Re: Asimov Mirror Sites Access Information

[Roy and/or Janet Miller <millers@inetnebr.com>]

Lee Cremeans wrote:

> > 2) immoral;
>
> Not always true; as has been said before illegal doesn't always imply
> immoral, and immorality is a subjective thing.
>

While you are correct, as are others, that illegality does not equal immorality,
the fact is, that they two often overlap. Stealing, murder, rape, kidnapping, all,
for instance, are both illegal and immoral. Even many lesser crimes are also
immoral.

Since "immoral" is broadly defined as violation of generally or traditional held
moral principles, it really isn't subjective since, in this context, that word
means that which is peculiar to a particular individual. I might think that picking
your nose in public is gross, but it can't be immoral since it isn't a violation of
general or traditional moral principles. The cry of subjectivity is often used
incorrectly in our egalitarian society, because many/most of us don't want to be
held to general or traditional moral principles, so we say that they are
subjective, when they really are the conclusions of a large majority in a society
over several generations (general) or the teachings of a religion (and the "Great"
religions of the world have remarkable agreement on major human-to-human moral
points.)


I found a interesting few paragraphs in the April `85 Byte letters to the editor.
In one letter, written by an attorney who works in the computer field, he addresses
Apple's suit of DRI over GEM. I don't know how to duplicate the symbol he uses for
sections so I will add two extra spaces at those points:

"Some background here regarding copyright law would undoubtedly help you in
understanding the situation. The copyright law protects computer programs in both
source- and object- code forms (17 U.S.C.   101:117) and declares anyone who
violates the exclusive rights of the copyright holder to be an infringer of the
copyright (17 U.S.C.   501(a))
   Further, the copyright laws grant the copyright owner the exclusive right to
reproduce the work, to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work,
and to distribute the work (17 U.S.C.   106) A work done for hire is protected for
75 years (17 U.S.C.   302)"

Now, that's the opinion of an attorney who works in the computer field in the mid
1980's. So, if the people who hold the copyright of Choplifter wish, they, and only
they, may make a new version of the game, and that might be one very good reason
for them to NOT want the older version to be copied. It also might be one very good
reason for them to want the original to be released as freeware, or to even recode
it to sell on Wintel as a "Golden Oldies" game of some sort. But only they have the
right to reproduce, distribute, and or write derivative works based on it. Sigh. So
much for my idea of making a game based on BattleStar Galaticia.

Roy