Re: The software piracy issue

[Tom Zuchowski <cd003508@interramp.com>]

irsman@winternet.com (Ian Schmidt) wrote:

>Not at all.  I write software for a living, so this issue happens to be
>pretty interesting to me.  I also work closely with Electronic Arts, who
>happens to own the copyright on a decent amount of the asimov software.
>It remains to be seen if Legal actually wants to bother with those bozos,
>though...

I'd be quite astonished if they were interested in pursuing action on any 
of their long out-of-print titles.

Are you familiar with A2 Genie's Lost Classics project? In case after 
case, the sysop handling that was actually told by the publisher that they 
had never published any Apple II titles. After he assured all and sundry 
that they had in fact done so, then it turned out that there were no 
records of it and no one knew the status of the copyrights, whether the 
company had it, or whether it had reverted to the author.  Of course, the 
original master software was totally lost.  In every case, the company was 
not interested in pursuing the copyright question. In almost every case, 
it turned out that the author didn't know either.  Usually, the author 
wanted his stuff saved for posterity but was afraid to authorize it on his 
own without sure knowledge.

Over all, the Lost Classics project was a disaster because of the above. 
The sysop spent large amounts of his time and own money for very few hits.

The above situation is why I am no longer concerned about the niceties of 
copyright in Apple II-specific software that has been out of print for 10 
years or more.  NOBODY CARES.

TomZ