Re: CD of all Files on Asimov

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <51a8kq$pli@crl13.crl.com>, Joe Kohn <joko@crl.com> wrote:
>I'm a little relieved as I just got an e-mail from the fellow who was 
>thinking about making a CD of the Asimov files. He says (paraphrased) 
>that he had no idea that Asimov was a pirate site or that the software 
>was copyrighted.

   You'd have to be practically blind or have selective tunnel vision
to miss all the arguments over legality over the past few months and
year. Of course, the asimov admins aren't helping either; they just
present stuff to the world free for the taking; none of this "We're
not sure if XYZ is legal; if you don't want to get in trouble than
avoid us like the plague" stuff a responsible set of folks would do.
But, that would be pretty much admitting that they know they're
pirating, something that they're way to scared to publically admit.

>Of course, that still leaves the question of Asimov.

   Saturday morning, I have a nice chat with the FBI. I detail exactly
what, where, and how their stuff it software piracy. If it'd help,
I'll drop by an office of theirs to explain a few more things. If
they're in a trigger happy mood, the reaction could come very shortly
after that.

   I write video games for a living now. You steal from my fellow
programmers, you pay. I don't think my company has ever done any Apple
II stuff, but I'll look over the extensive lists of stuff we've done
since approx 1981. Any of it's pirated on asimov, that's a double blow
against you. 

   As I said in my last post: Asimov disappears, ASAP, and doesn't
resurface. Or the people who are associated with it (those who
maintain the machines it resides on, the companies who provide
internet connectivity for that site, those who arrange, catalog, and
sort the archive, etc) disappear into the US Legal system and don't
resurface.

   Be very fragging scared. Be prepared to call your lawyer. Behave.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein