Re: What about an Apple Gamebase ?

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

"Rubywand" <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote in message
4162FEF1.191B79B3@swbell.net">news:4162FEF1.191B79B3@swbell.net...
> Sean Fahey writes ...
>
>      To legally qualify as "theft", something of value must be taken.
Oldie
> software is generally considered to have no significant market value to
the
> rights holder. Freely distributing or downloading oldie software does not
meet
> the tests for loss established by statute relating to copyrights. There is
no
> crime.

What tests? In whose judgment? Isn't that an assumption? Not to nit here,
but if you take something you aren't entitled to, whereas the author or
publisher hasn't surrendered their rights or changed the terms of
distrbution of said item, how is that not potentially theft? I say
potentially, because we are speaking in the hypothetical, and conditions may
not be the same for all situations.

>      15-20 years ago, when the software was being sold by SSI, Origin,
etc.,
> illegal distribution was only one reason for cracking.
>
>      Another reason was for purchasers of originals to have a backup
(which is
> allowed by law). Some copy protection schemes which are critical about
things
> like alignment and timing eventually lead to disk failure.

True, true... but how many people made a legal backup of their software and
then said, "Hey, I'll upload this to the local BBS for safekeeping, but
before I do, I'll put a little blurb for my own BBS, "Pirate's Cove" with a
phone number so other people like me can send me their backups!"

C'mon, I was one of those kids - we traded with just about everyone - our
sole purpose was to collect as many programs and games as possible so we
could be the biggest, baddest collectors. We also had a technical interest
in seeing how everything worked, but it was mostly for prestige and bragging
rights and because we didn't have any dough to buy Karateka. Being a
teenager in middle school, without a job and only about $10-$15 a week
(which we spent on floppy disks or D&D stuff) made buying software tough -
we had a "stick it to the man" attitude.

>      Check the news.answers ("USENET") FAQs. Every known Apple II source
for
> oldie commercial software is listed along with links. For sure, finding
the
> FAQs is a snap. Once there, it would take, maybe, a couple hours for a
company
> rep to track down any listings of the company's A2 software and fire off
> "Please remove ..." messages to archive admins.
>
>      Any software rights owner who wants software removed from A2 archives
can
> do it easily and cheaply.

Well, I did say "no one cares".

>      There may be a few guys swapping copies of currently sold IIgs
software;
> don't know. Otherwise, in 2004, there's no such thing as "Apple II
piracy".

Eh, well I did see a couple of bootlegged copies of currently shipping
commercial CD-ROMs (Syndicomm stuff) being sold at a local retro-computing
swap meet last year.

>      Your premise is false. A company which keeps silent on free
distribution
> of its oldie A2 software does not give up its rights.

I agree but thats not quite what I said - a company that fails to defend
it's copyrights will be in a weaker position if they later choose to
excercise their copyright. That premise is one I have personal experience
in.

>      Depends. Companies are often willing to move oldies to public
domain-- so
> long as someone in a company can guarantee that it still owns the oldie
product
> and the status change is not too much of a hassle.

Wish more of them would go to the effort.

>      On the other hand, it's unlikely that a company would risk losing
control
> of any brand names, etc. relating to current releases. For instance,
Origin
> would probably not want to place the original "Ultima I" in public domain.
>
>      In general, the best stance for a company is to have no stated stance
> about free distribution of its oldie wares. It derives the benefits of
having
> its name and the name of some game series, etc. promoted; and, it retains
all
> of its rights.

Thats not how most businesses "think" about their property.

>      That is a popular argument in some places. The "abondonware" idea
never
> made much headway here, at least in the sense of affecting ownership.
There
> seems to be no strong legal grounds for asserting that doing nothing
equates to
> giving up ownership.

I only brought up "abandonware" because I see it used a lot... as you said,
it's a popular argument in some places.

>      The Apple II community is pretty consistent about supporting
ownership
> rights. If anything, owners and developers here probably have more say
about
> where and under what conditions software may be listed than anywhere else.

I can't (won't) comment on that - I've seen both sides of the coin, er,
argument...