Re: CD of all Files on Asimov

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article swhite@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu (Steve White) writes...

>Violation of a copyright is illegal.
>
>It doesn't matter is the copyright holder knows of the violation or not.
>It doesn't matter whether the world has attached great economic value to
>the item in question or not. It doesn't matter if the violation is
>"harmful" to anyone or not.

    I think it's safe to assume the law on copyrights was outlined
and thought up long before the term "software" existed. Perhaps the
copyright law, pertaining to computer software, needs to be revamped.
Regardless of whether right or wrong, when a title goes out of print
and is no longer available, it becomes in danger of disappearing. If
you follow the rule of law (author's lifetime plus 50 years) the
software might have vanished by that time, literally!

    I really think _something_ should be done to archive and preserve
software so it's around years from now. Unlike printed material which
can survive hundreds of years, the media which holds computer software
(floppy disks in this case) has a much shorter lifespan. That media can
degrade within a decade or less! The Asimov site may not be the most
ideal solution, though perhaps the law should be changed so a 3rd party
can legally archive (CD-ROM or better) software after a given number of
years. The sole intension would be to _preserve_ software, which an
organization could store _until_ the copyright expires. Think of it as
putting software in stasis for future generations :-) (or possibly before 
then, if a company can be convinced to release a title as public-domain).
The archive wouldn't be publicly available, like Asimov, but would
succeed in preserving the actual data, something no one is doing now
(well Asimov is in a sense, but I don't want to get involved in that
specific part of the debate ;)

>The law doesn't permit it. It's wrong.

    Sometimes laws need to be changed. Not that many decades ago, there
was a "law" saying women could not vote in the United States. Present day, 
in this part of Canada (the province of Quebec) there is a law forbidding 
the English language from signs and a law which does not permit children
to attend English schools. There is even a special task force (nicked 
named the "Language Police") which make sure English is not present, they 
even have the power to search businesses for English documents, memos, etc.
In some cases commercial businesses can be fined for verbally speaking
English (recently, a pet shop owner was harassed by the "Language Police"
for a parrot that spoke a few English words; I don't know whether to laugh
or be very concerned). Not to get on a tangent, but that second example
of French-Quebec, really does exists, despite it sounding like something 
out of "1984".

    In cases like this, would you agree to blindly follow the law? This
is *not* to say people should go about breaking laws, but when you know
a law has flaws or blatantly wrong (like the two examples above) a push
should be made to change it. Laws are made by humans, and we humans tend
not to be so perfect, so neither are all laws I should think. ;) Back to
the issue of software copyrights, I really think the law should be modified 
for some sort of nonprofit organization to be allowed to archive all 
software. Put it under lock-and-key if need be, but do not let it vanish! 
This may sound absurd, but I'd no more want to see classic computer titles 
vanish forever, anymore than I'd want to see a Rembrant or Van Gosh work be 
destroyed. :-) (With modern computers, the level of graphic-art on certain 
games is so rich and detailed, it may not be so far fetched!)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca