12 Feb
1998
12 Feb
'98
1:52 a.m.
John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> wrote:
If I then came across a higher version for that
product and it was cheaper if you already owned a previous version (say it
takes the older version disk to upgrade to newer, then I'd expect to pay
the cheaper price, because it is upgrading the program found on my original
set of install disks, that I rightfully own.
You might hope to pay the lower upgrade price, but Autodesk will surely
tell you that you have someone else's copy, and without a letter of transfer,
they won't sell you an upgrade. Or if the copy had already been upgraded,
they'll transfer you to their anti-piracy department.
I look at it this way: If someone throws away the
disks, they are giving up
their license to use the product.
Not if they upgraded. It may seem ridiculous of me to pretend for the sake
of argument that these disks came from a dumpster, but that's in fact the
way a lot of us collectors get our stuff. :-)
I'm sure any cold blooded lawyer worth his salt
could tear down my logic
and send me to the big house for having those disks and running them, but
how many would take the time, effort and money to try?
That doesn't sit right with me. I don't think I should be able to
reproduce someone else's software just because they can't catch me.
If you have that lawyer's phone number, ask about if there are
any conditions under which copyright can expire apart from the
mandated number of years of protection.
To help keep this on-topic, I have tried to persuade the UCSD licensing
department to allow me to reproduce the Terak version of the P-System.
They did once grant a right to a TI-99 user group to reproduce a
P-System cartridge. I didn't have much luck because they didn't
want to offend the current sole non-exclusive license holder, who
is trying to sell the P-System as an alternative to Java in set-top
boxes. Good luck, guys. :-)
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>