Old Software Rights

On 15 Jan 2009 at 12:40, Paul Koning wrote: Copyright these days is a LOT longer than 30 years. And even back in Copyright is implicit in all works produced today, whether or not stated. Almost all software published during the 1970s has a copyright notice embedded. After the Uruguay Round of the GATT talks, copyright for works published after 1923 whose copyright was in effect as of the URAA is 75 years, later extended to 90 by the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act (yes, he, or rather his widow, of the other half of Cher. Reportedly, Mary wanted to make copyright perpetual, but was informed that such a move was distinctly unconstituional). Read about the law at http://www.copyright.gov. Rules outside of the US may be substantially different. In particular, after the fall of the Soviet Union, legislation was passed in the US to allow works of Soviet origin to be removed from the Public Domain (so-called "restored" copyright. Who says you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube?). However, they may still be freely copied in Canada. Bottom line is that there is no such legal entity as "abandonware" and you promulgate the idea at your own risk. While economic damage is part of civil actions brought by copyright holders, it is not the whole picture. Unlike patent infringement, copyright violation in the US is a criminal offense under the DMCA. Just because no one seems to be using IBM 5160s to run Harvard Presentation Graphics from 360K diskettes does not make it legal to copy and distribute it. It's not up to the infringer to declare whether or not a work has any value. So you may have to wait until, oh, 2075 or so before you can legally hand out those old copies of Lotus 1-2-3, assuming that our Congress isn't goaded into action by the Empire of the Mouse again. As a musician, I'm continually frustrated by publishers of old copyrighted material (some stuff going back to the 1930s) who declare a work to be "permanently out of print" and will not authorize a copy (for a fee) nor provide me with a copy that they created from their archives. Currently, the only resort left is to pick some other work. There's nothing in copyright law to force the owner to publish or support his works, nor give permission to copy. And the notion of "Fair Use" is a very slippery slope--if you guess wrong, you're fully exposed. Cheers, Chuck