Re: vogons vs Users

["Frank Townsend" <ftownsen@iamdigex.net>]

I think your positive approach is commendable.

However, I think the effort is somewhat quixotic.

Consider these issues:

1.  In 1998, congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
(CTEA), which *added* 20 years to existing copyrights.

2.  In 1999, a Constitutional challenge to the CTEA lost in the US District
Court for the District of Columbia (although an appeal is underway).

3.  No Copyright Act has decreased the term of copyright, or limited the
exclusive rights of authors (with a few exceptions such as archival
back-ups, time-shifting and fair use).

4.  The current Copyright Act already contains language (Section 108) which
allow libraries to make copies of copyrighted material for archival purposes
and to make those copies available for use within the library premises (so
the argument that the software will be lost forever has little validity).

I would conclude that there is no meaningful likelihood of amending the
current Copyright Act.  Practically speaking, this legislation would be
opposed across the software industry.

A final issue is that many computer programs, even ones for obsolete
platforms, include elements that are otherwise copyrighted (screen displays,
narrative elements, etc.).  For example, I have a commercial copy of Star
Trek First Contact for the Apple II (Simon & Schuster, 1988).  I have also
seen this game on some of the archive sites.  Whether or not this program is
sold or supported, it is impossible to conceive of an alteration in the
copyright law that would permit this program (while Paramount still lives
and breathes) to become public domain, given the strong commercial value of
the characters and story elements.

Even if you limit your efforts to properties where the corporate entity that
owned the software is defunct or the authors dead, usually, these properties
have passed to some other person or entity by operation of law (heirs, eg).
And because often no one can predict when intellectual property might become
valuable, no constituency that benefits from the exclusive rights conferred
by the copyright laws is going to wish to give up these rights.

My advice:  concentrate you energies in two directions:  (1) encouraging
libraries to maintain archives of older or obsolete software (the Library of
Congress does this) and (2)  creating a credible means to validate that a
software work has been placed in the public domain (a clearinghouse of
sorts).  Many of the squabbles could be avoided if folks could be reasonably
certain that an item had been made PD.  As it is, the verbal permissions are
often unprovable, and email is easily forged.

Now that I have nattered on this long, if *anyone* pirate, policeman or
priest has a copy of the (no doubt still copyrighted) utility/boot
disk/drivers for my Apple IIc Quark QC10 hard drive, I would be quite
grateful if I could beg, buy or borrow (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa) a
copy so I can run my still silent and idle new/old machine ;-))



Frank Townsend


Arkain wrote in message <397f0159$1@hal.grnco.net>...

The only deep trench in
>this issue is the feeling that nothing can be done about the current state
>of copyright laws. I think that people who think this are full of
mallarchy.