Pre-Asimov Apple image archives

[shoppa@alph02.triumf.ca (Tim Shoppa)]

Given all the commotion that's going on about "Asimov" and copyright
problems, I'd like to mention that this all went on several times
before - though not in newsgroups.  In chronological order,
I know of at least 3 previous ftp sites that had collections of
pirated Apple disk images.  And I knew, in one way or another, the
maintainers of all these sites.  I'll abbreviate the names to
protect the innocent, as well as to keep ftp traffic to their
sites to a minimum (the sites no longer contain much - if any -
pirated material).  Those who have been around for a couple
years (an eon in terms of Usenet evolution) will recognize the
names, I'm sure:

1.  "Cassandra" was Kevin's ftp site.  Kevin was the author of
one of the first Apple II emulators, and began collecting images
at his site mainly as a way of testing emulator development.
Eventually copyright holders and others began complaining to him
about pirated software being there, so almost all of the non-public-domain
disk images were removed because he got tired of being hassled.

2.  "Minnie" was Warren's ftp site.  It was primarily a mirror
of "Cassandra", but it lasted a lot longer because it was on
an entirely different continent, and wasn't as heavily
promoted on usenet as the other sites.  It, too, bit the
dust - I would guess due to complaints, though I'm not really
sure.  It seems to have stuck around longer than any other of
the sites, though I don't have exact dates of when it appeared
and when the images disappeared.

3.  "Sed" was Chris's site.  It was very popular, due to strong
promotion in the emulators newsgroup.  But people began complaining,
and Chris was forced to shut it down.

4.  Now we have "Asimov".  People are complaining, but the maintainer
of asimov seems to be distancing himself and keeping out of the
fracas so far.

While the number of pirated images available by ftp has steadily
grown over the past 4 years, the quality of the traffic on the
Usenet emulator groups seems to have declined.  The technical discussions
about emulator construction and technique are nowhere to be
found now - instead we have people asking "Where can I find
a pirated copy of <program name here>".  I would personally
rather see the newsgroup devoted to technical discussions
of emulation technique and see no discussion of pirating images
at all.  But that's just my opinion, and it doesn't appear
to be shared by many anymore.  I strongly suspect that Kevin,
Warren, and Chris, the maintainers of previous sites, came
to the same conclusion - that the availability of pirated disk
images was hindering, not helping, the development of good
emulators - and decided to focus their very substantial talents
on more worthy things than activities that could be percieved
as pirating.  It takes a certain level of maturity to recognize
that pirating has no intellectual value, and unfortunately there
seem to be a lot of people on comp.emulators.apple2 that have
very little maturity.

Will Asimov last?  I don't know.  The previous 3 sites were on
computers accessed through their University's network, and I
suspect that a couple of complaints to the school's legal department
had a strong influence on getting them shut down quickly.  Asimov,
though, seems to not be connected through a school's network.
Complaints probably can't propogate very high, and it may
actually survive for some time.  Of course, when it does
shut down, a mirror could pop up quite quickly - and probably
will pop up quite quickly, unless very definitive legal action
is taken against Asimov's maintainers that scares the shit out
of all the piraters out there.  I have a feeling that
whatever happens, it will set a precedent for future cases.

I'm sure that what I said above will piss off both sides
with respect to the current argument.  I've been on both
sides - as a pirater 18 years ago, and as a software developer
today.  I just hope that people will keep in mind both the
continuing software development for the Apple II and the desire
of people to play the good 'ol games of yesteryear.  How the
two can be resolved is something that I don't know.  I've
resolved the issue by buying - on comp.sys.apple2.marketplace -
originals many of the programs that I pirated nearly two decades ago.
I would suggest to others that they do the same thing, and I know
I'll get flamed for it.

Tim. (shoppa@triumf.ca)