Re: I'm at a loss for words

[swhite@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu (Steve White)]

In article <55dt8l$jbc@news.vanderbilt.edu>, tilghman@vuse.vanderbilt.edu
(Tilghman Lesher) wrote:


> A better argument would be a comparison to the following scenario:
> 
>         Are you justified in accusing a drifter of theft
>         for a car which I abandoned 5 years ago, and that
>         I no longer acknowledge that a) it exists, or
>         b) it is mine?
> 
>         Similarly, can he be accused of theft of software
>         for which the company does not acknowledge either
>         knowledge or ownership?
> 
>         Yes, if he steals the car while I still am using it,
>         it indeed is theft, and he should be punished for
>         that.  But after I've abandoned it?



Bad analogy.

If you abandon a car, you no longer claim ownership.

If you copyright software, it's yours. The copyright is explicit title.
Even if you no longer market the software actively, it's still yours. In
your analogy, the car is up on blocks and without tires, but it's still in
your front yard.

If the company wishes not to "acknowledge either knowledge or ownership",
fine, it can renounce its rights and make the software freeware. Those
individuals who would like this to happen are free to contact software
publishers and persaude them to renounce their rights. Some publishers
will cooperate.

But absent that announcement, you can't assume that the software has been
abandoned. The onus is on you, not them, not to take something unless it
is black and white that there is no ownership issue.

Mr. Mentzer and like-minded people want to obscure the basic truth in
this. Otherwise they have to admit, if only to themselves, that they are
thievies. As we have seen, Mr. Mentzer goes to great lengths to
rationalize his behavior.

Still doesn't work.



steve