com]

Bill, your opinion on these matters is not at all what the law is. I
strongly recommend you read the following site to get a primer:

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/

In short, copyright is from the moment you write it, it does not have
to be actively sold, published, viewed or used in order to stay
copyrighted, once under copyright it lasts for the life of the author
plus 75 years, and there are virtually no exceptions to any of this.

Back in 1900 the copyright law was much weaker, requiring periodic
renewals etc. But that is most decidedly not the case today.

Even a lot of material originally copyrighted before the recent
copyright Act updates were "updated" under the new law automatically.

Jawaid

--

On Jan 19, 4:28 pm, "bill.mart...@gmail.com" <bill.mart...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Mike has it right.  As Abandon-ware, it is only Abandon-ware if no one
> author can be truly found with a reasonable search or is dead or if
> the author has specified that they are abandoning the program.  Vince
> is well within his rights as the author in any country (Yes, even
> Canada and China when the government decides to enforce the laws) to
> claim his rights over his product.  In that respect, it is not abandon-
> ware.  Although I use abandon-ware, I often wonder about this whole
> thing as well.  Is is ever truly abandon-ware?  Our laws are being
> written in the US so that you will have to maintain your copyright and
> pay the government in order to keep it.  This will in effect cause any
> program that was written in the 1980's to all but lost its copyrighted
> status unless tha author maintains the copyright, but that could be
> very costly.
>
> However, if I remember the 1980 copyright law correctly, just putting
> your name on the program means it is a copyrighted work, no matter
> what year it is.  I have had to remove programs before because of this
> and usually C&D compliance is the best idea. There are cases where it
> doesnt come down to that, such as the case of Symantec choosing not to
> go after the entire community on Copy II +.   After all they paid 60
> million dollars for Central Point and then shut down the entire line.
> So then the question comes, is it abandon-ware or still copyrighted
> material.  Although most of us would say it is abandon-ware at that
> point, under the law, Symantec could come along and say it is
> copyrighted and remove it.
>
> Personally, I dont think whether he threatened legal action or not is
> the point.  The manual and the software is his product, thus it is his
> copyright.  This is not the same as proving loss in a court of law.
> It is only the copyright.  but that still means he can request that
> you take it down and if you refuse, take you to court and then if a
> judge is feeling good that day, give him and his legal team as much
> damages as the judge feels it warrants. (pray you dont get one who is
> an Apple II enthusiast who buys and sells on Ebay).  Copyrights cover
> any written work that is original and if I am not mistaken, can even
> be applied to emails and blogs and probably even our posts here.
> LOL.
>
> In the mean time, I have send an email to Vince since he was one of
> our writers in the late 1980's asking him what his intentions are with
> the program.  Hopefully, he will put up a site and make it available
> in some form again so that we all can continue to enjoy the program
> (and manual).
>
> The one area I think needs to clarified.  Any standalone programs
> written by you using his program are not copyrighted by him and cannot
> be pursued.  This is because they are original works and not derived
> works of his program.
>
> JMHO
>
> --billm--