Re: Copyright request?!?

[CUTblakeney@home.com (Jeff Blakeney)]

On Sat, 12 Jun 1999 17:53:19 +0000, sheercon@earthlink.net wrote:

>Software piracy with contemporary software is obviously a "bad thing".
>Software that is obsolete, not commercially available with no chance of
>becoming so - it seems a bit extreme accusing someone of *theft* for having
>such software.

It may seem extreme but that is what it is.  Whether it is theft on
monetary value or theft of intellectual property it makes no
difference.  Theft is theft.

>It is of course copyright "infringement", but who is going to enforce
>copyrights on obsolete software? People will have to hire lawyers and lawyers
>cost money. And since noone is /losing/ money by this obsolete software being
>offered; nobody has any financial motivation to prevent it. If the authors
>don't care, why should you?

1) I have a collection of original software that if I ever wanted to
sell it (which isn't going to happen soon, this is just a hypothetical
situation :), I would find that it is worthless because everyone is
downloading it for free from the internet.  What should have been
worth a fair bit because it is difficult to get just becomes worthless
junk taking up space so will probably end up in a landfill.  A real
"crime" if you ask me.

2) If people are willing to steal older software, what is the cut off
point?  How old is old and what is meant by oboslete and how do you
know that there is no way to legally obtain a package?  This leads me
to my next point.

3) Many people who are willing to pirate older software will also be
inclined to pirate new software.  Not everyone mind you.  I am
generalizing here.  Why pay the shareware fees or buy one of the
remaining commercial products if you can just download it or get a
copy from a friend?

By letting it this sort of activity go on unchecked and without
letting people who don't realize it is wrong know that they are
breaking the law, it will just continue to grow and then there will be
no new software for the Apple IIs because no one will be willing to
put in the time and effort only to have it stolen out from under them.

>Your motives are honorable but there are a lot of legitimate causes for your
>concern - like all of the current PC, Nintendo and playstation piracy which is
>going on.

What makes this cause less legitimate?  The law says it can't be done
and therefore this is a legitimate concern.  I also get after people
for not using their signal lights in their cars, using crosswalks
against the lights and any number of other "minor" infractions that
"no one" cares about but they are still illegal and legitimate
concerns.

There are reasons laws are put in place and they should be observed.
If the law doesn't make sense anymore get it changed but until it does
change the law is still the law.

By the way, my biggest beef with the pirate sites and the people that
support them is that they simply will not admit that they are breaking
the law.  They just keep coming up with excuses and explanations as to
why it isn't illegal when it simply and plainly is illegal.  I'd be
much happier if they would at least start putting disclaimers on the
sites and in there posts about these sites saying "NOTE: Some (much)
of the material on this site is not legal to distribute."

At least then everyone, especially new people, would realize that this
stuff hasn't all be reclassified as public domain or freeware.

Now, who brought up this topic again?  It wasn't like there wasn't
much traffic here lately.  :)

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jeff Blakeney - Dean of the Apple II University in A2Pro on Delphi     |
|                    Delphi Apple II Forums Web Pages                    |
| A2: http://www.delphi.com/apple2   A2Pro: http://www.delphi.com/a2pro  |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   HyperCard IIgs course now in session in the A2Pro forum on Delphi
        Learn to Program in GSoft BASIC course now in session