Re: It's legal to crack Apple II copy protection

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

brad wrote:

(top-posting corrected)

>"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>20031101023335.26036.00000085@mb-m07.aol.com">news:20031101023335.26036.00000085@mb-m07.aol.com...
>> Andy McFadden wrote:
>>
>> >The DMCA is, simply, the victory of corporate money over individual
>rights.
>>
>> Agreed--and one which will almost certainly be reversed as the
>> perspective of time makes its nature clearer.
>>
>> >It's nice that the Librarian of Congress threw the Apple II community a
>> >bone and lets us crack the games to preserve them.  The absence of anyone
>> >with money protesting the idea might have had something to do with it.
>>
>> I suspect it also has something to do with the fact that there are active
>> archiving groups (not hobbyists) who are attempting to preserve the
>> legacy of the beginning of the computer age for history.  They have
>> been quite lucid about the risks of permanent loss of uncopyable
>> material as media decays or becomes otherwise unreadable.
>>
>> As we know, the only persistent bits are bits that are continually
>> re-copied onto newer media to keep up with technology evolution.
>> Copy protection prevents this preservative act, and therefore,
>> without circumvention, dooms the protected bits to oblivion.
>>
>> The issue of who can access the preserved information, and how
>> much, and for what purpose can all be worked out in time, but
>> the bits must be preserved now, or forever hold your peace.
>>
>> (See, for example:  http://www.archive.org/ )
>
>hit on the archive site you had listed below....got 4 hits for apple
>ii...pretty much they don't seem to have anything or their search engine
>sucks
>
>( i have approx 1000 double sided disks of apple ii stuff should prob copy
>that to the cdrw one of these days via the pc)

I mentioned the site not as a source of Apple-related files--though it
may increase its Apple holdings as a result of the recent decision--
but as an example of a serious, funded attempt to create an archive
of the digital past.

Unlike most hobbyist archiving attempts, this organization is
professional, with a curator's mindset.  It is likely that this kind
of organization will emerge as the solution to "bit rot", and may
also serve as a prototype of a future digital Library of Congress.

-michael

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